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RE: Inflation, Centralization, and DPoS
In a theoretical sandbox world these ideas have merit, but when talking about a live blockchain there are additional factors that change the whole picture. Some of which are:
- BP's have operational costs. If an organization would put the same amount of funds into buying tokens from the market, they would achieve the same result as BP's producing blocks. This nullifies the effect BP's gains have on the network.
- Currently BP's are the best candidates for worker proposal funds, since they have the most expertise. By itself this is a good thing, but if we prohibit them from applying for these funds, we will end up paying more for an inferior result.
In regards to your second point - I think I would argue that while currently BPs are the best candidates for some of these funds - not all of the best candidates for these funds make good BPs. This happens in all DPoS, Steem and EOS included.
If a system like we're talking about was created, you'd end up seeing some of those who are currently BPs close out the block production side of their organization and move to the other side. It would be a smart move on their behalf. They are still rewarded for what they do, competing in the same way, are good at what they do, elected by the community, and give value (in the form of work) back into the system.
The difference is they are just no longer in control of consensus in the same way. The most critical role of a block producer is to actually produce blocks and keep the system running. Anything beyond that in which BPs choose to engage in, for the betterment of the DPOS chain in question, is "extra" in order to stand out in the competition.
A worker proposal system, whether this, or any other, provides an alternative to non-technical teams who don't need to be in charge of consensus.
I agree with you, in what you are saying, but it reinforces what I was saying - that if we prohibit BP's from entering the worker proposal market, we lose out on a lot of good stuff being made.
I would reduce the worker proposal funds to 1% and burn what has been gathered at the time when the worker proposals system goes live (so we don't have a pile of money waiting to be used, but would have to carefully consider every proposal)
... and I would not make any limitations on who could participate, because this creates a risk only in a sandbox environment where there are no expenses for producing blocks (or employing people to write code/host events/promote/etc).
I see the point - but I don't think there would be anything stopping them from still making good stuff and competing in the same ways they are now. When BPs have either excess time or funding, I'd like to think it's their obligation to then figure out the best ways to reinvest that back into the ecosystem. But when a situation arises, block producers need to rise up to the challenge, dropping their own projects, to make sure the network remains operational.
Here on Steem, despite my current personal status as a producer, I still perform this function. The "value-add" of my time/work has dwindled due to a lack in the aforementioned time/funding, but I still fill my primary role here. Steem could likely also benefit from the same setup, since arguably some elected witnesses aren't interested and/or technical enough to engage - it's just not as critical since the majority of inflation goes to those not in control of consensus.
EOS on the other hand, technically has all inflation going to Block Producers. Something has to offset it.
Just as an example, under this proposed system within EOS - Greymass would continue to still be a block producer first and foremost, but second to that we'd continue to offer our infrastructure support, research, end-user application development, and all the other initiatives we choose to take on in addition to our primary responsibility. The time/funding currently exists for us to do that in addition to what we're fundamentally responsible for.
If we didn't want to focus on block production or governance, and instead say we wanted to build a for-profit dapp company, we'd just switch to becoming an elected "worker", rather than a block producer. It's the same elected structure and branding initiatives, we'd just no longer be in charge of consensus.
This creates that duality needed to offset the inflation flowing already to block producers.
In the end, I really don't think we'd lose out on anything. If anything, we'd gain something, since there would be an entirely new set of elected organizations theoretically providing new value into the system. For existing block producers - it provides a choice to them on whether they want to focus on their product or on the network itself.
I'm actually working on a post really digging into this topic right now - so I definitely appreciate the conversation. It's helping provide a great perspective and things we may have not talked about internally.