Quote from: Dswaggers on September 03, 2018, 10:16:03 AM

Blockchain, the technology underpinning it, cannot be centralized. Bitcoin in a way already is. Centralized exchanges are how 99% of people trade their cryptocurrency, and they can be forced to accept regulation or be shut down. The only way to truly and permanently decentralize Bitcoin is by setting up decentralized marketplacesand it is already being done

That's certainly true, mate. Centralized exchanges greatly defeat the purpose of cryptocurrencies since they bring back the middleman. Satoshi's vision was such were Bitcoin could operate independently from middleman or third parties. However, with centralized exchanges dominating crypto land, we're heading back to the way everything was were bankers and governments had full control and custody over our money. Regulations can be greatly enforced within centralized exchanges, which requires them to comply with the government's interests or else they would need to shut down operations (which is unlikely as exchanges want to keep growing their business model).

For such reasons, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies need to be traded or exchanged within decentralized exchanges which eliminate the middleman or central operator. Once this is done, then crypto land would become much more decentralized than what it is right now. In addition, Bitcoin's mining process is highly centralized where Bitmain (leading manufacturer of ASIC mining hardware) has a huge monopoly over the same. In effect, if Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continue their current path, they could become easily dominated and limited by governments and banks interests.

Hopefully, Bitcoin would keep this in mind, to become as decentralized as possible just like Satoshi intended it to be.

Quote from: Voidcrafter on September 04, 2018, 10:40:15 PM

I've thought about this before and I want to tell you that bitkin is really taking very dangerous steps towards centralization. I'm sorry to say it, but it is. I certainly understand that Chinese miners will not affect the value of bitcoin, but it is very dangerous for our community

Yes. The current state of Bitcoin's mining process is highly centralized where Bitmain controls more than 51% of the network's total hashrate. At any given point in time, they could easily destroy Bitcoin due to government interests. As such, I believe that something needs to be done, to include even the smallest miner within the Bitcoin network to help increase decentralization. Because not everyone is able to participate in Bitcoin mining, because ASIC hardware is expensive. On the other hand, ASIC-resistant cryptocurrencies like Monero and Bitcoin Gold are much more decentralized than the original Bitcoin, since they allow anyone with at least a GPU to participate in the network's consensus.

GPUs are much more affordable and accessible than ASIC mining hardware, which I believe that they could become the future of cryptocurrency mining. However, it will all depend on the people's interest to adopt this technology, as currently all the eyes are on Bitcoin (despite it's turning into a centralized cryptocurrency).

Nevertheless, time will tell us if Bitcoin could remain decentralized for the long run or not. Just my opinion