Quote from: Flip Tulipcoin on December 19, 2011, 05:29:47 PM

Quote from: Anillos on December 19, 2011, 05:04:34 PM

Quote from: Mike3574 on December 19, 2011, 09:42:51 AM

I hate going through 3rd parties for payments. The two things that shouldn't exist in bitcoin are the mining pools and the exchanges. Reason is because they are making bitcoin centralized. All the BTC are going through the biggest exchanges and all the computing power is gathered together in the largest mining pools. If the banks felt threatened and bitcoin became outlawed all the exchanges would be shut down and you wouldn't be able to exchange your fiat for bitcoin. If the largest mining pools were hijacked then there is the possibility that the network could be overtaken because that's where the majority of the computing power is. We need a decentralized exchange and decentralized mining. When we have those things bitcoin will be much more stable in my opinion.

The problem is that mining pools are the only interesting option for people which doesn't have a mining rig.

The whole mining thing is the most elaborate and wasteful means of trickling out a new block every ten minutes or so that the human mind could devise, so far anyway Cheesy

As you rightly point out, the exchanges thwart the concept of decentralization.

So, there's two requirements for Bitcoin 2.0, or the replacement for Bitcoin 1.0
1. Eliminate wasteful mining driven by computing capacity.
2. Decentralize the currency exchange function.

#1 is easy, #2 not so...

If you don't have mining, you have no way to protect against double-spend attacks, etc. People could change the blockchain at will. All of that "wasteful" mining ensures that no single person can change the blockchain record.