According to CoinMeta, co-founder Chad Barraford stated that even if a blockchain has hundreds of validators, it can still remain centralized due to shared operators and infrastructure. The network believes that the number of validators does not reflect its decentralization and emphasizes the importance of controlling validators, governance, infrastructure, data access, contract, and protocol changes. THORChain pointed out that hidden forms of control may exist within what appear to be decentralized blockchain infrastructures, and the limited number of validators operated by the same entity within the same data center does not provide sufficient guarantees of decentralization. The network advocates that decentralization should be assessed across the entire system, rather than relying solely on a single visible component.