# Gavin Andresen
# 2012-01-25 19:46:10
# https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60984.msg712598#msg712598

Decentralized systems often settle into some kind of "power law distribution." @p{par}

For example, there's no central authority determining how large cities all over the world should be, and yet if you plot the size of cities you'll see that there are a few REALLY big ones, a bunch of medium sized ones, and a gazillion small ones. @p{par}

Plot the size of the bitcoin mining pools and I think you'll see the same thing. @p{par}

If there were no mining pools, then plot the hashing power of individual miners and I bet you'd see the same thing... (ArtForz used to be a significant fraction of mining power all by himself, for example) @p{par}

I worry a lot more about incentives than I do size; if the "naturally big" players have the right incentives, then they're not bad for the network. So far, I think the incentives are working nicely. For example, people HAVE tried to knock out the big mining pools and exchanges using denial-of-service attacks, and the big mining pools and exchanges have (as far as I can tell) worked to fix that problem themselves. @p{par}

PS: p2pool built into a bitcoin client is something I'd fully support, I think a lot of people would like a one-button "get a trickle of bit-pennies" option. @p{brk}