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1550	9770	Hey, how's it going, everybody? It's me, Rorar Diego, that one kid that you know.
10470	14610	You're probably not seeing me as much these days as you would if we were in the physical thing,
14610	17750	and I'm running around the village and stuff, but that also means you get to experience all
17750	22150	these other things that people do. How's DEF CON been for you guys, huh? Digital.
22690	26250	Is this something you'd like to repeat? Is this something you'd like to do another time?
26370	30510	I don't know. Hopefully, if we do decide to do it, it's not going to be under the virus
30510	37110	situation, but whatever. Daniel Kim's got some good stuff. I've been chilling in the Discord.
37110	41430	We have some people hanging out in the voice over there. If you have questions about Monero,
41430	46390	or you want to talk about pretty much anything, drop by our Discord in the Monero Village area.
46390	51190	We've got a voice chat where at least somebody's usually hanging out from the community to answer
51190	59910	questions. Okay. I am set to speak now. I'm set to speak today. I got a little bit of a half hour
59910	64030	slot to fill, but this time I don't have to fill it with a bunch of filler, because it's an actual
64030	69790	talk that I'm going to be giving. We're going to talk about decentralization in a centralized world.
69790	75430	Apologies to all the people tuning in from Europe. I'm spelling it with a Z, which is the American
75430	81230	spelling of decentralization and centralized, instead of an S. And when I see it with an S,
81230	86550	it makes me cringe inside. So, without further ado, let's go ahead and get started on this.
87950	95570	Decentralization. When people hear about blockchain, or when a blockchain project is
95570	101210	talking about their project, they're like, yeah, we have these goals of decentralization. We really
101210	105970	feel that decentralization is going to make all the difference. And that's one of the things we're
105970	113190	working towards on a technological level. And nobody ever stops to ask and think,
113190	118870	why? What is the purpose of decentralization? At this point, it's really just kind of this buzzword,
118870	123490	right? That they say decentralization, you go, that's good, right? So, if they make that a goal
123490	129310	and it's good, then that means that everything's good. But it's not quite that simple. It's not
129310	134870	quite that way. If we don't know what decentralization is for, if we don't know why
135330	140950	decentralization is a thing, why it's important, and if we don't know, like, the ways to achieve it,
140950	148530	then really we're just throwing words on things and nothing gets better. In fact, many things
148530	152510	would benefit from not being decentralized. And we're not going to be able to think about this
152510	156350	critically and see what things should be decentralized and what things shouldn't be
156350	161410	decentralized unless we know really what it's for. So, this is kind of a rundown of what I'm
161410	165370	going to be talking about right now. We're going to give some definitions about decentralization
165910	171070	and we're going to talk about the different forms that it can take place in. Because there is more
171070	175930	than just one form, really. When people say the word decentralization, they mean many, many, many
175930	182190	different things. Because it applies to many areas of a cryptocurrency project.
182670	187110	We're going to explore some trade-offs. So, when you choose decentralization, it's not all
187110	191490	positives. There are negatives that go along with it. And then we're going to look at a practical
191490	199850	application and see how that can kind of help us as we look at cryptocurrency projects in general
199850	203150	and evaluate them and try to think about them critically to see if they're doing something
203150	209890	good or if they're just kind of wasting resources. And yeah, that's where we're going to go. And then
209890	218810	from here, depending on time, I may give some light touching on kind of the world as we know it
218810	224430	and how we're moving into a more decentralized place. Because pretty much our world is very
224430	233710	centralized. As is the name of the talk. So, who am I? I'm Diego Salazar. I contribute to Monero.
233750	238330	And that's pretty much everything you need to know about me. There's my Twitter. You can go
238330	245670	to my Twitter. I don't do anything on my Twitter. I don't tweet hardly ever. So, yeah. I have long
245670	251990	curly hair and some people like that. So, if that's your thing, then give me a thumbs up in chat.
252710	259050	Okay. Decentralized. Decentralization. As stated before, this is basically just a new buzzword,
259050	264530	right? We have all of these things that have become buzzwords in the world. Blockchain is the
264530	270010	name of the game. But it is also a buzzword. Because as Daniel Kim was alluding to in his talk,
270010	276750	when people are like, oh, yeah, we're adding blockchain to the automobile industry. And,
276750	281390	you know, their socks just shoot way up. At this point, blockchain is a buzzword. Privacy
281390	286410	is also a buzzword, right? You have Bitcoin and all these transparency coins are like, oh, yeah,
286410	291490	you know, we're not a privacy coin. We're not privacy first, but we're adding privacy.
