Blockchain has been known since the invention of bitcoin in 2008, the fundamental purpose is to eliminate trust third party, to take away control from the centralize authority and to bring freedom to the mass users, so that users could have full control of their own assets and do transaction freely without central authority censorship by introduction consensus algorithm called "Proof of work" simply known as mining.
The game of "cat vs rat", "control vs freedom", let's find out this idea before we try to find the balance between them.
- Centralized = Control
- Distributed = Freedom ???
Bitcoin try to avoid control, by having multiple peers/nodes/computers worldwide, in people thought it is proof to be secure and immutable. But technically, it is prune to 50+1% attack or even less than that in certain architecture and physical environment. Bitcoin proof to be secure and immutable unless there is fair governance, does it has fair governance? Who are bitcoin developer team? Who could change or update the system? Who influence the system? When human are in the loop they tend to be ambitious and want to be the strongest. As an old saying one mountain can't have two male tigers, so they must kill each other, or one has to move to other mountain which create a new world. Like bitcoin folks into bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold, bitcoin diamond, bitcoin this and that and the new variant such as ethereum, dash, monero, steemit, .......
From the more secure but too slow "Proof of work" consensus algorithm came less slow "Proof of stake" where only a group of peers/nodes/computers/witnesses are able to make decision according to their "Stake~Money", others are just normal users. To the fast but tend to be going back to centralize approach the private blockchain which as only one leader to make decision.
Let's talks more about some staking blockchain technology, remember those have higher stake have higher power. That's come the honest cheating part in the blockchain.
Initially if you entering blockchain with a lot of money your reputation and power is already high, so you have more power that those who come with empty hand. Why I said it is an honest cheating, for sure because they have invest more money that's why they have more power, if you want to have more power like them you should invest more too, otherwise you can't blame them for having higher power than you.
Secondly, most of the early blockchain system is based on anonymous users and private transaction which is very attract criminals and money laundry (this is the result of too much freedom). To solve this "too much freedom" a KYC (Known Your Customer) rule is apply where each users need to be identify with their identity, photo. All the blockchain are struggle with this implementation WITH or WITHOUT KYC, it is depends on the choice.
Thirdly, remember distributed technology giving more freedom to users not centralize authority, so central authority can't banned or modify the users data, if they don't have super power (Majority of the computing powers). We can see some example on Serey platform where a lot of our friends are creating a lot of account and try to comment on every posts by just posting : (nice, good, amazing, great, awesome, wow, ..) and hope to fish some coin from the like. This is also the result of too much freedom. Can someone banned them, blocked them or blacklist them ? According to the distributed nature no one can, but according to decentralize nature or centralize nature they could be banned, blocked with the new or upcoming feature of the blockchain.
Through out the year we have seen many honest cheating activities, such as posting article and do "Self-Upvote" or Posting one article and comments on those article one thousands times and upvote to all those comments silently. But this activity has been banned by the new version of the blockchain "You can't upvote your own post". By the way users always come up with new solution, remember "Cat vs Rat" theory, you can create multiple accounts without moderators notice and upvote each others of your own articles with your multiple accounts, unless someday you are suspectious and catch by someone, until the blocked feature arrived.
The journey from centralize to decentralize to distributed and coming back to decentralize and centralize is the cycle of human decision to deal with "TRUST" and "POWER". I hope this article allow you to find balance between "CONTROL" and "FREEDOM". Always remember "TOO MUCH CONTROL" or "TOO MUCH FREEDOM" is not the best solution.
Writen by: Cryptopreneur
3591.225 SRY