There is a new trend of "start centralized/trustful and decentralise/trustless when the need arise" that you can't unsee everywhere;
- Bluesky
- Hyperliquid
- all Rollups
- Ark
- Cashu mints
I am not sure how to feel about that, because... It is efficient you can't argue against that, and until regulations crack down it is hard to justify the complexity.
Arguably, even Bitcoin didn't start with as much decentralisation as it has now, Satoshi could have reorged the chain anytime he wanted in the beginning, no?
There is a formula between decentralisation and the value secured by that decentralisation... Too much decentralisation is wasteful for no value, and too little is dangerous for too much value.
Replies (3)
However, things like Cashu Mints and Ark servers are not setting themselves for success, because there is no ledger to inherit organically... decentralisation for these servers will be the hard path and the friction will be too high.
I don't think Cashu or Ark ever gave the impression that they would decentralized later, but for the others it's just willful ignorance or pure careless marketing.
No they didn't, but we all (including them) know that they won't last too long before needing at least some signaling to regulators that they aren't easy target. Alternatively they are going to either remain small and not worth attacking, or do KYC and now I am not sure why not just stick with CEXs, because they took can be forced to not even allow batch transactions (enable unilateral exit) without flight rules.
Or maybe Solana and Base will prove that we are all wrong and even CEXs will be unregulated... I doubt that though, it is more likely that regulators are happy to let centralized things grow and suck in liquidity as long as they know where the operators live and can trap all that liquidity then shut the doors.
