Decentralization is the transfer of control of an activity or organization to several local offices or authorities rather than one single one, and is the fundamental aspect of blockchain technology. It requires individual users to participate in the network therein creating an active community instead of functioning as viewers and/or consumers of information.  

At one point in time, the internet was a revolutionary phenomenon paving the way for an online global network that made information more accessible than ever. Internet users gained access to information through static pages – such as Yahoo, making them “consumers” of the available information. Following that, internet users were able to create content on their own through platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Today, with decentralization, we are shaping the future by giving users the ability to be creators and owners of their intellectual property, digital assets, and data. Blockchain is the primary agent making decentralization possible and this technology is a peer-to-peer, open-sourced network where information is validated through the community and stored on a distributed ledger.

For instance, the majority of internet users use applications and platforms by signing in using their email addresses. The equivalent of an email address in a decentralized world is a crypto wallet. The main difference between a crypto wallet and an email address is that when using a crypto wallet to log into a dApp, you use the dApp anonymously. In contrast, your email has a direct connection to your real identity.

According to Statista, there are currently 5 billion internet users, 4,70 billion of which are social media users. This means that the total addressable market for decentralization is at least 5 billion, and this number is still increasing with the internet becoming more accessible worldwide.

As we compared having an email address to having a crypto wallet, we further dove in to find out that there are currently 300 million individual crypto wallets worldwide from earthweb.com. These decentralized platforms and cryptocurrencies are mostly used by the classic early-adopter demographics consisting of young, “digital-native” users and those with high technical proficiency.

As seen in the chart above, we are still in the “early adopters” phase of decentralization. The introduction to the internet and then later emailing also went through a similar adoption process.

In 2000, the total number of internet users was 300 million. In just 2 years, the number of users doubled.

When the “early majority” phase starts, the adoption of new technology accelerates significantly. Based on these two points, it can be argued that new technology adoption is about to pick up speed and that it will be widely used across the globe.

Anyone with an internet connection and a cryptocurrency wallet, can be part of decentralization  with the help of blockchain. When using different online applications, users can receive complete control of their digital identities and can benefit from using private keys to maintain the security of their data and identity.

As decentralization starts to migrate from the early adopter phase to a greater mass usage, we question what kind of innovations will be possible with millions joining decentralization? Read our upcoming blog posts as we unveil the top 17 trends in decentralization.

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