Decentralization in crypto space: big mouth, nothing behind it?

In the crypto blueprint, the Bitcoin Whitepaper, decentralization never falls. Okay: Apart from the headline, there is no mention of Bitcoin anywhere in the text. In the Ethereum white paper, which was published six years later, “Decentralized” can be found 41 times. Today it is one of the buzz words in crypto marketing jargon. However, this does not always have to have anything to do with reality.

Between claim and reality

The Duden wants to define “separation of administrations”. With regard to blockchains, it is about the distribution of network security over as many computers as possible, the nodes. Depending on the consensus procedure, how and by what means agreement is reached on the network status differs. And thus also who can raise the funds.

The inflationary use of decentralization is homemade. Blockchains are part of distributed ledger technologies. In other words, decentrally managed databases in which – that’s the trick – there are no middlemen, no authoritarian control bodies. But it gets tricky if you take a closer look at the consensus processes of blockchains.