by Lior Messika
The original rendition of Genesis focuses on Adam and Eve’s descent from Eden;with everything at their disposal, the promise of the unknown was somehow moreattractive. They were led astray by an innate, elementally human tendency forcorruption. As they bit the apple, or “the forbidden fruit” - Adam and Evedescended into the real world, deprived of Eden and its many perks. In ourcollective interpretation of the web, we began in Eden, and the forbiddenfruit was Centralization: companies like Facebook and Google who pilfer ourdata to turn us into products. Banks, brokers, and other glorified middle menwho control our flow of income and our access to the world around us.
Today, decentralized technologies are fully functional and are accelerating a 3,000 year-old process to massive proportions.
Before we dive into decentralization and why it’s an essential part of our future (and of our past), it’s important to demystify the forbidden fruit, centralization. Centralization of power, decision making, and monetary policy have left many parties throughout history in cycles of complete dependency: people depend on the dollar, the dollar depends on the Federal reserve, the Fed depends on guns, guns depend on politics, politics depend on people, and the cycle continues. Centralization created empires, and then ruined them. Centralization of power among the elites created gaps and loopholes in our governance models, where the very notion of new governments and “democracies'' is often synonymous with side deals and back-room promises.
“Stagnating economies, mounting inequality, political corruption and the increasing monopolization of technology for the benefit of elites have provoked a populist backlash. We share and are driven by these feelings of discontent.” Vitalik Buterin in ‘Liberation Through Radical Decentralization’
One of the first times humans decentralized the concept of governance was in the Old Testament. While traveling through the desert with his tribe, Moses created different councils of elders to handle different issues in the community - instead of Moses having the only say. Moses willingly transferred his judicial power to the rest of his community, out of knowledge that this would protect the system he built for the long term.
Moses deliberated on his tribe’s future, together with other prominent members of his community.
Fast forward more than 3,000 years, and Satoshi Nakamoto decentralizes money for the first time, with the advent of Bitcoin. Not only is Bitcoin the first to decentralize money at scale, but it is the first to prove that permissionless and decentralized systems can programmably maintain consensus over long periods of time - if given the right incentives. This advancement solidified blockchains as the best operating systems (thus far) to achieve and maintain decentralization at scale, and today stands as the core narrative and enabler for cryptonetworks
For the Ethereum community, decentralization isn’t just a technical property - it is a foundational part of the narrative, as well as the only approach to innovation in the space. For years, developers building on Ethereum knowingly sacrificed efficiency for security.
Ethereum’s narrative empowers radical decentralization and emphasizes the importance of this property at every turn. The tangibility, or immediate translation of value in cryptonetworks set off a Cambrian explosion of individual expression, where championing decentralization and individualism is only the first step. However, decentralization is not just a right — it is a responsibility.
Today, being part of a decentralized community is a commitment and a statement. To participate, stakeholders must pass a gauntlet of hurdles to interface with the community or the underlying product of a cryptonetwork. To make a difference on-chain, incoming members must account for custody, buy ETH, swap for another asset and familiarize themselves with the relevant on- chain interfaces (and pay exorbitant gas fees along the way). Going through those hurdles, and remaining an active member in these communities carries over into the truest form of a digital identity.
“Want to work at a fund? Ok…what’s the return on your Eth wallet? Want to be a paid governance steward? Ok…how many governance proposals have you proposed…and which ones passed? There’s no way to lie on a trust machine. An ETH address becomes a reputation.”** Ryan Sean Adams** , ‘Your Wallet is Your Resume‘