Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Bitcoin cannot be decentralized if the Internet is centralized
by
hatshepsut93
on 03/01/2020, 03:13:36 UTC

I'm aware there are tools that would provide a level of privacy to Bitcoin users at some extent. However, these same tools can be easily intercepted by the government. It's no secret that VPN & proxy providers are centralized, while the Tor network it's said to be compromised by the FBI (look on Google for more info). The best way to use Bitcoin in a completely decentralized manner would be to run our own personal networks that are "off the grid". Something like a mesh network or even a PAN (Personal Area Network) could further decentralize Bitcoin. Of course, most people still connect to the public Internet to use Bitcoin. But in the event governments decide to collaborate with ISPs to prevent devices from connecting to the BTC network, other decentralized means could be used to maintain the blockchain over time.

As most Bitcoin nodes rely on the public Internet, the risk of centralization will always be there. This is something unavoidable since there's no such thing as 100% decentralization. Sometime in the future, we might be able to interact with new kinds of network protocols that would simplify the task of interacting with the Bitcoin blockchain in a decentralized manner. All in all, I hope that Bitcoin remains decentralized for years to come.

If Tor was so broken, cybercrime wouldn't exist. If privacy was impossible, Satoshi wouldn't be able to hide his identity for all these years. I think there's plenty enough proof that strong privacy is possible in modern age, that you can hide what you are doing from the government and ISPs if you are skilled enough. This means that they wouldn't know that you are using Bitcoin and wouldn't be able to stop it.

As for mesh networks, they are local, so they can't be used for Bitcoin, we need a single network that covers the whole work, otherwise each local network will have its own version of blockchain.