When we talk about decentralization, it means that Bitcoin isn't under the thumb of governments or banks, which is cool.
But if you really think about it, Bitcoin isn't completely separate from fiat currencies, and its worth is linked to fiat, particularly the USD.
Fiat itself gets influenced by government decisions, banking practices, and a ton of other factors.
If you've traded or know a bit about crypto and Forex, especially from a fundamental news perspective, you probably noticed that big news events like CPI (consumer price index) and NFPs can sway the USD, which in turn impacts Bitcoin's value. Even though a lot of Bitcoin's worth comes from transactions, halvings, and stuff like that.
So, does this mean Bitcoin is really free from central control, even if it’s not being directly manipulated?
People tied Bitcoin to fiat because that's the easiest way to know the current price. If people tied Bitcoin to Big mac, it will be hard.
Decentralization means no one has a control, also no one can control other people decision. When there are many people are taking serious with major news event, it impact Bitcoin price.
Since many people relying on major news event, this make Bitcoin price moves at the same time.
Bitcoin's decentralized nature is the main reason why other countries still don't want to recognize it because they have no control over it. But they don't see its potential if they can adopt it in their countries.
Because if bitcoin is not decentralized for sure as some say it will not lead to the price it has today, because we have seen the rise of other crypto assets which are centralized coins which are clearly manipulated by the government.
Don't get it all wrong, bitcoin value is not tied to fiat currency, you can only discover that the value is measured in USD worth and not USD currency itself, the same way other currencies worth are measured in the monetary value of USD.
What determines the market price of bitcoin is it's demand and supply, how people are buying and selling it majorly, also, we could use some of the fundamental analysis or the technical analysis to determine it's short time reaction, fundamental is about the economic news and updates happening, they are not mostly affecting the price all time.
Bitcoin is independent of any central authority this is the reason why it is decentralized. But when it comes to economic events, Bitcoin like any other commodities and stuff are being influenced, but this does not mean they are being controlled.
Many of us asked the same question about Bitcoin being tied to USD, it is because USD is the dominant unit of account. If Bitcoin became dominant, we can then say the other way around like USD being tied to Bitcoin, but this does not mean USD is decentralized. The same goes for Bitcoin to USD.
Don't you think that these news events also contribute to the demand of the currency... I'm not trying to argue that it's not decentralised, however if you can predict it using fundamental analysis then you could say that the economy, and government may have a little bit of control
While there may be no central body that controls it directly, one cannot really not deny the fact that in the long run it really cannot be independent of fiat influence
Practically, Bitcoin is still heavily connected to fiat economies these days, though this influence may reduce over time if Bitcoin adoption increases and parallel economies grow. And, technically, Bitcoin operates independently, which is obvious.
But that does not make it centralized like fiat and it's value is not tied to fiat, the exchange value is what you are talking about which can be determined by any fiat. For example you can know how much 1 Bitcoin is worth in your local currency and also in other currencies. The fiat you are talking about is highly regulated by the government, banks are in charge of the cash flow and transactions are linked to customer's name and identity but all that does not happen on Bitcoin. Cash printing can be doubled and increased but Bitcoin supply can not be increased. In your fiat is kept in the bank, they can restrict your access to the money if there's any challenge but there's no government that can ordered for your Bitcoin to be restricted in your wallet unless you are keeping the coin in centralized exchange.
Bitcoin decentralization consists of three components. These are storage decentralization, mining decentralization, and development decentralization.
Storage decentralization means that there are bitcoin owners on planet Earth, on all continents, in all countries. These are individuals, commercial companies, cryptocurrency exchanges, funds, and even entire countries. And it is important here that no large company (like Michael Saylor's company) could accumulate a critically large share of all bitcoin coins.
Mining decentralization means that mining is carried out by miners from all over the world - American, Chinese, Russian, Arab, etc. This provides protection against a 51 percent attack.
Development decentralization means that independent developers from different countries of the world are working on improving the bitcoin code (while no country can bribe or intimidate all these people).
You said it yourself. It is only affected by certain factors but there is not one single entity that can actually control bitcoin based on whatever he wishes to do with bitcoin. There is not single point of weakness because miners and traders are all over the world distributed so bitcoin can keep operating. That is what it means to be decentralized regardless of how factors affect it.
Bitcoin was not created to be controlled by the government but as we may have it, we have seen that the government is interesting in Bitcoin and they are making it a store of value, indirectly increasing the adoption while making the blockchain more active as a result of various transactions taking place as new users are joining the network.
