The blockchain and the distributed registry technology allow us to solve the problem of certification of the transaction chain, without using a centralized system, to a trusted third party.
The term “decentralized”, frequently used to refer to the blockchain or its applications, does not seem entirely appropriate to refer to the blockchain architecture. Indeed, decentralization is a movement from the center to subentities. In political science, for example, decentralization is a process by which entities, generally local, are given their own powers previously held by a central power, unlike deconcentration, a process by which the central power delegates powers at the local level to its representatives.
The blockchain architecture is not decentralized; it is part ab initio of parallel centralized or partially decentralized models, so the terms “distributed” or “non-centralized” seem more appropriate. The term “non-centralized” was preferred for this book because it explicitly marks an alternative to a centralized model and avoids a debate that has no place in this book between decentralized and distributed systems.
This typology, which is very frequently used not only on blogs [EAG 17] but also in books on the blockchain [RAV 16], is generally associated with a diagram that presents the difference between centralization, decentralization, and distribution, based on a book by Paul Baran on distributed systems [BAR 62].
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