What’s your Definition of “Decentralized ?”
Everyone I talk to in the Crypto-World seems to have their own of definition of what a “Decentralized Public Network” is defined as.
First, Let’s dive into this and see what Wikipedia and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary define the term “Decentralization” as.
Wikipedia says that, Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group.
Merriam-Webster defines Decentralization as:
1 : the dispersion or distribution of functions and powers a decentralization of powers specifically, government : the delegation of power from a central authority to regional and local authorities the decentralization of the state’s public school system government decentralization
2 sociology : the redistribution of population and industry from urban centers to outlying areas
Well, it seems both reference sources basically say the say thing. This is good.
Bitcoin Network Decentralization
Now let’s look at the grand daddy of all Crypto’s, the Bitcoin Network and dive into what the definition of decentralized is in reference to this public network.
To gain a better insight of the decentralization of the Bitcoin network itself, let’s look at an outside third party source that tracks bitcoin mining — University of Cambridge Judge Business School
When you look at the map of their nodes (screenshot from their website above), it looks at least like all the mining nodes on the network are somewhat evenly distributed throughout the world, thus meeting the definition of “Decentralized”.
When you scroll further down on their website and dive into the details of exactly which country is actually handling all the transactions. The chart (screenshot) below shows the average monthly hashrate breakdown by country.
Well now, from this perspective the Bitcoin Network does NOT seem to meet the definition of “Decentralized”. One country appears to actually process and handle over a majority of the transactions on the public network.
Hedera Hashgraph Network Decentralization
The definition of “Decentralized” on the Hedera Public Ledger Network is all about one thing— CREATING TRUST AND STABILITY. Their whole goal is to create a “Trust layer for the Internet”
Think about this one second. What individual or company will want to spend money and effort on building their decentralized application (DApp) on a public decentralized ledger network that is not “Trusted”. — Thinking back to one country processing 65% of the transactions.🤦
SO, how do you create complete TRUST without at least some sort of control over the decentralized ledger network itself?
The bottom line is, You DON’T !
Hedera’s answer is having a completely independent third party governing council that makes executive decisions for the decentralized network. A board of directors in a sense, that basically is in place to assure the “Trust” and stability of the decentralized public ledger network.
This article is about decentralization, so I will not go into any more details about the 39 member council and it structure. To learn more in-depth information about Hedera’s Governing Council— Visit Here
Back to the Decentralization topic. So, Hedera had to start somewhere initially on it’s decentralized process and it started by creating “Permissioned” nodes. Permissioned, meaning you have to have to permission to run a node on the public ledger network. Each council member (Up to 39 Members) will run a public node to process transactions, initially.
This initial permissioned node method provides a completely even and equal foundation for the decentralized network to scale from, and it still meets the definition of “Decentralized”.
To view the status and get a better visual understanding of the public nodes that are running you can — Visit Here
Once the network has grown and scaled, publicly (permissionless) ran nodes will join and support the network’s decentralization. Hedera is anticipating 1000’s of publicly ran nodes once the network transactions warrant them.
This gradual transfer from permissioned to permissionless as the decentralized public network grows is still focused toward the goal of— CREATING TRUST AND STABILITY.
A public network for everyone
Hedera public ledger network is designed for fast, fair, and secure applications to take advantage of the efficiency of hashgraph on a decentralized, public network that can be TRUSTED.
BOTTOM LINE:
The term “Decentralized Ledger Network” can be interpreted and defined in various ways and everyone should be open to those variations.
