Quote from: T o x i c a l on October 28, 2018, 03:41:46 PM

I think that in a few years Bitcoin will take a decent position in the global financial system, and I am sure that in 10-20 years all financial settlements in the world will occur using cryptocurrency.

There's no doubt that cryptocurrency will be integrated within every aspects of the world in the future. If Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies prove to be as decentralized as possible for the masses, then they'll become successful and highly admired by people in the mainstream world. However, Bitcoin is much more centralized than what it was in its beginnings. Big companies like Bitmain, have taken the opportunity to produce ASIC miners which contribute to Bitcoin's security, but largely affects its decentralization. The reasons for this are obvious, since Bitmain has the most dominance in ASIC hardware production and network hashrate.

Within Bitcoin's early days, it was possible to mine with CPUs and even GPUs. It was easier for anyone to get in, greatly contributing towards the decentralization of the Bitcoin blockchain. Given that now ASIC miners are dominated by Bitmain, it's hard to be able to acquire an ASIC miner for yourself and compete with other miners worldwide with greater capital than you. Which in effect, makes mining only viable to big miners (like Bitmain) while leaving the little guy (average Joe) out of the process.

Therefore, Bitcoin's decentralization may not last for long unless further action is done by devs and the community to put an end to centralized mining pools. Just my opinion