Helius CEO Mert Explains Decentralization and Coordination Costs

Huo Xing Cai Jing reports that Mert, CEO of Helius, Solana’s infrastructure development platform, posted on X that decentralization is fundamentally “coordination without a central authority.” If coordination costs approach zero, it is effectively centralized; if coordination costs are infinitely high, it cannot technically be called decentralized, as the system would be unable to function. Mert illustrates this perspective with a thought experiment: imagine an extremely decentralized blockchain today, with hundreds of thousands of nodes running at home, distributed mining power, and a distributed token supply. He then proposes another extreme scenario— if North Korea could transfer funds from Wallet A to Wallet B within time T, it would be equivalent to that chain being able to simultaneously detonate nuclear weapons in most countries worldwide. Finally, suppose this blockchain successfully freezes the funds in Wallet A via a fork without causing mass casualties. Is this blockchain still decentralized? Mert argues that although humans are able to coordinate due to the shared incentive of “not dying,” this does not mean the chain is “unorganized.” Decentralization remains fundamentally “coordination without a central authority.”