Decentralized is a term used in the cryptocurrencies field. It is key to understand it in order to fully understand this world
Definition of Decentralized
Decentralized (or decentralization) is one of the biggest aspects of cryptocurrencies and aims to remove any central command or control on the currency. The main goal is to avoid to have any party in control of the currency, the way it is created, processed and distributed. In fact, it means that the nobody (no individuals, companies, government, etc...) owns and controls the processing and the data (i.e. the blockchain) and that nobody can take this ownership. It is implemented by distributing and opening the processing of the currency to anyone (any individual or organisation can join the processing network - thus being a node). The blockchain supporting the currency is therefore public and any transactions must then be approved by the consensus applied which, when there is enough distinct nodes, protects the blockchain from any hi-jack or manipulation. Note: not all cryptocurrencies or tokens are decentralized or not enough to be fully secure - one should check this before doing any investments
Decentralized is related to
Decentralized financeDecentralized applicationsDeFi (Decentralized Finance)NodeBlockchainConsensus51% attacks
See more: Cryptonyms glossary