Decentralization - A Revolution from the Middle

"We live at a very very exciting time in history". This is part of a chat conversation I had with Hive account@bearone this morning. The chat started with a comment about the trades I've been doing using Steemit's Internal Currency Market. I've been encouraging participation in trades using the Internal Market, there's opportunity to make profit using the built in feature specially now when there's insane level of volatility. I need to start of course by saying that there are risks involved in doing so.

Here is what investopia.com's definition of Zero-Sum Game that sums it all up "Zero-sum is a situation in game theory in which one person’s gain is equivalent to another’s loss, so the net change in wealth or benefit is zero. A zero-sum game may have as few as two players, or millions of participants." I've been making some SBDs trading the Internal Market, but those gains are coming from other participants who lost theirs. I am in fact in a losing position now anticipating that SBD will continue it's move upward when it moved to the opposite direction. This can change anytime though, nobody really knows for sure. Trading is about expectancy, and beginning with the expectation that one will win 100% of trades is a bad way to start. There are plenty of materials written on this, and expounding on the subject will deviate from the real subject of this work. I have added some reading towards the end of this post on Zero-sum and Expectancy for those who are really interested on those subjects.

I have written a few posts on the subject of use, improvement suggestions, and analysis about Steemit's Internal Currency Market. This one, for example, is a simple step-by-step tutorial on how to access the Internal Market, how to execute buy and sell orders, and a couple of trading strategies. In this one, I shared an analysis on Internal Market participants and trends, while this shows some correlation between price swings in the external market and count of transactions in the Internal Market.

Trading is of course but one of the ways to participate in Steem and Steemit, it is in fact one of the least famous ways. This work is not just about Steem and Steemit, this is rather about how decentralization in general is a revolution from the middle.

There's a book series from the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos he titled Revolution from the Center: How the Philippines is using Martial Law to build a New Society. The series is his own account of three periods in history he witnessed as a statesman; one of Democracy, then a New Society, followed by some progress report five years after starting a movement to form the New Society. This post is far from being political in nature. I am heading with this merely to relate the on-going revolution happening at the middle of the socio-economic class powered by decentralization and the blockchain.

Wikipedia gives this definition of decentralization:

Decentralization is the process of distributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority.While centralization, especially in the governmental sphere, is widely studied and practiced, there is no common definition or understanding of decentralization. The meaning of decentralization may vary in part because of the different ways it is applied. Concepts of decentralization have been applied to group dynamics and management science in private businesses and organizations, political science, law and public administration, economics and technology.

The definition it offers for revolution is this:

A revolution (from the Latin revolutio, "a turn around") is a fundamental change in political power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time when the population rises up in revolt against the current authorities.

With those definitions in mind, Marcos' Revolution from the Center: How the Philippines is using Martial Law to build a New Society may be seen as an act of decentralization via a revolution. Although there are endless debate on whether or not this objective was achieved, New society was originally aimed at empowering the common man, thereby removing some of the power currently held by the elite. When the Marcoses were removed from power via the people power revolution, publications around the world called it the Elite Democracy.

Wikipedia says this about the Blockchain Technology under the subject of Decentralization:

Like the internet, blockchain technology is designed to be decentralized, with “layers,” where each layer is defined by an interoperable open protocol on top of which companies, as well as individuals, can build products and services. Bitcoin is the most notorious application of the blockchain. Blockchain technology has been adopted in various areas, namely cryptocurrencies, military information.

R4 has been adopted by Barclays Investment, while bitcoin drives adoption of its underlying blockchain, and its strong technical community and robust code review process make it the most secure and reliable of the various blockchains.

Decentralized applications and decentralized blockchain-based organizations could be more difficult for governments to control and regulate."

I am just starting with cryptocurrency and blockchain and wouldn't dare claim that I am an expert. In fact I acknowledge that I probably know less than the average individual. What I do know based on my limited experience in Steem and Steemit, is that the technologies were built to move control from the elite to the common man. Steem for example levels the playing field between the elite with the money to invest, and the common man who's got the skills to labor for rewards.

The technology is also being adopted by the middle socio-econonic class faster than the elite. The accumulated coins from early adapters from when the technology was just starting had enriched a lot of families all over the world. Friends and colleagues who previously worked for large corporations are now able to work at their own pace - in their own place as an alternative to accumulating more wealth for the capitalist.

Because we - the middle class know how it is to enjoy very less freedom before we got into Steem, Steemit, Cryptocurrency, or the blockchain in general; we are all exerting effort to reach out to the marginalize and share the power of the blockchain in furthering the movement for change. From this perspective, the tag line of Steemit Philippines is very fitting. "Building Communities, Enriching Lives".