Brief EOS 2018 Review
With a Surprise!
Six Months In
From launch to leader in almost six months to the day, the EOS community has the fastest blockchain, with the most activity, highest rate of dApp creation on its’ platform and multiple side chains based on the same code. Hundreds of people have participated in hundreds of online discussion meetups and conferences, logging in hundreds of hours of learning and sharing everything EOS. And that doesn’t count the plethora of vloggers and bloggers. It’s almost too much to keep up with. If you are excited about decentralization and what these developments represent, you realize we are at the eve of something very significant.
Block one has developed the Rex, our wallet software is coming soon. You can have it fast, cheap, or quality pick two. We have chosen to build a quality app so it is taking longer.
Daniel Larimer — CTO of Block.One — October 30, 2018 — Telegram
This is a statement coming from someone who has released software for the top 4 most active blockchains in history by significant margins. EOS, BTS and STEEM are Dan’s creations and WAX is a copy of the EOSIO software running on a separate chain.
For those of you unfamiliar with “Rex”, the Resource Exchange is where developers creating distributed apps on the EOS blockchain can go to lease space on the network and where EOS token holders can earn a passive income securely leasing out their tokens without selling. Now in addition to the Chintai Team we have more options to earn passive income on our tokens. WIN|WIN|WIN
The wallet that Dan is referring to is a hardware wallet based on the biometric data(fingerprint and face ID) already collected from your phone and stored in a special highly secure configuration where it is isolated from any applications running on your device. If there is something un-hackable in this world of spy or be spied, that is it and that is where your private keys will be stored securing your funds. It’s difficult to image a more secure and more convenient place to store your most crucial information than something that has been the focus of so much security scrutiny and that already sits in peoples pockets and homes today. The significance of the use of this technology in the context of a peer to peer ecosystem to uniquely and positively identify ourselves to each other with cryptographic proof cannot be overstated, but let’s just say it’s a game changer of epic proportions, to the point of saying it could change the way we assemble and govern ourselves as humans.
So What are we Missing?
Those are just a few of the developments and things headed our way. But what are we missing? How about a constitution, a governing document, an agreement, a contract…whatever you want to call the thing that binds us all together into the EOS ecosystem? Yes it’s true, EOS has a temporary Constitution that the community has wanted to change since launch but we haven’t had the mechanism to do so. Well, Happy New Year to us all, it’s right around the corner and it appears we are weeks if not days away from having the ability to vote for referendums including a new governing document!
EOSVOTES.IO
Check the EOSVOTES.IO website for when referendum voting goes live as well as your favorite wallet which may already be enabling you to vote against the test network while we wait for the official release of EOS referendum voting. Ok, we’ve got a referendum system coming soon!
What about the Constitution?
Now that we have the means to change the constitution, the next big question is how to change the contents of the Constitution itself to a governing document that functions within the context of Delegated Proof of Stake(DPOS)?
There has been much discussion regarding the governance of the EOS blockchain which operates under the DPOS consensus model. If you are not familiar with DPOS, you can read my article here or watch this video. The basic idea behind DPOS is that token holders hold the power within the system and have the ability to delegate that power to the teams of expert block producers elected thru their vote which is weighted proportionally to the amount of tokens they hold. So if a block producer is not performing to their standards they have the right to vote for another block producer that they believe will perform in alignment with their incentives as a token holder. Block Producer Candidates want to produce blocks and receive rewards so they will do what they perceive to be positive in the eyes of token holders. The idea is that token holders will vote in block producers that will bring and maintain value to the system creating a positive value feedback loop. That’s DPOS in a nutshell.
What Standards, What Criteria, What Constitution?
What are we talking about when we say,
if a block producer is not performing to their standards they have the right to vote for another block producer
What precisely is a block producer supposed to do? What defines their role? How do we as token holders know if they are doing their job? As a block producer, how do I know what is expected of me; how will I know how to perform? On what criteria am I being judged to gain a token holders vote?
That is the role of any constitution or governing document as we will call it. It is to define the relationship between parties to an agreement. Ok, who are the parties?
- Token Holders & Block Producers
On one side of that relationship we have token holders who have traded something of value for the right to access the resources of the EOS blockchain. Remember, EOS is just a giant distributed computer system where the EOS token entitles you to a pro rata share of processing, bandwidth, and storage; just like you have a CPU, internet connectivity and disk storage on your computer connected to the internet.
On the other side of that relationship we have block producers who have invested capital and labor to produce blocks, validate transactions, and generally add value to the network in hopes of the opportunity to receive rewards in the form of the EOS tokens.
Strengthen The Feedback Loop
So what currently defines that relationship? Well, you can read the current EOS Constitution here. It won’t take long to take a brief look if you are not familiar, and that’s the point. It’s quite brief and not very detailed which has left a lot of block producers and token holders confused as to what is the criteria upon which we should be judging block producer performance to gain our vote?
Defining a clear relationship between stakeholders is the key to any agreement. Defining a clear set of expectations of what block producers are supposed to be doing is a key to making governance function within the DPOS system. What the EOS blockchain needs is a governing document that makes reasonably clear what block producers should and should not be doing.
A well defined governing document is the key to creating a positive value feedback loop between token holders and block producers.Surprise!
That is why I have written a governing document;
- to clearly yet reasonably define the role of block producers that informs the vote of token holders.
- to create a governing document that a reasonable person of reasonable intelligence, but without specific knowledge of the technology, reasonably and generally deduce what we are doing and not doing.
- to define the landscape to which we are all operating upon.
- to strengthen the feedback loop between token holders and block producers.
Please read the Forward of the proposal here…
Please read the Full Text of the EOS Rules, Rights, and Reasonings here…
