Dear Readers,
Decentralization is a frequent topic in the crypto space. The political turmoil and societal upheaval of the last several years show that the people of the world are largely disillusioned by the failures of centralized governments and markets. Bitcoin ushered in a new age of decentralized finance, and numerous copycats have since come along to try and replicate its success. Consensus mechanisms give a good example:
The Bitcoin blockchain uses the proof of work consensus mechanism, which relies on the expenditure of energy and on market incentives in order to maintain global distribution and censorship resistance. Nearly 15 years into its existence, Bitcoin on proof of work has suffered nearly zero downtime and has never experienced a major hack on its base-layer blockchain.
However, critics of Bitcoin’s energy usage have attempted to supplant proof of work by introducing the proof of stake consensus mechanism, which uses far less energy and which they (erroneously) claim is just as decentralized as proof of work. As time passes, more and more critics seem intent on trying to manipulate Bitcoin users into abandoning proof of work altogether, either for an altered version of Bitcoin that relies on a different consensus mechanism or for one of the army of other altcoins on the market.
