As an investor in cryptocurrencies, I continuously search for the best projects to invest in. And most experts agree that one of the most fundamental characteristics of a successful crypto project is decentralization. So, I had to understand what decentralization is? and then, I will try to determine how decentralized are the crypto projects that I am interested in, starting with steem. I will share my findings with you in short digestible posts.

That's a very good idea. I'm in the same position and looking for cryptoinvestments other than BTC. Not that I'm going to sell BTC altogether. It'll remain as my main cryptoinvestment, but I want to diversify a little bit to interesting projects with more upside potential. So, I'm looking forward for your posts!

Then, why are we complaining about it? And why is decentralization hyped this much? What does decentralization mean, really? Does it mean that we dispense with all central entities? What would we do with all those vital functions if we do that? Please tell me what you think in the comments. It will help me with my next posts.

Good question! The problem with centralization is that it puts too much power into the hands of a few. Suppose that only one person operated the Bitcoin blockchain and Bitcoin was the only money in the world.

They could literally do whatever they wanted. They could delete your Bitcoin address and confiscate all of your Bitcoin holdings. Worse than that, they could ban you altogether from their network. That meant you would lose all of your savings and you wouldn't be able to receive money from anyone else.

You would either die or be dependent on someone who had access to that network. This reminds me the times when Google started to randomly ban people from their advertisement network indefinitely. So, centralization? No thanks!