By Pritish Beesooa – Head of Blockchain & Web3 Development
The Decentralisation Dream
Decentralisation is the founding myth of Web3. The nervous system of crypto architecture. A folklore to recount how our perception of value changed. It promises an escape from the surveillance economies of Big Tech, a reconfiguration of trust in the digital age, and a dismantling of top-down power structures. In this utopian dream, intermediaries dissolve, control is returned to users, and a new kind of democratic infrastructure emerges — one governed not by CEOs or states, but by code, consensus and accountability.
It’s a compelling story. But like all powerful myths, it demands interrogation. Not just through the lens of technology, but through the disciplines that have long studied power, trust, and human behaviour — sociology, psychology, anthropology, political theory, and behavioural economics.
Because the deeper question isn’t just “is Web3 decentralised?”
It’s: Can decentralisation ever be truly achieved — and if so, for whom?
From Technical Design to Social Practice
Technologically, decentralisation refers to the distribution of power across nodes, eliminating the need for central authorities. The inmates running the asylum so to speak. But decentralisation is not a purely technical condition. It is also a social and political structure, which means it is subject to all the complexities of human behaviour.
French sociologist Bruno Latour reminds us that “technology is society made durable.” In other words, every protocol, blockchain, or DAO encodes social values, whether consciously or not. Code may be law, as Lawrence Lessig argued, but law — and code — always serve someone.
So, when we talk about decentralisation, we’re not just talking about network topologies or token mechanics. We are talking about power, governance, participation, and legitimacy — themes long studied outside of computer science and crucial to understanding the reality behind the rhetoric.
The Centralisation of Value and Attention
Bitcoin was born out of the 2008 financial crisis at a moment when trust in institutions had collapsed. But over a decade later, Bitcoin’s supply is highly concentrated. As of 2024, more than 80% of it is held by fewer than 2% of wallets. This is not an anomaly — it is the expected outcome of Pareto distribution, a phenomenon observed in wealth, media attention, and even biological systems, where power consolidates among a few.
Anthropologist David Graeber, in his work on debt and social hierarchies, noted that any system of value exchange — no matter how radical in origin — inevitably reverts to patterns of stratification unless checked by social mechanisms. Bitcoin may have no central bank, but it now has its own class of untouchable holders, and its own logic of extraction.
Likewise, DeFi (Decentralised Finance) platforms often operate more like high-frequency casinos than inclusive systems of financial liberation. Behavioural economists such as Dan Ariely and Richard Thaler have shown that markets are not rational — they are emotionally reactive, herd-driven, and reward-seeking. Crypto is no exception. Decentralised infrastructure does not mean decentralised access to risk information or informed consent.
So, what are we decentralising, really — power, or just protocol?
The Illusion of Open Access
Web3 prides itself on being “open” — anyone can participate. But participation is not the same as inclusion. Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of “cultural capital,” access to knowledge, jargon, and digital literacy acts as a kind of gatekeeper. The average user cannot meaningfully contribute to a DAO or smart contract economy without significant technical, financial, and cultural fluency.
Open source does not mean egalitarian. It often produces new hierarchies, more opaque than the ones it replaces.
Anthropologically, decentralised systems often replicate what James C. Scott called “infra-political orders” — informal, decentralised systems that still maintain internal control through trust networks, subtle power brokers, and reputation economies. In short: power adapts. It always does.
Decentralisation as Deregulation
A more uncomfortable critique arises when decentralisation becomes a way to evade accountability. We’ve seen this repeatedly: rug pulls, DeFi exploits, and toxic communities where no one is responsible because “it’s decentralised.” This is decentralisation as deregulation — not freedom, but abandonment
The late philosopher Zygmunt Bauman might call this “liquid modernity” — systems that melt responsibility and dissolve ethical clarity. In this context, decentralised platforms become arenas of moral ambiguity. Who moderates? Who governs? Who protects the user?
The absence of central authority does not equal the presence of justice. Justice, like security, must be designed.
The Inconvenient Truth: Total Decentralisation May Be Impossible
Even within highly distributed networks, decision-making often consolidates. This is not just technical — it’s behavioural. Research into coordination theory and game theory shows that large groups default to leaders, narratives, and simplified heuristics to reduce cognitive load.
True decentralisation requires active participation, which clashes with what behavioural psychology calls “rational apathy” — when the cost of action outweighs perceived benefits. This explains why most token holders do not vote in DAO proposals, or why governance is captured by whales and insiders.
Even the most open protocols drift toward oligarchy by design.
So What Now? Ethics, Not Ideology
If we accept that perfect decentralisation is a myth, we can begin to pursue something more meaningful: intentional decentralisation — guided by ethical frameworks, human-centred design, and interdisciplinary wisdom.
That means asking:
- Does the system include marginal voices, or just early insiders?
- Is governance legible, or hidden behind tokenomics and pseudocode?
- Are communities equipped to make informed decisions, or is it governance theatre?
- Are we decentralising for freedom — or simply for speculative advantage?
Web3 has the tools to build better systems. But tools alone don’t build trust. Ethics do.
Conclusion: Building with Conscious Complexity
Decentralisation is not a destination rather it is a process, fraught with contradiction. It can empower, but it can also obscure. It can democratise, but it can also concentrate. And unless we interrogate its assumptions through sociology, anthropology, behavioural science, and political philosophy, we will continue to mistake structure for justice.
Web3’s challenge is no longer technical. It is civic.
It is about reimagining governance, responsibility, and the collective good in a world shaped by protocols. Because without care, without consciousness, and without critique, decentralisation won’t save us. It will simply rebrand the same powers we thought we were escaping.
