But today, do we still believe in it?
Decentralization, does it really exist? Or is it slowly heading towards disillusionment?
1️⃣ The starting point of decentralization: a counterattack after the collapse of trust
In 2009, the Bitcoin genesis block wrote:
"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."
This is not just a sentence, but a declaration.
We no longer trust the old system and want a new world that requires no trust.
📌 Thus, "decentralized currency, data, identity" has become the three temples of faith.
2️⃣ The theory is beautiful, but reality is cruel
The three core standards of the decentralization ideal:
✅ Anyone can participate (Permissionless)
✅ Code is law (Trustless)
✅ Censorship resistance (Censorship Resistant)
But the reality is:
🚧 Bitcoin mining ≠ freedom
Global computing power is highly concentrated, with a few mining pools calling the shots.
🚧 Ethereum staking ≠ decentralized
Lido, Coinbase, and Binance control the majority of ETH staking.
🚧 Dapp disconnection ≠ decentralization
When the frontend server goes down, DeFi becomes 'ByeFi'.
3️⃣ DeFi, is it freedom? Or an illusion?
It seems free, but many protocols:
🔒 Smart contracts can be upgraded and paused, controlled by teams or multi-signatures
🔒 The oracle only relies on centralized services like Chainlink
🔒 The frontend can block addresses and shut down services at any time
If a protocol can always 'operate in the background' — can it still be called 'decentralized'?
4️⃣ Why is it so hard to truly decentralize?
🧠 Technical bottlenecks + 🧍♂️ Human nature of users work together:
⚖️ Distributed systems are inefficient and costly, not conducive to rapid iteration
🪙 Power concentration: VCs + teams hold the most tokens and influence
😴 Users are lazy: too lazy to self-host, too lazy to run nodes, too lazy to learn contracts
Thus, 'Web3' is increasingly resembling 'Web2.5'.
5️⃣ So does decentralization still have meaning?
Of course there is!
It's not perfect, but it's worth persisting,
Just like democratic systems — there are compromises, there are flaws, but they still surpass dictatorship.
✅ The truly important question is:
💥 "Are we still using 'decentralization' as the standard for every technical decision?"
If the answer is 'yes', then this revolution hasn't failed yet.
🔭 We are still moving forward
You may not have noticed:
Rollups are driving the decentralization of validation nodes
EigenLayer proposes a 're-staking' mechanism
Projects like Farcaster are building open social protocols
An increasing number of frontends are deployed on IPFS + ENS, moving towards serverless
This is the evolution of technology and the persistence of belief.
✅ Conclusion: Decentralization is not a myth, but a compass
We are still far from the ideal,
But every persistence brings the future closer to freedom.
📌 Isn't it 'Aren't we already decentralized?'
Rather: 🧭 "With every step into the future, are we still heading in the direction of 'decentralization'?"