291690	295750	Decentralization is another big buzzword. And it's probably one of the top ones. If you look
295750	300930	at almost any cryptocurrency project, I can guarantee you that the word decentralization
300930	307610	is going to be somewhere in there. These people, this is they just know that this is desirable,
307610	312950	but they don't know why. So, let's go ahead and do the definitions. And like all boring people,
312950	317930	when I do definitions, we start with the dictionary. So, decentralization is defined
317930	324670	by Merriam-Webster dictionary as the dispersion or distribution of functions and powers.
325750	332770	So, then also we're going to define decentralize to move the control of an organization or
332770	338890	government from a single place to several smaller ones. And this is defined by the Cambridge
338890	344190	dictionary. And I would also expand that definition somewhat so it's not just a single
344190	350210	place to several smaller ones. It can really be, you know, from 3 to 5, from 10 to 20,
350210	359970	from any smaller number of places to larger number of smaller ones. And so, the word
359970	365990	centralize is just the opposite of that, right? We're moving from many places of power or
365990	373410	functions and putting them from many different places to less places. In the most extreme case,
373410	379430	into one place, right? One person can do it. So, we're going to give an example. We're going
379430	383950	to talk about... we're going to move into why would we want to decentralize? What is the point
383950	391050	of decentralizing? So, in this example, we all start a club, right? We start a really cool club.
391050	395990	We all love Twilight series. We all love the Twilight series. I can't think of a single
395990	401490	person on this entire planet that has not read the books, watched the movies, wrote fan fiction,
401950	405450	all these things, right? Everybody's crazy about the Twilight series. So, we start our
405450	415230	series club. And everyone is either on team Jacob or team Edward. And we need to vote. We need to
415230	420970	vote who is going to be the leaders. We need to vote on who's going to be the leader of our club,
420970	425910	who's going to be leading this thing. But everybody is in these two very political parties
425910	432370	of team Edward or team Jacob. And I am a team Edward fan, maybe. And you're a team Jacob fan,
432370	437450	so I don't want the team Jacob people to be in charge because they're going to cover our
437450	444490	Twilight clubhouse in team Jacob stuff. And that would be awful. I want Edward posters on the wall.
444490	449750	So, I want to make sure that whoever I'm voting for is part of team Edward. So, everybody's gonna
449750	455930	vote, right? Let's say we have 20-ish people. Everybody writes their thing on the ballot and
455930	465110	we all put it in the box. But here, a problem begins to arise. I jumped a little bit ahead.
465110	471210	We have to count these votes. We have to count these votes. And who are we gonna put in charge
471210	476650	of these votes? In theory, this voting is anonymous. We don't know who voted what. But
476650	483170	does it really matter what anybody voted? And let me tell you why. If we put one person in charge
483730	491870	of counting all of the votes, and this person is a team Jacob person, as signified by the J here,
491870	497270	then they could just, like, either not really count the votes or count them but not really
497270	505150	care and say, oh, Jacob won. This guy from team Jacob won. And we would all have to trust this
505150	512310	person because we didn't count the votes. Right? And this is just not something that we want to
512310	517750	do. So this is on one end of the extreme, where we get one person to do it. On the other end of
517750	524150	the extreme, we get everybody to stay. Everybody is staying here to count the votes. But the kids
524150	529250	are getting tired. And it's been a long day for me. I want to get home. I don't want to stay here
529250	534870	and count all these votes. The only way to be absolutely sure with zero trust of who won this
534870	542130	is if everybody, absolutely everybody stays, and everybody takes out each vote, looks at it,
542130	545670	passes it around, and everybody's watching everybody else to make sure we're not doing
545670	551090	some sneaky substitutions or anything like that. Right? So everybody has to stay. Everybody has
551090	555270	to look at each vote and keep their own tally. Then we compare our tallies to each other. And
555270	562010	if we all come up with the same thing, then there is 100% assurance with zero trust that we have a
562010	567550	correct vote. That's the other end of the extreme. But that requires everybody to take their Saturday
567550	573550	to stay here. And we don't want to stay here. But as we just discussed in this first example,
573550	578010	if we have just this one person here, well, they can go ahead and report whatever they want,
578010	584170	and we would never be the wiser. So what else can we do? Well, we can decentralize. So from
584170	591870	this one person, we've now moved to two people. Right? And in this case, we're hoping... we're
591870	598190	hoping that one is Team Edward, one is Team Jacob. So that way, we know for sure that, you know,
598190	601770	they're not gonna collaborate. Because what if they're both Team Jacob? Then they're like, okay,
601770	609110	so we both want Team Jacob to win. So we're going to agree together that we're not gonna really care
609110	612970	about the actual vote count. This is just what we're going to be reporting. So we have to kind
612970	617210	of make sure that we get somebody who's on Team Edward and somebody else who's on Team Jacob.
