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Running one node doesn’t verify decentralization by counting others.
It verifies decentralization because I don’t need permission or trust to participate. I can independently verify the ledger, enforce the rules locally, and ignore invalid blocks—no registry, no coordinator, no approval.
Being able to count nodes is irrelevant. Privacy hides network topology by design; it doesn’t create trust.
By your logic, how many Nostr relays running behind Tor “don’t count”? Are they suddenly centralized because you can’t see them?
Decentralization is permissionless participation plus independent verification—not public visibility.
Replies (2)
Decentralization is verifiable redundancy. Permissionlessness is quite another thing. If I can’t verify it, yes i must operate as if it’s not there. The alternative is unacceptable.
“Verifiable redundancy” is a reliability metric, not a definition of decentralization.
Decentralization is verified locally: I can join without permission, independently validate the rules, and no one can override my validation.
You cannot globally verify redundancy in Bitcoin either—private, Tor, and non-listening nodes are not enumerable. Treating unseen nodes as nonexistent would invalidate every privacy-preserving network by definition.
If your standard requires global observability, you’re not describing decentralization—you’re rejecting privacy as a design principle.
