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Now I'm no crypto-currency expert, but from the outside looking in it seems like: In theory Bitcoin is worth $10k each or whatever it is now, but in actuality it's only worth whatever arbitrary limits the various 'exchanges' set on real-money withdraws? So how is this "decentralized"? There's still a semi-central location you have to go to in order to get any real, actual currency out of it.

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Transactions in bitcoin, eg sending a bitcoin from one wallet to another, occur on the blockchain and are decentralized. The fiat value of bitcoin, however, is determined by supply and demand for that bitcoin-fiat cross, just like anything else in open markets. That trading for these crosses occur on the exchanges.

> There's still a semi-central location you have to go to in order to get any real, actual currency out of it

This is definitely still the case. The exchanges themselves, though, could potentially be implemented via blockchain. This would likely reduce transaction costs and could make them more secure. In this case the would actually be decentralized.

Once you have some cryptocurrency in your wallet, you don't go to the exchanges to do transactions. All transactions on the blockchain are done in a decentralised way without a 3rd party.

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