This is a question that is worthy of consideration.
Crypto promised to be the decentralizing force that allowed the world to break away from the banks and create an entirely new monetary system. This was something espoused from the Bitcoin White Paper which discussed the idea of peer-to-peer money.
The challenge here was the fact that Bitcoin had some flaws. To start, it does not operate as a valid medium of exchange. As a trading asset, Bitcoin excels. Price stability is nowhere to be found.
Then we have the network. Proof-of-work was a breakthrough in that it provided decentralized consensus. We really had not seen that before.
Unfortunately, this is failing since we see mining operations growing in size. No longer can people use a PC for this purpose. Expensive hardware drawing large sums of energy are required.
In other words, with 40% of mining in the US, the largest chunk of this is done by publicly traded mining companies. These stocks are held by the likes of Blackrock.
Hence we seem to be back where we started.
Will We Ever Truly See Decentralization?
There are two components to this discussion.
One the one hand, we have the technological capabilities. The issue with decentralization is that it is slower than centralization. Meta can spin something up much quicker than a panel of developers operating independently around the world. Zuckerberg, if he decides, can through resources at a situation and direct people to focus in that direction.
A case could be made that decentralized infrastructure lagged behind its centralized counterparts. We can see how quickly Wall Street institutions get their applications online. Once the decision is made to enter something, they move rapidly.
For this reason, the basis of decentralization was lagging. Infrastructure is slow to develop. However, the advantage is that, which so much open source, at some point, the compounding starts to take hold.
More developers get involved, using existing code to build their platforms or services. Ultimately, this closes the gap to the centralized world.
The second component is not as simple.
Human Resistance
People tend to fight change. I think this is a statement that few would contest. Humans tend to resist anything new that comes along. The majority of the population simply resides in the same "rut" they were in. Basically we are creatures of habit.
With the discussion about decentralization, we have to take this into account.
Web 3.0 is another transition long promised by the crypto world. The challenge here is that few even think about using these platforms. Instead, the majority who are involved in the topic simply talk about it on Web 2.0 social media platforms.
As we enter deeper into the AI world, this is becoming even more prevalent. Big Tech are the beneficiaries of more data along with the continual feed into the vector databases. A platform like X has up-to-the minute info since people are always posting about what is going on.
Will this change in the future?
This is the crux of the discussion. We will never see decentralization as long as people resist it. In other words, it will only materialize if people opt for it.
So far, this is not the case.
Solving some of the technical challenges certainly could help. Many are not going to "wrestle" with an application, trying to work around all the bugs.
My guess is that we are facing a hard road here. People tend to do what is familiar. Even with something new as crypto, the centralized entities are getting people in the habit of heading to their platforms.
Will this change?
If it does, we might have an affirmative on the question posed in this article.
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