What legit solutions are on the table to decentralize mining?
You join a pool because the probability of you personally solving a block is astronomically small? You trust a pool to give you a share because so many other people are trusting the same pool. The pool tracks your work and pays you accordingly.
Can we achieve the same result with tweaked model rather than current pools.
For example, a group miners individually using the best possible mining software, where everyone agrees to pay solved blocks to the group. Then we use smart contracts and proof of work mechanisms to enforce this relationship?
Is this possible? If not, what are the legit solutions to this decentralization problem?
mining is decentralised, what you are talking about is widening the distribution.
the simple tactic i can see is that when a miner relays a solved block, nodes can have a rule to ignore blocks from that same pool for atleast 3,6,10 blocks.. that way one miner cant gain more then 33%, 16.5% 10% of blocks.
but pools wont like that
