[WalterSear]

By definition, if it can be regulated, it's no longer decentralized. And if it's not longer decentralized, blockchains have no benefits over regular databases.

Blockchains solve a very specific problem - decentralized transactions. Unfortunately solving that problem for the world's organized criminals brought a massive amount of heretofore hidden financial activity to light. Consequently, people, most of which don't actually understand blockchains, are trying to replicate this 'bonanza', like moths chasing a light bulb.

There many other use cases for decentralized transactions. But, with so much perceived opportunity at stake, industrial -strength pretzel logic is being applied to the problem, along with eye-popping amounts of venture and FOMO money.

[WalterSear]

Doh, that should have read 'there aren't many other use cases for decentralized transactions'.

[pas]

TLS issuance is decentralized too, yet Certificate Transparency provides accountability, and inclusion into Mozilla's trusted CA list is basically the vetting process that binds CAs to legal entities.

In theory in crypto currency world "staking" is this process.

[lmm]

TLS is not decentralised, it's hierarchical. There are a fairly small number of root CAs, and an even smaller number of browser makers who define their trusted lists.

[pas]

Just the Mozilla CA list has more than a hundred CAs ... https://ccadb-public.secure.force.com/mozilla/IncludedCACert...

And you can install your trust root if you want, for example I can't find any Russian ones in that list, so probably the Russian government uses internal ones. (Their tax authority interestingly uses Sectigo a CA from the UK.)