617210	622650	So that way, when they count the votes, if one person tries to lie, the other person is
623070	628230	incentivized to say, no, that's not true. No, that's not true. But there are some attacks that
628230	634190	can happen here as well. This is not a bulletproof, foolproof kind of thing. Because what if one of
634190	637810	two things happen? I've got a couple examples. What if the guy that is known as Team Edward
637810	645530	is actually a secret closet Team Jacob guy? Right? He doesn't tell anybody. He's actually
645530	653070	changed teams recently. Or he's been convinced by a family member. Or he's just lying for whatever
653070	659130	reason. And he is converted to Team Jacob. Now we have two Team Jacob people. And it's the same
659130	662550	thing that I discussed. They're just gonna agree, okay, it doesn't matter what the vote is.
662550	668370	We're just gonna say that the Team Jacob guy wins. Alternatively, another scenario is the
668370	673550	first Team Jacob person is quite wealthy or powerful or has a lot of resources. And they're
673550	681450	able to say, hey, I will give you money, resources, whatever you want, if you agree with me that it
681450	687090	doesn't matter what the vote is. We just agree Team Jacob wins. And maybe this person cares more
687090	695070	about the resources than about their allegiance to any particular team. So, they are persuaded.
695670	699210	Well, let's try to decentralize even further. Because we don't want any of those attacks to
699210	703230	happen. We want to make sure that this is a fair election. So, we decentralize even further.
704110	708530	And we say, okay, we got four people now. Hopefully two of them Team Edward, two of them
708530	714850	Team Jacob. But now we get to some really interesting kind of game theory things that
714850	722490	are happening here. Because what if we're able to get one person to our side? Either through
722490	726070	either of the ways that we were talking about before, where we were able to convince them
726070	731090	through resources or they were a secret agent all along, whatever the case may be. Now we're kind of
731090	736510	this three against one scenario. And these three people can threaten this person. Hey, if you don't
736510	743130	keep quiet about this or if you don't do what we say, then we're gonna burn all your posters,
743130	746670	in real life scenarios it can be things like they can threaten violence, they can threaten
746670	751050	family resources, whatever. And now this person is gonna have to go along with them because they
751050	757870	have the numbers advantage. So, we've decentralized into a place where in theory it's like, okay,
757870	762510	four people is good. But not everybody has to stay and waste their time counting all of the votes.
762710	768530	But we have enough people that we can trust that nobody's gonna do anything weird. But in this
768530	775190	scenario, it's not enough. So, we can do this again and again and again and again until we're
775890	784310	all the way back to everybody having to stay to count the votes. So, if you're seeing a pattern
784310	791110	here, I hope you're seeing a pattern here. And this pattern is that the more we trust people,
791790	798170	the more convenient it is for everybody. Because if we only have one person counting those votes,
798170	803070	that's a lot of trust placed in that individual. But it's the only person inconvenienced is that
803070	806610	one person. It's much more convenient for everybody else. They get to go home and watch
806610	815690	television, right? And the less trust we have, the more inconvenient it is for everybody. And this
815690	822930	is basically decentralization in a nutshell. This is going to apply everywhere across the board.
822930	827990	When we look at blockchain, we are decentralizing a database, right? It's just a database that has
827990	833290	ledger information that says this person has this much money and this person has this much money.
833290	838590	But we're decentralizing it. So, it's now not on just one server where we have to trust the system
838590	842370	administrator is not going to do anything bad with that. Or maybe they're not malicious, but
842370	848290	they're incompetent. And so, hackers get in and they mess with the database. No. We give the
848290	854490	blockchain, we give this database to whoever wants it. And now because everybody has it, we don't
854490	862030	have to trust anybody. So, if I'm like, oh, do I have an accurate copy of the blockchain? I can
862030	869310	compare it to many of my peers and say, okay, yes, it agrees with all of them. So, we're all good.
