Accidental Centralization: Pitfalls of Blockchain-Based Project Architectures

Making use of blockchain in complex projects in ways which scale and keep costs down can lead to very complex architectural patterns. The problem with such patterns is that it is very easy to set up a system that only seems decentralized but, in fact, operates under a degraded trust model or is even centralized in practice. Using a blockchain to implement a centralized system represents a grotesque waste of computational resources for no benefit at all. This paper analyzes several cases of such architectural malfunction and shows how degraded trust can occur, how to detect it, and how to respond to this issue.