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RE: Thoughts on Fork 22.5 - The Empire Strikes Back
I think the exchanges voting with customer funds and Justin Sun misusing his power is the problem not the DPOS system in general. Or in other words also democracy has the same problem. If almost nobody goes to vote, then a few votes are enough to change the entire system. We and the whole crypto community can learn a lot from this case. Hope we can somehow deescalate the situation, save Steem and make it more decentralized in the future.
I disagree, in fact, you have pretty much pointed out why DPoS is the problem. No PoS or PoW chain, even if they are flawed, can be controlled so easily. Democracy is flawed, but it works in most of the modern world because there are laws and constitutions to mitigate its flaws as much as possible. With DPoS, the constitution is so bad that it can't prevent a simple exploit to complete control.
That is not to say that Justin Sun and exchanges haven't done something terrible - of course they have - but this simply wouldn't have been possible on a PoW or PoS chain. (Yes, again, I know, they can be attacked too, but nothing quite so simple and permanent)
A similar attack is also possible on PoW chains (51% attack and/or controlling the big mining pools, but it is more difficult because the chain is secured not just with money but also real hardware), similar attacks exists obviously on all Proof of Stake chains, when exchanges and/or one single investor controls the majority of stake they control the chain. Similar problem in democracy. Hence it is so important to go voting, both in RL and also on DPOS systems to mitigate the attack. There were also other mitigation mechanisms discussed by the Steem witnesses, like reducing the number of Witness votes, having a power down-period of several weeks or months, and removing voting rights for the ninja-mined stake (SF 22.2).
Like I said, PoW and PoS can be attacked too, but it's very, very difficult, and even if they do, it's very temporary. There's no comparison, it's a totally different thing. Also, with measures like the slashing mechanism in Ethereum's upcoming 2.0 PoS system, it's actually impossible.
In short, what just happened with Steem will be impossible outside of DPoS, at least a chain of Steem's size. Other consensus mechanisms have flaws, but nothing anywhere near as dire as this.
Agree, a big chain like Ethereum with PoS and Slashing is much more secure than a small chain with DPoS like Steem, but there are still take over risks with PoS systems too if an attacker has the majority of stake and nodes. The current attack on DPoS can also be temporary, if the community can find a solution and fork or negotiate out of the situation.