869310	875710	We're all fine. But it's much more inefficient. It's much more inconvenient. Because if you want
875710	879810	the most trustless option, you have to download the whole blockchain onto your computer.
880450	886370	Now, you have to take up your hard drive space, your bandwidth, your everything to be absolutely
886370	891970	trustless. And when we start thinking about the fact that this is always going to be the tradeoff,
891970	897930	the more we decentralize, the more inefficient it is, the more inconvenient it is,
897930	904270	we need to start asking the question, what things need to be trustless? This is the core question.
904270	908770	What things need to be trustless? Because those are the things that definitely we can
908770	915830	start to decentralize. Knowing that there is going to be a cost. But not everything does
915830	922210	need to be trustless. When we start thinking, okay, to give a very stupid example, and sorry
922210	929030	to call people out here, there was a coin back in the 2017 boom called CampusCoin. And the idea
929030	935010	was that CampusCoin was a cryptocurrency that students would be able to use to pay tuition
935010	941790	or their meal plans or all these things, right? So we're trying to make paying our tuition and
941790	947690	paying for our meal plans for our students a trustless endeavor. And I just didn't see or
947690	953210	hear the outcry of students that were like, these universities are cheating me. I paid the money,
953210	958750	and they said they never received it. I don't trust them. We need to make sure that they're
958750	962910	in check. We need to make sure that this is a whole trustless kind of thing. I didn't see this,
962910	970310	right? This is something that does not need to be trustless. Same with Dentacoin, paying dentists,
970310	975090	right? How many people have been defrauded by their dentist? I mean, maybe there's some of you,
975090	980070	and you might raise your hand and say, I see a need for Dentacoin. But I think for the majority
980070	984230	of us, we're able to pay them and they're like, thank you for your money. Here's your teeth
984230	991410	cleaning, and we're good. So kind of in this whole blockchain area, it makes sense in some
991410	1000570	spaces. For example, distributed ledger technology. There is strong motivation for people to try to
1000570	1006990	mess with money information. Why? Because I can become a millionaire or a billionaire overnight
1007460	1011730	if I have the capability to mess with the money situation. Or I can be malicious against somebody
1011730	1016330	else, and they have $100, and now they have $0. There's strong incentive. Money is such a strong
1016330	1022150	incentive. So kind of this ledger-based information, there is a lot of reason why we
1022150	1029410	would want to trust people less. So we may be able and willing to decentralize, become more inefficient
1030670	1038350	so that way we can trust people less. But I mean, we just can't do that for everything.
1040270	1045210	But here's the big thing about decentralization in terms of blockchain.
1045870	1051650	It's, as I alluded to earlier, it's not just one thing. When somebody says, we are a decentralized
1051650	1057170	project, which you hear pretty much everywhere, what does this mean? We're going to start kind
1057170	1063030	of poking into many of the ways that a project can be decentralized. One way, who writes the code?
1063030	1068110	Okay. So all of these wallets, all of this protocol, all this stuff needs to
1068110	1076210	be written by some entity. Usually, like pretty much always by people, right? Who is actually
1076210	1083150	writing this code? Is it one person? Is it 10 people? Maybe they have 20 CEOs and one engineer
1083150	1088110	that's actually writing the code. Is this decentralized? They have 20 CEOs, so 20 people
1088110	1093890	looking over making sure the project is okay, or 20 people in high CT positions, CEO, CTO,
1093890	1097170	these kinds of things, right? But they don't know the code well enough to be able to check
1097170	1101910	on this guy or whatever. So functionally, there's one person who is writing this code.
1102430	1107330	And he has no oversight, which means that this person can put back doors inside. They can,
1107330	1112370	you know, they can do whatever they want. And nobody's going to be around to stop them.
1112370	1117490	Who's writing the code? Finances. Who has the money? Who's distributing the money?
