On the Straightedge Genesis Block
Now just 5 days away from the genesis block being validated, we’re providing today an overall progress update on the Straightedge Project.
We’ll begin with a bit of detail on how the genesis blocks for Straightedge and Edgeware will differ in regard to distribution, and why (in addition to being an ideological divide) Generalized Locks are of major statistical significance.
First, we have successfully calculated the proposed genesis distribution for Straightedge, using the data from Edgeware’s lockdrop. This will honor the commitments made when Straightedge launched — and will distribute 90% of all STR to locks and signals from wallets, and will not allocate any STR to signals from contracts, including Generalized Locks.
As a result, most participants will have a significantly greater share of STR (~14.5% more STR than they will receive EDG in absolute terms) in this alternative distribution. This increment is due to the fact that participants will not be getting diluted by signals from contracts.
By the numbers, lock-statistics appear small at first-glance: There are only been 4 contract signals from the victims of the Parity multisig wallets, the most obvious candidates for Generalized locks. Focusing on the amount of ETH in these locks and the generalized lock rules though, the issues at hand become evident:
The largest wallet alone would account for 97.2% of ETH participating in Generalized Locks, and from the moment the network is live, this Lock alone would account for a total of 8.9% of total tokens and voting power on across the network. When combined with the Founder’s additional reward for Web3 Foundation, the two entities together would control 11.9% of voting power held on the Edgeware chain.
The result is, as stated in a previous post, an initial token distribution that favors a powerful few, and one that will pre-shape the future of the EDG ecosystem.
Once more, our goal is the wider token-distribution that maintains the decentralization of permissionless blockchain protocols as originally envisioned by the Commonwealth Labs team before the Generalized Lock policy was added just two days prior to the start of the Lockdrop process.
Secondly, to both incentivize participation from founding teams and to give the community further decision-making ability, we’ve opted to vest the “founder’s reward” over a period of three months, and to maintain the distribution for Commonwealth Labs (4.5%) and Parity Technologies (3%) from the Edgeware Chain. All community-members who have helped to bring the Straightedge Project to life will split the remaining 2.5%, while a portion of each block reward will refill the community pool over a period of time.
On the subject of test-nets, we’ve been closely monitoring the progress on Edgeware channels, and now encourage all validators that plan to validate both chains to indicate their participation in Straightedge by adding an “XX” marker within their validator name or bio. Validators will not need to take any new or separate action when setting up their validator setups, since both chains will be technologically identical at genesis, with only having distribution being remedied.
To learn more about how to be a validator at launch, join the conversation in the Straightedge #validators channel on Discord.
Finally, we invite you to join us by participating in the Straightedge Project. Whether you’re a developer, potential validator or delegator, a hobbyist or you’re just interested in learning more and helping out, join us on Discord, follow us on Twitter and find out more at the Straightedge website.
xx,
SE Team
*Thanks to Byzantine Battalion member Bertrand Étienne for correcting a statistical error on the total percentage of toke allocation and voting power allotted to the Web3 Foundation.
