The Importance of Decentralization
“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” — Bitcoin Genesis Block.
The Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008 was the biggest breakdown of Centralized powers we have seen in our lifetime. The above quote was inserted in the Bitcoin Genesis Block. This highlights how centralization has and always prioritized the protection of the top echelon over the majority of the population, no matter the causing party. Laxed Government control caused Banks to hold power that dismantled the Financial landscape that we are inherently apart of.
This thrusted the importance of Decentralization from a theoretical conversation to a practical implementation: Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has no central control: no central repository of information, no central management and critically, no central point of failure. Specifically, Bitcoin does not have a central point of failure due to the cryptographic algorithms utilized in the protocol and after 10 years that algorithm is yet to be breached. If the encryption protocol was ever breached, every encrypted financial system in the world could be breached, thus evidencing the strength of the protocol.
Is Bitcoin a true means of Decentralization? The purpose of creating Bitcoin and the ensuing Blockchain Technology is a true means of Decentralization. Yet, the Decentralization aspect is somewhat a utopic vision within the current industry environment.
As Bitcoin has evolved, the industry, community and services surrounding Bitcoin and Blockchain has lost sight of its original inception. Whereby, the building blocks within the Bitcoin Ecosystem have continually been of a centralized nature. A natural evolution of most, if not all of Technology has begun with an inception of Decentralization flowing to elements of Centralization that break down the original purpose, this is due to the complexities surrounding Decentralization and the ease of monetizing a Centralized source.
“One of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralization vs decentralization. A lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people’s hands… many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it.
There are important counter-trends to this — like encryption and cryptocurrencies — that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands.” — Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg echoes this regression and Facebook is a product of this process. Facebook being one of the main companies that controls the Centralized Technology environment, others include Google, Youtube etc. Yet Zuckerberg references Cryptocurrency as a counter-trend. Although, the issue remains are Cryptocurrencies truly Decentralized? The answer is no, purely for the Ecosystem surrounding Cryptocurrencies are mainly Centralized. Does this mean that Blockchain is not the means for Decentralization? The answer is no. Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies must be separate in definition as the purpose and creation of Blockchain is to be generally incorruptible.
“Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies emerged directly as a reaction to the perceived excesses of the traditional financial system. That being said the Decentralized technologies behind Cryptocurrencies have potential application far beyond finance.” — Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik created Ethereum as a platform with a purpose of giving rise to Decentralization. Ethereum has taken the torch from Bitcoin in being the beacon for Decentralization in the future whereby anyone can build an application on the Decentralized Ethereum Network.
The importance of Decentralization surround the advantages it creates. Specifically, openness, transparency, increased security, proposed speed, proposed efficiency and most importantly involving the individual in the decision making process. Currently, we still see the transition for Decentralized ideology to evolve into an aura of Centralization due to the services that allow the exposure necessary being of a Centralized nature. The question remains can the trend of the evolution of Technology be defied?
Inevitably the flow from Decentralization to Centralization remains ever-apparent within the industry. To combat the flow, we must empower the sector of the industry that promotes true Decentralization. Through Vitalik, Ethereum and the Ethereum network there is hope that the focus of Decentralization still exists years on from its inception. One of the problems currently between Centralization vs Decentralization in Cryptocurrencies are exchanges. The solution: Decentralized Exchanges. With DEXs comes DAPPs which creates the Decentralized Ecosystem known as the Decentralized Web.
Vitalik Buterin: “I definitely hope centralized exchanges go burn in hell as much as possible”
At EQUAL, we have made facilitating the exploration of the Decentralized Web a high priority. We believe that the tools and services offered around the industry have lacked the innovation to provide users an ease of access to DAPPs and DEXs. This renders developer’s power to find exposure minimal. DAPPs and DEXs are undervalued, under promoted and under utilized. EQUAL aims to make that a thing of the past by enabling EQL Wallet users to explore the Decentralized Web straight from our DAPP Store. Our DAPP Store gives developers the necessary ability to promote their projects to an established user base and a tool readily available to be used on their DAPP or DEX. Interacting with the decentralised ecosystem of DAPPs and DEXs has been made possible via Web3 injection, providing a secure communication line between DAPPs and the Ethereum blockchain. This enables EQL wallet users to seamlessly sign, send and receive transactions with an ever growing list of decentralised products and services.
This is the beginning of a series of articles detailing the EQUAL Project and the problems our team aims to alleviate as we approach our imminent launch. Please follow along as the series will detail much more about the features within our Wallet and DAPP Store that will unify the Ethereum Blockchain. Click here to see the Series.
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-DDS
