What is promised is decentralization, everything else boils down to consensus. It's rather simple yet so frequently misunderstood.
What people agree on may not always please you, and you simply can't allow yourself to go around being butthurt every time that happens, it just shows a lack of awareness of how things work and effectively what approach would work best to achieving certain things.
This piece of writing is coming as a result of what happened with Bybit getting hacked and the discussions of a chain rollback filling the ecosystem.
I have, many times, talked about how the single biggest problem we face in this ecosystem is the little focus we've given to proper education of people on how blockchains work.
It's quite embarrassing that sometimes, even major players, be it developers or investors, also show how incredibly unexposed to the facts of decentralized systems they are.
Make no mistake, I am in no way saying Ethereum is decentralized, I've personally talked about how it might actually be centralized by proxy of various firms backing its developments.
But let's look the other way for a second and say that Ethereum is, in fact, decentralized, because things like this are so crucial to look at for the future of this ecosystem even though we find ourselves joking about it a lot.
Automation ≠ Decentralization
To get the point out effectively, I think it's important to start with this one.
This is something a lot of people misunderstand when it comes to projects or solutions built atop of crypto.
Ever heard the saying “Code Is Law?”
As a statement, it is a very correct viewpoint on what position software holds in a digital economy, but by some definition and how people understand it, it is flawed.
“Code is law” has become a catchphrase in this age where transactions of all sorts are being shifted onto blockchain platforms. Some use the term to suggest that code should replace law in many respects when it comes to these transactions. Others use it to defend against claims that they have acted wrongly and argue that they are simply using technically complex rules to outsmart others on a digital platform and obtain outcomes (like wealth) that others did not believe could or would occur.
Under an expansive view of “code is law,” if the code of a smart contract permits something then it is “legal.” This theory holds that code shall prevail, whether or not it conflicts with anything else. Those who accept Lessig's literal meaning contend that, even in the event of a bug or glitch in the code, that same code still governs.
This is from a Forbes article and it evidently happens to be a generally held view on the concept of digital systems being governed by code.
In the blockchain ecosystem, we see these arguments being injected in discussion pertaining to decentralization. The reality is that the automation of certain tasks is in no way an equation of decentralization.
For instance, let's say Bitcoin and Ethereum are both proven, without a doubt, to be decentralized blockchains, but these two are not interoperable, meaning there's no way for liquidity to flow between both chains.
If I build a bridge that allows users to move funds from Ethereum into Bitcoin and back, autonomously, some will call this a DApp, which is short for decentralized application.
But what's factual is that I've simply established a centralized channel enabling liquidity flow between Bitcoin and Ethereum, I only simply made it autonomous, which is quite frankly the most efficient way to go about it but the solution remains centralized and probably bringing me income and my users risk losing their funds if I ever compromise on ensuring that each incoming liquidity gets settled on the other chain.
In addition to this, people also find the idea of transactions being verified and added to blockchains to be an evidence of automation being an equation of decentralization but the fact remains that nodes can simply shut down at any time and this has nothing to do with autonomy being an effective enforcement of law.
How autonomy and immutability differs from decentralization
Decentralization is based on consensus, but people seem to often align it with astainance from inferring on operations handled by code.
This view is flawed because it fails to recognize that at the top of blockchain values is decentralization, it frankly leads the direction of everything else including what should be immutable(censorship-resistant) and what autonomous operation is acceptable.
Blockchain is 90% consensus, at the chain level, nothing else matters.
Certainly, it's a difficult reality to deal with but there's a beauty in it that most people miss which makes them get all touchy feelings over nothing.
There's a lot of things that control human actions, legality, morality, immediate perception, knowledge, and the list goes on.
Depending on the situation, your brain will settle to lead with one of these factors. Sometimes looking at the legality of that action will control the events that follow over what would be morally acceptable. It's just the reality of how these things work.
Now, what blockchain does is that it eliminates the need to judge individuals by what factors influence their actions. The blockchain does not care, at the end of the day, it just cares to read what your signature signs and it proceeds by the leading consensus.
It's all about consensus and if the agreeing blockchain is decentralized, every action taken is effectively upholding the values of the network.
The beauty in the process is that if you disagree with what the chain agrees on, you can fork it. The technology has made it quite simple and cheap for governing bodies to build on common values and build apart effectively without much struggle.
If you believe that all transactions on a chain should be final and no rollbacks should ever happen, you can fork the chain and keep the data, it's really that simple. Neither chain is inherently wrong provided it was all handled through a decentralized consensus.
Autonomy and immutability only comes after a consensus and the weird fact is that a consensus is not finality in absolute, so technically, immutability and autonomy is not promised long-term even though in the short term, they may appear so.
It sounds bad when you don't understand that there's always a choice to do it all differently, that's why consensus governs it in the first place.
So if you disagree with what a network does, the first thing you should do is fork away and dump the token. Every other action is just you temporarily enabling the network to continue thriving whilst putting your investment at a long term risk.
A decentralized body is always allowed to weigh and vote on the most reasonable consensus to back at any time and that process does not in any way go against the values of the blockchain.