In the terminology of Paul Baran's 1964 paper on distributed networks the importance of topology in network design is the ability of communications to withstand the loss of a certain number of nodes. A centralized (star) network will fail with the loss of one node. A distributed (mesh) network is more resilient. A hybrid of these systems is considered decentralized.

As a money Bitcoin forms a social graph. Only a person can decide to accept one money or another in trade. A set of people sharing the same definition for a money is referred to as a consensus. Authority in a monetary system is the power to define the money. Bitcoin is a tool that people can use to defend against the tendency toward authority, in order to preserve their agreement and therefore utility in the money.

In distributed systems terminology a Bitcoin "node" is a person and the system is money. It does not matter how many machines the person controls, the loss of that person is a loss of a node in the system (including all of the person's machines). A centralized money cannot withstand the loss of one person. If that one person changes their rules, the original money ceases to exist. As shown in Risk Sharing Principle, Bitcoin relies on decentralization to allow people to resist authority. This decentralization makes the money more able to withstand the loss of more people when faced with state attacks. A loss in this sense is the refusal of the person to trade in the money.