systems, such as Bitcoin, that lack any single central authority to validate their operations and which have to use other means to determine the validity of operations.
Questions tagged [decentralization]
137 questions
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Do mining pools centralize the Bitcoin network and make it less secure?
A mining pool with a significant percentage of the hash rate could allow double spend attacks by the pool manager. There are a number of pools that approach this level. However, most people say that a compromised pool would be easily detected, and…
Joshua Kolden
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26
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Why did Satoshi design Bitcoin to be mineable only on specialized hardware, if the goal was decentralization?
GPU-mineable cryptos are arguably more decentralized.
Did he simply miss this design aspect or does this sound fishy to you?
parliament
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Is Ripple centralized or decentralized?
Are people still fighting about this or have they come to a consensus? Also, as of today (Sep 2015), what is the main advantage of Ripple over Bitcoin?
Peter Mel
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15
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Is centralization in the Lightning network inevitable? Why (not)?
Especially keeping in mind the possibility of single-funded channels (see Tadge's Google Doc Slides), buying from an exchange and concurrently opening a payment channel on the Lightning network would seem a particularly simple entry to the LN.…
Murch
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How will bitcoin stay decentralized when mining becomes extremely expensive?
My understanding of bitcoin is that the miners are the ones keeping bitcoin decentralized. What happens when only the richest of people can afford mining?
rewol
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14
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Is Lightning Network a risk for Bitcoin security since it reduces miner fees?
does LN represent a risk for the Bitcoin ecosystem since it will reduce miner fees (the only income they'll have in a post-btc-minting world) and displace them into second layers?
I couldn't find any analysis that addresses this concern (the…
joe.js
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14
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What is the P2Pool?
As I was checking this SE, it doesn't appear this important question has been asked:
What is the P2Pool? How does differ from the traditional approach and what does it offer its users?
ThePiachu
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How is a hard fork resolved?
In March 2013 there was a fork following the v0.8 release. The issue was resolved rather efficiently, as explained in the post-mortem report. However in this process there were winners and losers: the miners building on the v0.8 chain had to give up…
Manish
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What can be done to slow/prevent mining centralization?
Assuming all buyers have access to the same ASICs (ignoring that ASICs developers and manufacturers will always have the latest first, even if only used for "testing" prior to sale) energy costs would seem to promote a long term trend of mining in…
Chris Silva
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10
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5 answers
Decentralized escrow functionality built into Bitcoin?
AFAIK there are a few websites out there that offer escrow services for Bitcoin. Those however are central, i.e. I have to "trust" them.
Is it being discussed, is it theoretically possible, or does the blockchain technology already enable to…
herzmeister
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Bitcoin node Decentralization
Is the number of independently owned and operated full Bitcoin nodes more important than the total number of full Bitcoin nodes with regards to Decentralization?
Assuming the answer to the above question is yes:
How can the number of independently…
Smart Kid
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10
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2 answers
Decentralized transactions between two decentralized currencies
Currently, bitcoins and namecoins are implemented using the Bitcoin protocol. And there might be several reason for new block chains to appear, but this is not the subject here.
As far as I know, Bitcoin was not designed with ‘cross-currency atomic…
Stéphane Gimenez
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10
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4 answers
How safe it is that a single San Francisco company controls the canonical location of Bitcoin code?
The single most-trusted canonical source of Bitcoin client is https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
This URL is controlled by a single US company GitHub Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, United States. The US government (nor any other government)…
ria
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Can bitcoin protocol be changed to add economic incentives to validating nodes?
We all want more decentralized bitcoin network and more people to run nodes. However, as we know that things are driven more by market economics rather than philanthropic or feel good factors. Similar economics driven adoption worked for EV by…
dark knight
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What is the Ripple equivalent of the "51% attack?"
In Bitcoin, if a participant gains control of more than 50% of the hash power, they can execute a double-spending attack. The "attack" could come from within, say if the existing powerful miners decide to change the rules.
Does Ripple have a similar…
Manish
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