How To Understand The Concept Of Blockchain Decentralization

When it comes to blockchain, several of its characteristics are basically mentioned: decentralization, open and transparent data, non-tampering, etc. Among these characteristics, decentralization is an essential feature of blockchain. How should we understand the concept of decentralization ()? This article attempts to understand the concept of decentralization from two perspectives: internal characteristics and external performance.

First, let’s analyze the inherent characteristics of decentralization and recall what we learned in high school biology class:

In biology, organisms are divided into unicellular organisms and multicellular organisms. Most of the organisms we see with the naked eye are multicellular organisms, and the cells of multicellular organisms differentiate into cells with different functions. As cells in multicellular organisms differentiate, the entire organism will have more complex functions. Single-celled organisms often aggregate into colonies, such as bacteria. Although cell colonies sometimes exhibit some characteristics of multicellular organisms, their capabilities are extremely limited because their cells do not differentiate.

A step further than single-celled organisms are plants. Plant cells have completed a certain degree of cell differentiation, and the cells have differentiated into different organs such as roots, stems, and leaves. Under the control of mechanisms, plant cells realize the characteristics of division of labor, cooperation, coexistence, and joint realization of complex functions. Although plant cells have differentiated into roots, stems, leaves, etc., their cells are still totipotent. Under the right conditions, a single cell can develop into an entirely new entity. Plants can reproduce (fork) individually, producing new individuals directly.

The cells of higher animals are the most completely differentiated. Different cells are highly differentiated, different organs cooperate very delicately, and the entire living body has extremely complex functions. The price is that the cells lose totipotency. Animals also have differentiated specialized nervous systems that provide overall control of various organs to achieve consistent, intensive, and efficient activity throughout the organism.

We believe that the essential feature of decentralization is essentially whether nodes are differentiated. It can be seen that individual independence is closely related to whether there is differentiation. Once an individual differentiates, its independence will decline. Maintaining independence is decentralization, and a high degree of differentiation is centralization.

Taking the Bitcoin system as an example, each node runs the same logic and all nodes are equal. This obviously maintains the independence and omnipotence of the node, and the degree of decentralization is relatively high. But there is a problem. If some normal nodes lose contact with other nodes, then it will continue to operate and eventually become a fork of Bitcoin. Therefore, if the Internet's backbone optical fiber (such as the China-US submarine cable) is down for more than an hour, Bitcoin will likely fork into two different currencies. This is very similar to plants. If a branch is broken and not grafted back in time, it will become a new plant under suitable circumstances.

For enterprise-level blockchains, in order to take into account both decentralization and efficiency, some division of labor can be appropriately done on the nodes. For example, the most popular 1.0 now has some division of labor on the nodes, which improves the throughput and processing speed of the entire blockchain system. .

After analyzing the internal characteristics of decentralization, let’s look at the external manifestations of decentralization.

Decentralization is a relative concept. Different degrees of decentralization adopt different consensus mechanisms and express consensus in different ways. For example, the most typical Bitcoin blockchain system essentially means that all nodes follow the same protocol. The protocol stipulates that all nodes adhere to the same consensus algorithm and rely on this algorithm to maintain the consistency of all node data. Relying on consensus algorithms to select data trust sources is a decentralized approach. Unlike centralized systems, where the source of data trust is a designated machine, in the Bitcoin system, each "block" is generated by all nodes through computing power competition.

As can be seen from the above analysis, as long as the trust source is not specified in advance, but the trust source is selected through some competition mechanism, we consider the system to be decentralized. Moreover, the more dispersed the results of each competition, the better the decentralization effect.

The designated machine can be controlled by a certain subject, and the selection result of the consensus algorithm is difficult to be controlled by a certain subject, but it is not absolutely impossible to control: taking the Bitcoin system as an example, when one person owns more than the entire Bitcoin network With 51%, he has become the de facto center of Bitcoin.

To sum up, judging from the external manifestations of decentralization, the degree of decentralization means how difficult it is for the entire blockchain system to be controlled by a single subject.

Generally, according to the distribution of blockchain nodes, blockchain is divided into three types: public chain ( ), alliance chain ( ) and private chain ( ).

The public chain is similar to Bitcoin: nodes do not need any authentication mechanism and only need to adhere to the same protocol to obtain all data on the blockchain and participate in the consensus mechanism of the blockchain. Public chains are the most difficult to control by a certain node: for example, the Bitcoin system using the proof-of-work mechanism has a 51% attack, but the difficulty and cost of such an attack are very high.

Alliance chain refers to a blockchain system open to certain organizations. Obviously, since only certain nodes are allowed to connect to the blockchain system, this permission mechanism brings a potential center to the blockchain: for blockchains that use digital certificates to verify node access rights, the CA center is A potential hub; network administrators are a potential hub for blockchains that use IP addresses to verify node access. If these potential centers can be controlled, it becomes possible to control the entire blockchain system. The difficulty of this kind of blockchain system being controlled by a certain subject is significantly lower than that of the public chain.

A private chain refers to a blockchain system that is completely controlled and used by an organization. Obviously, this blockchain system is very close to the traditional centralized system.

The above figure briefly gives an analysis of the decentralization degree of three types of blockchains.

标签： #Cell #Block #Node #Center #Differentiation