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by colordrops 4032 days ago
I've seen this argument several times. The flaw with it though is that it confuses growing resource needs with centralization. Even if a large percentage of people are no longer capable of easily hosting a full node, the benefits of decentralization are there. The resources required are not insane, so "normal" people (read: not power elite) are capable of running a node, and so there is still enough decentralization so that no entity can corrupt the blockchain. Besides that, the rate of transaction growth is slower than growth in bandwidth and disk space costs, so things will likely get better.
2 comments
juliangregorian 4031 days ago
> Even if a large percentage of people are no longer capable of easily hosting a full node, the benefits of decentralization are there.

How exactly? If you don't host a full node, you can only participate by going through someone who does.

> The resources required are not insane, so "normal" people (read: not power elite) are capable of running a node

The resources are formidable, and those in developing economies (except for the "power elite") have no hope of running a node.

> there is still enough decentralization so that no entity can corrupt the blockchain

Except that mining syndicates control huge swaths of the blockchain and it would only take the collusion of a few to control an absolute majority.

> the rate of transaction growth is slower than growth in bandwidth and disk space costs, so things will likely get better

Please explain the math on this. My understanding of network effects means that the problem will probably only get worse.

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davidgerard 4031 days ago
> The flaw with it though is that it confuses growing resource needs with centralization.

And yet, we observe centralisation.

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colordrops 4029 days ago
When the term centralization is used, it refers to the idea that a single entity can control or damage a system through a single (central) point. How is that the case with bitcoin?
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davidgerard 4028 days ago
Er, no, it means a thing is centralising (which is observably the case). The word doesn't just refer to the limit case of a single entity.

And we have in fact had the single entity case, when GHash went over 51% (and had successfully conducted a 49% attack already), as you already know.

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