Routes to decentralization

There are systems that pre-date blockchain and Bitcoin, including BitTorrent and the Gnutella file-sharing system, which to a certain degree could be classified as decentralized, but due to a lack of any incentivization mechanism, participation from the community gradually decreased. There wasn't any incentive to keep the users interested in participating in the growth of the network. With the advent of blockchain technology, many initiatives are being taken to leverage this new technology to achieve decentralization. The Bitcoin blockchain is typically the first choice for many, as it has proven to be the most resilient and secure blockchain and has a market cap of nearly $800 billion at the time of writing. Other blockchains, such as Ethereum, serve as the tool of choice for many developers for building decentralized applications. Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum has become a more prominent choice because of the flexibility it allows for programming any...