Why do crypto markets go down with other markets when it's decentralized (beginner)

One question I frequently get asked is "why is crypto going down with everything else, it's supposed to be decentralized".

I think the answer to this is basically to understand what decentralized means. You see, when something is decentralized it means it is neither owned nor controlled by any 1 central entity.

In tech terms this usually means code is restricted, direction is controlled and hosting is kept in 1 place. Think facebook, google or twitter, I can't just go and decide to contribute to those networks, I would need to work for them first.

Now a decentralised project is one where anyone can join in, often this includes some sort of incentivisation, I can help support bitcoin by mining it (keeping the network honest) and as a reward if my mining is successful I get some bitcoin. The important distinction is that this bitcoin is coming directly from the network itself, there is no bitcoin inc. Anyone can buy/sell/hold it and no one can take it away from you (see another post later about wallets)

So why do markets move together (sometimes)? Well, for a standard investor if you want to liquidate some assets and keep cash on the side then the core supply/demand tenant of markets holds true. It doesn't matter who "owns" the project, markets gonna do whats markets gonna do