Decentralization

Distribution of control across multiple components rather than concentration in a single authority — the defining property of cryptoeconomic systems.

Decentralization exists on a spectrum. Dimensions include: how many nodes participate, how evenly power is distributed, how resistant the system is to collusion or capture.

Systems Connection

Decentralization is a structural property describing how governance is distributed. In centralized systems, one component controls state transitions. In decentralized systems, state changes require consensus among many components — creating emergent properties (censorship resistance, fault tolerance) that no single component provides.

Tradeoffs

Decentralization often trades efficiency for resilience:

• Latency — consensus takes time
• Coordination cost — many parties must agree
• Complexity — more failure modes

The mechanism design challenge is achieving decentralization’s benefits while minimizing its costs.

See Also

• Cryptoeconomics — parent domain
• Node — the distributed components
• Consensus Mechanism — how decentralized agreement works
• Polycentric Governance — analogous concept in political economy