Decentralization is non-negotiable

There’s no two ways about it, 2022 is a rough year for crypto markets and blockchain startups everywhere. The spectacular collapse of the LUNA/Terra ecosystem, followed closely by the downfall of Voyager, Celsius and 3AC was just a taste of things to come. While the true believer in crypto remained steadfast in their convictions, many investors started losing faith in the industry. It suddenly became clear that most of the top players in the sector are interdependent and when one of them falls, others would surely follow.

The domino effect of faux-decentralization

Roughly six months later, we are witnessing a painfully similar situation, this time with the FTX debacle. The popular centralized exchange was among the world’s top 3 but that didn’t make FTX bulletproof. Sam Bankman-Fried made a serious error in creating reserves with the exchange’s own token, FTT. Once the price of FTT started to tank, liquidity quickly became a problem and that led to a very expected bank run. Shortly after, FTX filed for bankruptcy, which led to even more nasty practices within the company being revealed, including the loss of some $2 billion in user funds. The FTX situation spilled blood in the water attracting regulators calling for stricter controls over the crypto space. Was the downfall of FTX part of a big plan to bring more regulation? We may never know.

What we do know is that centralization is bad for crypto, having witnessed quite a few examples so far. Many of the centralized exchanges and lending platforms have failed to make the right decisions and are now reaping the consequences of their actions. Currently, there are two visible paths before crypto — embracing the upcoming regulation or doubling down on DeFi. From our point of view, the choice is clear.

DeFi has always been the answer

Decentralization was and will always be at the core of the crypto industry. The Bitcoin whitepaper was a direct response to the financial crisis of 2008 when centralized finance failed the people for the nth time. But over the past decade, contrary to Satoshi’s vision, crypto became more and more centralized as CEXes kept gaining more users and assets. In the meantime, decentralized protocols kept on building and evolving, providing people with a viable alternative.

But building DeFi on a centralized blockchain is just as bad as what led to the 2008 crisis in the first place. Take for example the recent launch of the Aptos blockchain and its peculiar tokenomics model. It would be interesting to get a better vision of the Nakamoto Coefficient in terms of tokenomics. Finally, while Solana is having issues due to its centralization, Aptos being presented as a 2.0 of the FTX-supported blockchain can be a cause of some concern.

When the FTX collapse began, the price of APT dropped and it dumped on retail investors because the majority of the tokens are held by the team even to this day. Don’t forget, anything happening on the blockchain is there forever and fully transparent.

In order for crypto to truly find success and break the chains of centralization, the decentralized ecosystem has to be built on a decentralized blockchain. This is where Massa comes in.

True decentralization at scale is achievable with Massa

Massa is a state-of-the-art blockchain that offers unparalleled decentralization but that’s just the start. It single-handedly solves the so-called “blockchain trilemma” by not forcing users to make the painful choice between security, scalability and decentralization. Massa achieves it all through sophisticated technological innovation and provides everyone with a blockchain that has been designed to stand the test of time. With over 8000 nodes already running and the highest Nakamoto coefficient (a measure used to determine the decentralization level of a network) of any blockchain, Massa is always two steps ahead of the competition.

As it became evident from the Aptos example, tokenomics are of utmost importance and even the greatest project can be ruined by bad tokenomics. Massa’s model stays true to the community.

Another example of Massa’s high degree of decentralization is the fact that running a node isn’t a privilege for a small group of individuals. Anyone can run a node. The only requirement to become a node operator is holding a couple of Massa tokens. This makes Massa much more open to the community, lifting the barriers to mass adoption and decentralizing the network even further.

Massa’s mission is true decentralization from Day 1. The Massa blockchain has all the prerequisites for hosting the future of DeFi:

• Thousands of transactions per second
• True decentralization
• Low fees
• Scaled
• Fair tokenomics
• Node accessibility
• Sybil-resistant Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism

Make no mistake, strict regulation is definitely coming to the crypto space but it won’t happen overnight. In the meantime, projects have to be structured in such a way that they can oversee themselves. This goes double for any blockchain that claims it’s decentralized. Massa solves the blockchain trilemma and remains true to its community. Ethereum had the best intentions but it slowly turned into an elitist blockchain with high transaction costs, low scalability and a hefty 32 ETH buy-in requirement just to run your own decentralized node. Today, Massa blockchain provides an alternative where the whole community can take an active role not only in decentralizing the network (at the cost of just a couple of tokens) but also in its future governance.

All of this, paired with some impressive technical features, enable Massa to reach over 10,000 transactions per second and achieve the highest level of security in the space. If crypto really wants to find a new Layer 1 blockchain to call home, Massa is more than up for the challenge. Decentralization is still the future, but it has to be done right from the get-go.

About Massa:

Massa is a high-performance blockchain designed to be truly decentralized from the start. Massa testnet was released in July 2021, providing an easy way for anyone to test our protocol, and has been constantly improving since then.

• Website: massa.net
• Testnet explorer: test.massa.net
• Documentation: https://docs.massa.net/
• Source code and tutorials: github.com/massalabs/massa
• Telegram: t.me/massanetwork
• Discord: discord.gg/massa
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MassaLabs
• Reddit: reddit.com/r/massa/
• Youtube: youtube.com/channel/UChVfdvYpn0eFk4B-T7TGmOg