DECENTRALIZATION HISTORY

I am very happy this time because I can write a heavy article. I hope this will help us to learn more about ourselves. Who and where we are. I think all of you are familiar with the word decentralization but let’s look at the history of the word “decentralization”. I am not historian, I just a reader and try to share what I know to all of you. I may make many mistake in compiling the figures and years in my article please make correction.

WHAT IS DECENTRALIZATION

Before we continue to next discussion, let’s understand first what decentralization is?
According to Norman Johnson of Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote in a 1999 paper: "A decentralized system is where some decisions by the agents are made without centralized control or processing”.
Rohit Khare's stated that a decentralized system is one which requires multiple parties to make their own independent decisions.
So in my opinion decentralization is a system where decisions are made by agents without centralized governance whether it is human or machine.

WHEN THE WORD DECENTRALIZATION USED?

After French revolution in , directory leadership created new government structure. The word “ decentralization “ was used in 1820s.
 Pic https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/french-revolution

After that, discussion and ideas of decentralization became popular topic. In 1800s Tocqueville wrote that The French Revolution started with “ a push toward decentralization”. During 19th and 20th century, the idea of decentralization become trending among anti state political activists. They name themselves as anarchists and libertarians or decentralists. Decentralist movements in America started in 20th centuty. Men with decentralization ideas were Southern Agrarians like Robert Penn Warren, as well as journalist Herbert Agar. Author, Leopold Kohr in The Breakdown Of Nations 1957, gave the most popular statement "Whenever something is wrong, something is too big". This time decentralization become megatrend topic. Many writers shared their opinions in their book related to decentralization of many fields from government administration, economy, social and politic.
In 1983, "Decentralization" was identified as one of the "Ten Key Values" of the Green Movement in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization

WHY DECENTRALIZATION BECOME SO POPULAR?

Ideas behind the word decentralization was because some failure of sharing benefit in politic, administration, social and economic. In government administrations the appeal of decentralization was due to economic decline, overload services,inefficiency,undemocratic, and awakening of local governance. Libertarian socialism philosophers was a group in politic who promoted decentralization ideas. They use libertarian socialism term to differentiate from the concept of state socialism and left anarchism. They offered a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic society without private property in the means of production. In Germany , the most popular figure during the Peasant Wars was Thomas Muenzer; in England, Gerrard Winstanley, a leading participant in the Digger movement.

BLOCKCHAIN AND DECENTRALIZATION

OK, that a very brief history of decentralization. Now, it is our time. The theme of decentralization has became trending since Satoshi Nakamoto launched bitcoin network in 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto is an anonymous and mysterious figure behind bitcoin and blockchain that have recalled many youngsters about decentralization. Some big companies and institutions like Google, Microsoft, Samsung , AT&T, and many others are part of decentralization in the first era of the glory of decentralized economic system. In facts, They have become giants. They tend to monopolize or control public privacy. Satoshi Nakamoto was born with the idea of Bitcoin and blockchain network. His invention has to face a big wall of capitalism. However, the suporters of bitcoin grew fast. Many politicians and economists talked about bitcoin. There were many pros and cons.

WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN?

 pic : https://hackernoon.com/blockchain-scalability-solutions-an-overview-qug032ud
I think you knew better about blockchain but I will remind you the definition. Blockchain is A blockchain is, in the simplest of terms, a time-stamped series of immutable records of data that is managed by a cluster of computers not owned by any single entity. Each of these blocks of data (i.e. block) is secured and bound to each other using cryptographic principles (i.e. chain). https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-blockchain-technology/

Blockchain tech does not allow central authorities to control the network. Bitcoin is the firtst implementation of blockchain network where proof of work is used as a means of decentralized consensus. Therefore, this creates a unique digital asset called cryptocurrency. After bitcoin become more valuable and demanded, new blockchain network is created using the different network but still using blockchain technology with modified in here and there. The new chains are created like doge coin, litecoin, ethereum and dash. The economists then called cryptoccurrency as bubble that will burst at any time. However, the blockchain technology supporters grow bigger. Some countries make strict regulations in using cryptocurrency.

BLOCKCHAIN, CRYPTOCURRENCY AND ECONOMY

Crytics arise to cryptocurrency users. “The ways in which new technologies are lowering the cost to make financial transactions more accessible, even in very small numbers…I think it’s already massively disruptive,” Said the Director of IMF Christine Lagarde. https://www.ccn.com/imfs-lagarde-warns-banks-cryptocurrencies-will-bring-massive-disruptions/

Nouriel Roubini
ROUBINI GLOBAL ECONOMICS CHAIRMAN, CHIEF ECONOMIST AND CO-FOUNDER
“Most Bitcoin/shitcoin investors are retail suckers who are clueless/financially illiterate. That’s why we have laws that leave risky investments only for accredited investors who have a certain level of income/wealth. But millions of BagHolders were illegally suckered into crap.” https://www.bloomberg.com/features/bitcoin-bulls-bears/

Even though there are many critics, start ups take benefit from blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Outspoken critics usually come incumbent enterprises. They question is the feasibility of the blockchain technology. New start ups see different views. They see opportunities to develop their business and ideas world wide. They can attract new investors from crowd funding. ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering. Most massive ICOs were in the 2017 to early 2018. Many start ups like Populous, Iexec, BAT with brave browser, and many others earned millions of funding from ICO. After the mid of 2018, many governments applied strict regulation or even Banned ICOs. There were many fake or scam ICOs so many investors lost a lot of money for investing in the crowdfunding. Hundreds or even thousands ICOs were identified as scam. This cause more critics to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Nowdays, start ups that want to use ICO to crowdfunding find more problems because many investors also loose the trust to new start ups. ICO funding has not ended but start ups that use the instrument to fund their project will find hard effort.

OPINION

I know that you have different points of view to see the decentralization. In fact, decentralization,blockchain, and cryptocurrency have changed the way of life of many people. There are some cycles in these terms like miners, witnesses, traders, exchangers, users, and developers. They are minorities but they exist lately. Critics will arise to the new tech but actors in the tech have different head. They have earned the bread of the blockchain economy and will continue their ideas with decentralization.
Thanks for reading and I open for discussion. This article may be overloaded with my perspective. You can agree or reject what I write. Ok let’s upvote, comment and don’t forget to follow me @lebah. See you to the next topic.