What is it about?
Blockchain technology was built on the central promise of "decentralization," removing trusted intermediaries like banks so that no single entity controls the system. But as these digital economies grow into multi-billion dollar ecosystems, it remains unclear if they are living up to that promise over the long term. This study provides a data-driven answer to that crucial question. We developed a comprehensive framework to measure how power and control are distributed across crypto ecosystems over their entire lifespans. We applied this framework to seven prominent crypto ecosystems for more than 15 years. Critically, we didn't just look at wealth distribution (who owns the tokens); we examined five distinct "subsystems," including the miners confirming transactions, the network nodes, governance voters, asset holders, and the software developers writing the code. Our analysis reveals a complex picture. While crypto ecosystems have largely become more decentralized over time as they mature, recent trends show worrying shifts toward centralization in specific areas, such as the consensus layer (mining pools), NFT marketplaces, and core developer teams.
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Why is it important?
As cryptocurrency plays an increasing role in facilitating global economic transactions, measuring its core value proposition, decentralization, is essential for regulators, investors, and users. This work is unique and timely because it moves beyond theoretical debates and single snapshots in time. It is the first systematic, longitudinal empirical analysis of decentralization trends across the lifespan of major ecosystems. Prior studies often focus on only one metric at one specific time. By evaluating five different layers of the ecosystem simultaneously, our framework highlights critical nuances; it reveals how a blockchain can be decentralizing in asset ownership while simultaneously centralizing in technical development. This research provides policymakers and practitioners with a replicable, evidence-based foundation to understand the actual structural risks and health of crypto ecosystems, informing better design and regulation.
Perspectives
In the highly polarized environment surrounding crypto, narratives often outpace facts. Industry proponents frequently tout decentralization as an achieved fact, while critics argue it is an illusion. Our perspective, derived from rigorous data analysis, is that the reality is far more dynamic and nuanced than either extreme suggests. Through this research, we realized that decentralization is not a static endpoint but a continuous process characterized by evolving push-and-pull forces. Seeing the data reveal that an ecosystem can successfully decentralize its network layer over a decade, only to see power re-centralize among a small group of developers later on, was striking. We believe the industry must move away from treating decentralization as a buzzword and towards treating it as a measurable, fluctuating metric that requires constant vigilance to maintain. We hope this framework grounds future debates in empirical evidence rather than ideology.
Harang Ju
Johns Hopkins University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Are Crypto Ecosystems (De)centralizing? A Framework for Longitudinal Analysis, Communications of the ACM, November 2025, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3737446.
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