1117490	1123690	If there's one guy or just a very small team of people who is handling the money of a project,
1123690	1129050	then they can choose... it gets a little subtle here, and it gets a little not quite so on the
1129050	1136310	nose, but they can hire engineers that maybe they're less than scrupulous, or maybe they're
1136310	1141890	hiring engineers that are incompetent, or maybe they're hiring engineers that adhere to a certain
1141890	1147310	design philosophy and not to another one, so they don't have to have as much infighting to get
1147310	1152590	the... to get the project to go in the direction that they want it to go, rather than another
1152590	1157510	direction. This kind of stuff is important, because when we're talking about decentralization,
1157510	1162530	trusting less, are we just like, you know, the development one is the one that's most well known.
1162530	1166010	Who's writing the code? How many eyes are on the code? But the same thing with money.
1166010	1170670	How many eyes are on the money? How many eyes are on the money? Who's paying to either hire
1170670	1175870	somebody or fire somebody or to get this research done? What if, you know, there's two
1176870	1181230	papers, two research papers that are done for two different, totally different directions,
1181230	1186050	that we can take a coin in terms of evolving the protocol? Well, the person with the finances
1186050	1192270	decides to fund an audit for one of those papers, but not the other. Once that audit is complete,
1192270	1198270	they can say, look, this way has been audited, and they said it was good. This other one is
1198270	1202390	unaudited, so I really don't think we should do that. Well, just like that, you have influenced
1202550	1208190	a community because of money decisions. So it's also, decentralization also needs to take place
1208190	1212810	kind of on a financial level. If there's only one group or a small group of people that has
1212810	1216150	all of the money, that's something you also need to watch out for.
1216910	1224030	Research. Who's doing the research? Because, you know, just as I alluded to in the audit thing,
1224030	1227670	perhaps a researcher comes across two or three different ways that things can go,
1227670	1230490	you know, evolve from a cryptographic perspective, and they decide to really
1230490	1234090	pour their all into one of them that they think is the best and not put as much effort into the
1234090	1239630	other ones. They're going to have a lot more. Do we trust this researcher? And many times,
1240090	1244350	many times, yes. Many times we think they're not malicious, right? But we can never be
1244350	1248550	absolutely positively sure. When we're talking about decentralization, when we're talking about
1248550	1252870	making things trustless, it's not just on the code. It's not just on the money. It's also on
1252870	1260550	the science. Who's doing the science? And practical stuff. Practical stuff. Who's running
1260550	1268150	the day-to-day? Who's running the community management stuff? All of these are ways. All
1268150	1272850	of these are ways that decentralization needs to be looked at. So, when a project says,
1272850	1279110	we are a decentralized project, maybe they mean in one way, like we have several different
1279110	1282610	engineers or we're open source. Usually what they mean is we're open source, which means
1282610	1287210	there are several eyeballs on the project. But when you start digging deeper, you're like, oh,
1287210	1292770	but we do have a small group of scientists that's pretty impenetrable. Like, as in, it's hard for
1292770	1297090	you to do your own research. And they're the ones that do the majority of the research. Oh,
1297090	1301530	who handles the money? Oh, well, see, we've got this little group that's responsible for that.
1301530	1305010	What kind of oversight do they have? Oh, we just we make sure they do good stuff. So,
1305010	1311630	they start hand-waving a lot of the centralized areas. They start hand-waving away a lot of the
1311630	1315550	centralized the ways that they are centralized. And they're like, and we want you to only focus
1315550	1321830	on the fact that our development is decentralized. Here's what I'm not gonna take a lot of time to
1321830	1325650	get into, but mining, centralization, decentralization. This is something that,
1325650	1330510	you know, Monero tried to do with RandomX. Asics tend to lead to centralization of mining over
1330910	1336230	a period of time to particular people that are able to create new Asics and stuff. And
1336230	1340730	we don't have time to go over in that. Daniel Kim has kind of discussed this in his talk.
1340930	1345950	So, I would give that a look. But basically, the goal is to explain to you guys that there
1345950	1350550	are many ways that something is decentralized. And particularly when a project is centralized
1350550	1356590	in many areas, I would even say in most areas, they do their best to divert attention to the
1356590	1361910	areas, very few, that do exist where they are decentralized. And that's usually the protocol
1361910	1366330	level. Because blockchain by design is pretty much decentralized as long as there's miners and
1366330	1369530	stuff. Like, it's just the way that it is. And they'll point all eyeballs to that and say,
1369530	1374190	see, we're decentralized when really everything else is centralized. So, we've gone through the
1374190	1379650	what. What is it? We gave some definitions. We've gone through the where, right? It can be mining.
