Binance has been in the new a lot the last couple of weeks and the news has not been to great. While Binance has been able to duck and dodge a lot of regulatory issues the last few years, except for in the US, the tides seem to have turned against them. Initially known for being the worlds largest exchange that has changed over the last year with the immense success of the Binance Smart Chain. This success for the most part also has had several large hacks that lost people tens of millions of dollars increasing scrutiny of the company.
Before the success of BSC the issues Binance would run into where easy for them to shake off. However last year when DeFi exploded and the price of transactions on the Ethereum Chain went to the moon BSC came in with its much much cheaper transaction fees and exploded in usage. Since I live in the US and I was still learning DeFi and everything about it I did not make the pretty simple switch over. I wanted to learn more about the chain and how it functioned first and go from there.
What I learned..... I was not a fan of.
At the end of the day for myself at least I thoroughly enjoy the decentralized aspect of crypto and while I might use a centralized exchange to purchase crypto I only do that for peace of mind. As much as people were yelling to change over to BSC I couldn't help but get more turned off from it. How could these people who claim to love decentralization be championing a centralized blockchain. I just found so much irony in DeFi..... Decentralized Finance on a centralized network!
With only 11 validators who choosing the validators for the day it is hard to argue it isn't one of the most centralized chain out there. Even with staking their BNB it is easy for a few to switch and thus do irreparable damage to the chains image. I would have thought we would have seen them open themselves up to more validators or a different system entirely from what they have but that has not been the case. The major governments around the world are centralized power structures. Banks and finance overall are the exact same way and these two groups work together.
Do people really think that they would let Binance get away with becoming a new powerful centralized structure?
You would have to be crazy to think that and everything that has been happening I think proves it. From Malta saying Binance is not authorized to operate in it and the Cayman Islands saying they were not located there Binance's days as being the place with no headquarters could end up with it being the place that isn't allowed to operate anywhere. Both in the West and now in the East governments are zeroing in on this company and its chain. Governments want their cut and right now Binance is able to operate and not pay its share really to any government. With Japan, Poland, China, Canada, Thailand, the UK and the US now investigating Binance in some way shape or form the centralized structure that they have utilized is in trouble.
To survive or at least for their chain to survive Binance and CZ will have to decentralize it just like Ethereum is. If not in some way shape or form the chain will end up falling apart as people leave it and it will be no more. BSC has the ability to be a really useful tool and place for DeFi to occur but like everything in life it has to evolve and change. Right now its not doing that and like other things that do not evolve it will end up falling which would be a shame. I would hope that over the next few weeks as things continue to deteriorate the correct call will be made to preserve the advancements that BSC has. To try and hold on and thus destroy it only leads to more people being turned off from blockchain and cryptocurrency.