We have seen the huge adoption coming from the government especially the United States through various Bitcoin strategic reserves. Although the government is gradually adopting the Bitcoin so they could understand it more in order to control it. The will be a long journey as the government keeps making sure they have larger quantities so they could control and influence the price of Bitcoin gradually.
When people are talking about the decentralization of bitcoin, they are usually referring to how the bitcoin protocol works. In broader sense, term "decentralization" is just a direction. It doesn't have a goal that exists, because it can't exist. It existing would require whole new system, and capitalism isn't it.
We live in a planet where power is heavily centralized, and singular people or events can affect to basically everything. Changing that would change everything, but even that wouldn't create some absolute "decentralization" on anything. Even if all the people would got one vote to decide on every subject, there would be influential people swaying those votes.
The price volatility is purely from the market, can't say bitcoin is not decentralized just because the price follow the economic trend or ongoing regulation.
As for bitcoin, it's truly decentralized in a sense that government can't halt or intervene with the blockchain.
Price is entirely different thing.
The value of Bitcoin being tied to fiat does not mean that Bitcoin is no more decentralized because by design, Bitcoin is actually decentralized as there is no single individual controlling it unlike the fiat which government can decide to print more money at will.
You seems to not have the details of how the entire forex and commodity market works. The reason Bitcoin, oil, stocks and other assets are affected is that when such fundamentals are released, investors and those with big money move their funds to the assets that the news favors. For instance, if news break out that a predominately oil producing country like Iran and Saudi Arabia is contemplating war, the price of oil will go up because of rapid increase in demand. Similarly, if news came out and it does not favor the US economy, people will move their money from the currency market to commodities like gold and Bitcoin. These are pure demand and supply and has nothing to do with the decentralisation of Bitcoin.
Decentralized means not controlled by any individual/organization, no intermediaries, censorship-free, global and open to everyone. But that does not mean it will become completely independent and isolated from the world economy. No asset or entity can exist independently of the world economy, and bitcoin is no exception.
No matter how much people exaggerate the decentralization of bitcoin, at the end of the day, it is just a small part of the world economy and its value depends on human demand and on the flow of money. That means it will also be negatively/positively impacted by the economy, or manipulated.
Bitcoin only helps us improve privacy, giving us complete control over our assets, it does not make us completely immune to government and the economy.
Bitcoin is not related to fiat currency. Just because bitcoin is an asset that is traded on exchanges, it does not follow that it is centralized. Its price depends on many factors, just like any other asset. Decentralization means that an asset is not controlled by anyone, but is managed through consensus. This is only partly true.
The network depends on the miners, and the miners depend on the authorities that regulate their activities. Ordinary users depend on services that verify the legality of their transactions, dividing all transactions into "clean" and "dirty" ones. These things are elements of centralization that have penetrated the decentralized bitcoin system.
Nice trivia right there mate. Didn't knew that it had 3 but normally when some of us classify a crypto if it's decentralized or not, we will only look at its supply or if it is pre-mine and then most of the supply are from the project owners. ETH for example and that is why many are saying that it is centralized. The more it became centralized when they changed their mechanism from POW to POS.
In terms of development, ETH is still open source according to Google, same as BTC but most of its developments are still from Vitalik and his team and then it was mostly about centralization. Anyways, what you said there makes BTC a truly decentralized crypto. IDK if after the OP reads it, he will still continue doubting it .
Yes, at the moment, in my opinion, Bitcoin is a fairly decentralized cryptocurrency, but this does not mean that the situation with decentralization will not worsen in the future.
I am a little concerned about Michael Saylor's financial strategy, which is to accumulate Bitcoin coins. It seems that he wants to accumulate 1,000,000 coins in the near future. Moreover, these coins are stored centrally.
You probably noticed that recently the fees in the Bitcoin network have decreased very much? Yes, for Bitcoin users this is good, but perhaps it is not very good for the security of the Bitcoin network (after all, miners receive their main income from fees).
People like Michael Saylor are not classic Bitcoin maximalists (they have the mentality of Wall Street dealers). They do not understand the value of Bitcoin decentralization and can contribute to the centralization of this project.
If you are concerned about institutions holding a lot of bitcoin and this will undermine the decentralization of bitcoin. You need to be more prepared because once governments and top corporations get involved in holding bitcoin. That would make bitcoin more centralized than ever.
This is the price we have to pay for bitcoin to become globally popular.
I believe these people have had enough time to learn everything about bitcoin and they understand bitcoin as well as we do. But I think their primary goal is profit, nothing else. They don't care and need decentralization, not that they don't understand.