The Meaning of Decentralization

Decentralization can be thought of as a single design challenge that spans three different, but interrelated elements: technical, economic, and legal. Understanding the differences in these elements is key to designing web3 systems because design decisions with respect to one affects the others.

What do we mean by “decentralization,” anyway? It’s a capacious term, and in the past few years it’s been tossed around more freely than ever. Flocks of birds, free-market economies, cities, peer-to-peer computer networks: these are all considered examples of decentralization. Yet so, too, in other contexts, are the American public-school system an

... See more