Is bitcoin losing its way? According to Bloomberg, the network of bitcoin (BTC) – the world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market cap – is more centralized than ever.
Is Bitcoin Becoming the Opposite of What It Was?
One of the big problems that we continually see with various cryptocurrency blockchains is that they will often sacrifice security or decentralization for things like speed. While fast transactions are always nice, one needs to wonder if speed is worth it if it means putting people’s private information in danger or going against the very nature of bitcoin and other altcoins.
Bitcoin has always been a decentralized form of finance… At least that’s been its main goal since the beginning. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are designed to give financial power back to the people, and it’s not run in the same way as a traditional financial institution.
A standard bank, for example, can say “yes” or “no” when deciding if it will potentially provide services to you. If you’re looking to open a checking or savings account, or if you’re looking to get your hands on a new credit or debit card, the final say is with the bank, not with you.
If you have less than stellar credit, a lagging job history or anything else that could potentially get in the way of approval, you’re not likely to get the “okay” you need from the bank. Thus, you’re right back where you started, and nothing is likely to come of your dilemma except more misery and mayhem.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, doesn’t check your credit or care about your job history. The process of getting your hands on some is easy. All you need to do is open an online account with an exchange or open a digital wallet, and boom! You’re able to receive from there in a matter of days…
And that could be the big problem… It often takes days for bitcoin to change hands and move from one party to another. At this stage, its technology is considerably weaker than other competing altcoins such as that of Ethereum (ETH) or EOS (EOS), which can potentially complete transactions in as little as a few hours or a few seconds, even.
It’s possible the decentralization entering bitcoin’s foray is being implemented to help the coin compete. An analysis suggests that five mining entities are now in charge of governing bitcoin and directing its future moves. The parties are Ant Pool, BTC.com, BTC.top, F2 Pool and Via BTC.
This Is Getting Big
An analytics firm called Token Analyst states in a report:
Once a consumer has paid… for a plan, they can assign a hash rate to any partnership mining pool. Does it really make a difference anymore? What is to stop the entities merging into a single large entity that maintains a degree of separation?