1380730	1384830	It could be development. We've gone through the why. Why would we want to decentralize? Because
1384830	1390270	we want to reduce trust. Now, we need to talk about the how. And so, to discuss the how,
1390270	1396050	I'm going to say that I start a new project. This new project, SaveTheMarmots.com. It's not a real
1396050	1400870	website. I mean, maybe it is. You can go there and check. But it's not something I've created.
1401070	1405710	But we're gonna say I've started a new project. SaveTheMarmots.com. And you come in and you say,
1405710	1411070	okay, I want to judge whether this project is worth my time. I want to judge whether this
1411070	1417550	project is worth my attention, my money, whatever the case. Whatever this cause is for. I want to
1417550	1423410	make sure that I'm not gonna be wasting any of my resources on this. So, SaveTheMarmots. And I say,
1423410	1426570	it's very decentralized. It's very decentralized. And so, you're like, ooh, decentralized,
1426570	1431470	that sounds good. So, that's a couple points in its favor. I may put some money in there.
1431590	1435170	But we gotta ask the big questions. We gotta ask the big question.
1436470	1443690	First of all, does this need to be decentralized? This is always, always, always, always the first
1443690	1449150	big question that you should ask yourself. When they say, we are revolutionizing the real estate
1449150	1456810	industry, the automobile industry, the trash picking up industry, the dentist industry.
1456950	1463090	We're decentralizing all of these industries. We need to start thinking. Critical thinking.
1463090	1468170	Does this need to be decentralized? Is this something that would benefit from a reduction
1468170	1473730	of trust? Is this something where all the parties don't trust each other? Is this something where
1473730	1479210	we would be willing to tolerate the inefficiencies? What are the inefficiencies? They may not be as
1479210	1484890	neat on the surface. So, for blockchain, the inefficiency is it requires proof of work,
1484890	1488710	which requires electrical consumption. It requires power to secure the blockchain.
1488710	1492970	It requires the database to be on everybody's computer. That's a lot of space.
1493110	1497370	So, for blockchain, we might know what those are. But if we start looking at decentralizing
1497370	1501950	other industries, we may not know, it may not be readily apparent to us,
1501950	1506390	what are the inefficiencies that are going to come from decentralizing something?
1507370	1512090	We need to start asking the big question. Does this need to be decentralized?
1513050	1518670	But there are a few other smaller questions that we can ask. Because that's a big question,
1518670	1523470	and it's probably the most important. And maybe they're able to give you a good reason why they
1523470	1528030	think that this should be decentralized. They'll typically say, there is a good use case for this.
1528730	1533790	Usually it's a bunch of bullshit. But that's what they'll say. There's a good use case for this.
1533930	1538850	But there's a bunch of smaller questions that we can use to tease out whether, A, this thing needs
1538850	1543510	to be decentralized, and B, whether the project itself is decentralized. For example, who do I
1543510	1549870	talk to to get information? Who do I need to approach? Who do I need to talk to to get any
1549870	1561630	information about this product? If it is largely contained within one website, one person,
1561630	1567330	one department, right? If it's only a small group of people that is able to give you accurate
1567330	1572790	information about this, then that means that for the most part, the information is going to be
1572790	1577590	coming from a select group that's going to tell you what you want to hear. Are there dissenting
1577590	1584110	viewpoints? Are those dissenting viewpoints given a platform? Assuming they're not trying to spread
1584110	1591430	misinformation, which I really feel sorry for everyone in this day and age of social media,
1591430	1595410	where there's so much misinformation everywhere, there's so much noise, it's really hard to
1595410	1600370	distinguish between what is signal and what is noise, but that is another talk in and of itself.
1600710	1605670	But are these dissenters who have different ideas that are, in theory, in a perfect world,
1605670	1610370	presented in a respectful manner, and they have good points, and they address people's points
1610370	1616850	and stuff, are these people given a platform, or are they silenced? If they are silenced,
1616850	1621630	then that says that this is a pretty centralized thing, because you need a certain amount of power
1621630	1629190	to silence these people. If we look at Bitcoin and BTC, from the subreddit perspective,
1629190	1633190	there was a group of people that didn't like the Bitcoin subreddit, so they made their own.
