While it's not a silver bullet and has a long way to go, advances in alternate models of money distribution such as cryptocurrency do seem to be moving us towards a more decentralized monetary system
Right, but the question is what reason do we have to believe that a decentralized monetary system will be more equitable? Being decentralized is no protection against inequality.
Yes; I've always been baffled by the idea that an unmanaged currency will be better. Either tragedy-of-the-commons, or some gorilla(s) exploiting it, seems the very likely outcome.
Right? Anyone who gains power or wealth can utilize that power to accumalate more and/or prevent others from also gaining power and wealth. It doesn't matter if it is centralized or decentralized.
However, by being decentralized it prevents any mechanism of checking the power gained. Yes, centralization can be used as a means of maintaining power, but it can also be used as a way of checking power. Decentralization has no way of checking power.