How to Measure the Decentralization of Bitcoin

bytemaster.bitshares.org

40 pointsjarsin3 comments

Actually, I don't plead for maximal decentralization. This article is in response to those who argue that BitShares is more centralized than other systems.

Reading the blog article I get the assumption that you plead for a maximal decentralisation of the consensus process.

This assumption may however be wrong looking at the requirements of a system like Bitcoin. In my _opinion_ those are:

- A optimal scalable and fast system

- A optimal decentralized system

The thing is these requirements influence each other, which means that we shouldn't aim for maximizing one or the other, but both at the same time, keeping them balanced.

I don't think maximum decentralization is what the author is pleading for. To the contrary in a different article he does in depth about how his alternative consensus protocol specifically limits the number of distinct block validators because of the marginal utility of each additional validator vs the linear increase in cost, and the consequences this has on speed and scalability:

http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2015/01/07/The-Most-...

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