1633330	1637490	They made BTC. And regardless of what you think about these two subreddits, I don't really care
1637490	1642370	what you think about these things, but these voices were not silenced, and they couldn't be
1642370	1647430	silenced. In one area, they were, but they were very easily able to build a following, build a
1647430	1653590	community of people who disagreed with the first one. Whereas many people, those things get
1653590	1659910	attacked, those places get shut down. It's really bad if you start getting like some cease and
1659910	1664250	desist letters that shows, okay, these people really do own pretty much everything, and it's
1664250	1672090	not decentralized at all. Question two, what is centralized, and why? So this is a bit of a
1672090	1676550	this is a bit of a funky thing that I'm going to throw in here. It's probably best
1677430	1683450	no, let me let me take a step back. Maybe not probably best. Some projects may choose to
1683450	1691210	centralize some things, and we need to understand why they do that, because maybe that's the way to
1691210	1697470	go. For example, payments. Maybe it's just easier to get people paid on time in terms of researchers
1697470	1701950	who decide they can devote their time and energy to this, or engineers, or people who are going to
1701950	1706650	code full-time. They say, you know what, we have decided to centralize the way we do our finances
1706650	1711750	so we can pay people on time so they don't leave us. If they can give you a reason for their
1712150	1716650	centralization, now at that point, you can kind of decide for yourself, well, is this kind of worth
1716650	1722450	the trust? Maybe, maybe not. But if they're like, oh, no, no, no, that's all decentralized, and
1722450	1727650	you're like, no, no, no, it's clearly not, right, they need to be able to point to parts of their
1727650	1732690	project that are centralized, and honest people, which are hard to come by, will tell you, yeah,
1732690	1736190	we're a decentralized protocol, but this part is centralized, this part is centralized, and this
1736190	1741970	part is semi-centralized, and here are the reasons why. Okay, now at that point, we are armed
1741970	1747350	with information. You can run it through your personal philosophies and worldviews to see if
1747350	1752950	that's something that you're okay with, but it's definitely something that is rarely talked about.
1752950	1756950	It's kind of hand-waved away. Well, no, it's not really centralized. It is, and they need to be
1756950	1764410	able to explain why. So talk to your projects, anything that you're interested in. And what can
1764410	1770790	I learn from history? There is a huge amount of examples of not just blockchain projects, but
1770790	1776850	open-source projects, business projects, everything, all over the world, where they have failed
1777430	1783210	because of centralization, and some have failed because of decentralization. There was too many
1783210	1788190	people that you needed to get an approval from to make a decision, and so you missed out on an
1788190	1794550	opportunity, right? You couldn't get all 10 CEOs to kind of give a check mark, or all 10 powerful
1794550	1798170	board members to give a check mark, either because you couldn't reach them, or they couldn't reach a
1798170	1803970	decision. So you missed out on a big opportunity, and they go under, right? So decentralization is
1803970	1810570	not always blanket good. Sometimes it can keep you from doing things in a quick fashion, but it
1810570	1815730	reduces trust. So there's a ton of examples. Please, please, please go look through failed businesses,
1815730	1820670	failed open-source projects, failed blockchain projects. Try to find out why did they fail?
1820670	1827150	Oftentimes, one of the underlying issues is that it was either centralized in some way or
1827150	1832030	decentralized in some way that it shouldn't have been. I'm running short on time, so
1833290	1837150	conclusion summary in closing. Decentralization is this big buzzword. It doesn't...
1838070	1843430	we really have to understand what it is, what its goal is, what it's trying to do,
1844430	1847890	because otherwise, when somebody says, oh, this is decentralized, we're just like, oh, yeah, that's
1847890	1856510	great, when really it may not necessarily be that way. So, yeah. That's my last slide. That's my
1856510	1863750	last second. It's 430. My time. I'm an hour ahead of Las Vegas. So it's time for me to back on out
1863750	1869990	of here. If you have any questions, I will be chilling around in the Discord. I'm more than
1869990	1874630	happy to talk with you guys about decentralization, what I think about various projects and what they
1874630	1880030	claim about decentralization, blah, blah, blah. So that's it for me. Thanks for coming to my little
1880030	1886210	talk, my DEF CON talk. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the conference. Go check out everything
1886210	1892190	that we have to offer. Monerovillage.org has the rest of the schedule for the rest of today and
1892190	1894230	tomorrow. Thank you!
1894230	1894750	Transcribed by https://otter.ai