The Push Towards Decentralization Is Taking Place Even If We Aren't Aware Of It
This seems like an easy concept yet there are some different layers that require some investigation.
There is little doubt, we live in a centralized world, especially when it comes to social media. Want to interact with friends, there is the Facebook family and that is basically it. For video, most everyone heads over to YouTube to get their fill. Of course, if we want to send out a few snippets that millions can see, Twitter is the platform of choice.
While there are other alternatives, we see little else that is viable on a mass scale. This sums up centralization.
Basically, centralization boils down to a lack of choice.
We see this with the aforementioned social media outlets. Essentially, we have a similar experience with the mainstream media. Governments are natural monopolies that offer no choice to the populous. Of course, the political establishment is ultimately the same clowns in different clothing.
Blockchain and cryptocurrency are meant to decentralize the world. Thus, if centralization is the lack of choice, decentralization is the offering up of alternatives.
We see how the situation with Steem exemplifies what is taking place. When discussing this industry, we are dealing with a limitless factor that we do not see elsewhere. Open source provides the rapid ability to decentralize by our virtual movement.
Many asserted that Steem was centralized due to the Steemit Inc stake. This played out with the entry of Justin Sun. Unlike Steemit Inc, Sun is more than happy to use the stake to exert control over the ecosystem. He did the same thing with Tron so this is no surprise. Therefore, it is becoming very clear how centralized Steem is.
Yet, it is not the only game in town. Back in March, a number of people created an entirely new platform called Hive. It was a fork of Steem, thus was able to keep that data base as a foundation for what took place. This new system was put together in 6 or 7 weeks by a team of roughly 100 people.
Today, users have the choice of which platform they use. The options are there. An individual can post on either platform or both. The decision boils down to the individual.
Naturally, there are those who claim Hive is too centralized. That is fine. When we look at the overall, we are seeing a movement towards more decentralization as the choices are increasing.
Of course, within the Hive ecosystem, there are many options open to individuals. There are a number of front ends to use for posting. A portion of them have their own community along with a token that can assign value to the transactions. It is up to them to grow and expand.
Many talk about whales and how they are in control of everything. This is not true. Certainly, within a particular platform this is usually the case. However, when we look at it from a higher perspective, we see a different story.
Bitcoin Whales are different from those on Ethereum. Hive whales are different from EOS whales. Those with the largest Cardano stake are not the same as Tron.
Then we get into the "subsets" of each platform. On Hive, are those who hold the vast amount of PAL the same as LEO? Do we not see a difference between the DPORN holders and Marlians?
We know there was a time when the entire cryptocurrency industry contained only Bitcoin. Then, after a couple of years, other tokens showed up. Over the past decade, this grew to over 7,500 tokens listed on Coingecko. Of course, this does not account for other digital assets such as Splinterland cards that are very specialized in use and traded on smaller exchanges.
The focus tends to remain on Bitcoin and the fact it makes up roughly 60% of the total value of the crypto market. This is natural since that is what gets the publicity. However, yesterday we saw the announcement that CryptoKitties is moving to the Flow Blockchain. Will this result in billions of dollars worth of value being created on there as scaling takes place?
Only time will tell. Nevertheless, it does exemplify how wealth is being generated out of many different corners of the crypto-sphere. Eventually, the "long-tail" of cryptocurrency will see more wealth from the smaller projects than the mainstream ones.
There will be many projects that do not make it to the listing on the likes of Coingecko. However, there are going to be many with millions of dollars worth of value. That does not seem like much when we consider Bitcoin is worth over $160 billion. However, the impact on an individual balance is the same when holding $10,000 worth of Bitcoin or the same amount in some project few have heard of. We are going to see millions of different digital assets that have value.
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Posted Using LeoFinance
