The underlying blockchains often do not have central authority; that is, no one entity can make a rash decision for bitcoin tomorrow.I disagree, they have plenty of pinch points which allow de facto control.
The small group of core developers control the laws of the currency and directly tied to that its value. They can perform hard forks and change all the rules. The users have very little influence there.
Exchanges control which currencies are popular, along with huge amounts of the money in circulation, and change things like deposit/withdraw rules arbitrarily.
The miners can attack the currency to rewrite history (has been done), refuse to use new rules, or switch to a new currency.
Many of the fundamental tenets of bitcoin as it started out (that most users will mine, that most users will take care of their own wallets) have been proven too optimistic when in widespread use. People just don't want decentralised things given the massive tradeoffs and the rewards of centralisation for companies are too great.
I think blockchains like bitcoin are a very interesting experiment, and currencies will escape state control as nation states continue to wither away, but none of the current currencies is fit to take that role, nor was the pivot of startups to 'blockchains for...x' a good idea - it's a solution in search of a problem in most cases. We are unfortunately more likely to see a corporate currency or one from a superstate take that role than a decentralised one.
I disagree, they have plenty of pinch points which allow de facto control.
The small group of core developers control the laws of the currency and directly tied to that its value. They can perform hard forks and change all the rules. The users have very little influence there.
Exchanges control which currencies are popular, along with huge amounts of the money in circulation, and change things like deposit/withdraw rules arbitrarily.
The miners can attack the currency to rewrite history (has been done), refuse to use new rules, or switch to a new currency.
Many of the fundamental tenets of bitcoin as it started out (that most users will mine, that most users will take care of their own wallets) have been proven too optimistic when in widespread use. People just don't want decentralised things given the massive tradeoffs and the rewards of centralisation for companies are too great.
I think blockchains like bitcoin are a very interesting experiment, and currencies will escape state control as nation states continue to wither away, but none of the current currencies is fit to take that role, nor was the pivot of startups to 'blockchains for...x' a good idea - it's a solution in search of a problem in most cases. We are unfortunately more likely to see a corporate currency or one from a superstate take that role than a decentralised one.