[Cryptography] Spam (15.422): Decentralized Vs Distributed Blockchain

[Dennis E. Hamilton]

-----Original Message-----
From: cryptography [mailto:cryptography-bounces+dennis.hamilton=acm.org at metzdowd.com] On Behalf Of Francisco Hernández Parga
Sent: Monday, January 8, 2018 09:22
To: cryptography at metzdowd.com
Subject: Spam (15.422):[Cryptography] Decentralized Vs Distributed Blockchain

Which aspects of the Blockchain or DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) can be centralized, decentralized or distributed?

[orcmid]
  It may be useful to look at ALGORAND, an approach evangelized by Silvio Micali.  It uses a novel approach to Byzantine Agreement (BA) to operate in a distributed manner.  I think the agreement on the next block can be described as decentralized.  

There are some good videos that a search on "ALGORAND" will turn up.  A current paper is available at Arxiv, <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.01341.pdf>.

What is daunting for me is the apparent commercialization effort and the list of patent applications that have been submitted.

I think it is still important to understand the concept.  Also, the comparison of blockchain methodologies is useful.

 - Denis