Contrary to popular belief, cryptocurrencies are not decentralized: they depend on central structures run by big business gatekeepers who exploit the labor of low-wage workers, writes Business Insider.

“The market has a colonialist mindset” focused on making money, and even though cryptocurrencies strive to be decentralized, the market is already becoming “re-centralized.” It’s not an equal investment opportunity for everyone,” says researcher Katherine Flick.

The vast cryptoworld, which includes blockchain-backed technologies such as digital currencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), internet organizations, video games, meta-universes and the next-generation Web3 internet, has a feature such as a “colonialist mindset” that relies on central structures and the labor of low-wage workers.

In the figurative comparison of Flick, a researcher at De Montfort University’s School of Computer Science and Informatics, “it’s like these people are sailing ships on the sea to get there first, plant their flags and make money.” But this is done at the expense of the people who do the basic work and are less likely to make the same profit, but more likely to be exploited. In doing so, they don’t realize what they are getting into.

Workers, she said, like some of the artists behind digital token collections – NFTs – are paid less than their fair share of profits.

Flick, who owns research on ethics in video games and technological innovation, is among the outspoken critics of cryptoassets who have warned investors against the hype. Dan Olson, another cryptocurrency critic who posted a YouTube post with a video about NFT that has racked up 6 million views, called cryptocurrency “the biggest scam for fools” whose ideals are “deeply destructive to the fabric of our society.”

Another cryptoskeptic, Molly White, who runs a satirical Twitter account (NYSE:TWTR) called “Web3 works just fine,” remarked, “Nothing says ‘decentralization’ like one company controlling the most expensive and most popular NFT collections.”

Flick gave the example of NFT exchanges, where buyers and sellers can trade digital tokens – collectibles: if this market were truly decentralized, it would be easy for people to sell NFTs on their own.

“We see centralization because people need it to be easy to use and they need to be able to see what’s being sold, they need a nice user interface because they don’t understand it. They probably don’t care for the most part,” she said. – You don’t need to know how your machine works to operate it.”

As you know, one of the key tenets of cryptocurrencies is that they are “decentralized” because no one person, company or government controls them. But this could just be a ruse, as we are seeing the centralization of so many theoretically decentralized things.

In 2021, the market capitalization of bitcoins and other tokens surpassed $3 trillion in 2021 before declining and NFT sales topped $40 billion.

But Flick is negative about the possibility of making good money from it: she warns investors – be careful with such investments, they will inevitably collapse.

“The people who will benefit are those who entered this market before anyone else.”