Has EOS bribery become the norm, or even a business model?

This article from Yahoo! Finance , the original author: Brady Dale

Odaily Planet Daily Translator | Moni

In any governance system, bribery is a big taboo. However, for EOS, a blockchain project that currently ranks eighth in market value, bribery tickets have become a recognized business model.

• Babbitt Exclusive | Staking + DeFi + DAO, the rough collision of complex transactions and simple governance
• Bitcoin's Secret History: How did Satoshi Nakamoto hide his identity on the Internet?
• What are the developments of Libra during the epidemic that deserve attention?

According to a new service launched by EOS, they will make it easier for block producers (BP, nodes elected by EOS token holders) to verify transactions on the network, and also make it easier to share block rewards to those People who voted for them. Planet Jun (WeChat: o-daily) learned that this service called Genpool was launched by GenerEOS this month, and GenerEOS itself is a candidate for block producers on the EOS blockchain.

Long before EOSIO was just an idea, the EOS community started arguing whether delegating proof of stake (DPoS) would lead to verification candidates bribing users to support themselves. However, at the beginning of the project, the EOS community believed that they could effectively prevent such activities. (Planet's Note: EOSIO is software that supports the EOS blockchain. At the time of this writing, the EOS price is approximately $ 4.09 and the market value is more than $ 3.9 billion. And the delegation of proof of stake is a consensus mechanism designed to limit the number of node validators to one Fixed collection.)

"Interesting" is that the EOS community has now changed its word, and they are fully supporting what users call a "voter rebates" model.

GenerEOS stated in the announcement on the Medium platform:

"The Genpool platform can enter the free market ecosystem with zero obstacles, linking the proxy owner with voters who want to support high-quality block producers, and get a certain percentage of additional block producer income in return."

At present, Tim Weston, GenerEOS business strategy partner, has not responded to the matter.

Although EOS has launched similar services in the Asian market, this is the first time in an overseas market, which means that they explicitly tell token holders that they can find the best voting income from block producers-just like Bitcoin Like (BTC) miners, EOS block producers receive newly mined EOS token rewards when recording transactions on the public ledger. In short, the Genpool service "nakedly" allows EOS token holders to get paid and participate in network governance.

Some critics believe that the Genpool service has raised long-standing concerns in the community that the richest people will dominate online governance in a carefully considered governance system, and payment methods will make these wealthier people more Easy to consolidate your position.

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance research team released a report on February 18 stating that if a validator is more than one entity, nothing can stop them from taking action, and the giant whale can easily be in the block Occupying multiple positions on the Producer Management Committee, the likelihood of a Sybil attack will increase. The research team wrote in the report:

"A validator can also register for multiple block producer accounts and increase their voting rights without spending too much. At the same time, entities with multiple block producers can also allocate more block rewards to voters, Which in turn will increase the competitiveness of potential validators. "

In late January 2020, due to the instability of the EOS network, Binance announced that it has temporarily suspended the withdrawal of EOS tokens. At that time, other exchanges (such as Upbit and OKEx) also suspended withdrawal services, which may be due to the release of Block.One. Caused by the latest version of the EOSIO software upgrade.

What is proxy voting?

For those unfamiliar with EOS, they may be a little confused about their latest Genpool service.

Here we first make a simple explanation: Each EOS token holder can choose to put their own tokens into the voting of block producers. These entities can verify transactions on the network and eventually own Full control over code changes and even wallet validity. In fact, after Block.One released EOSIO software, getting enough voting rights became one of the biggest obstacles to launching EOS.

Each EOS token holder can vote for up to 30 block producers, of course, this is not enforced. EOS voting will be distributed in proportion to the number of tokens held by voters. If someone owns 5 EOS and all are mortgaged to vote, then each block producer candidate they vote for will receive 5 votes, regardless of holding People choose 3 votes, 7 votes, or 17 votes.

These votes are continuous, so for block producers, they can get votes again every 10 minutes. However, when there are 30 voting entities in EOS, it is difficult to decide who the voting object is. Therefore, EOS decided to set up a new service role, "voter proxy", which will select the list of block producer candidates and then let voters vote on the block producers on these lists. Just entrust your EOS token to the voting agent.

Since agents get rewards when they vote for block producers who share inflation rewards, they can in turn share those rewards with voters who support them.

Genpool's agency service is a step forward on the basis that they can easily find the most attractive rewards, and can provide voters with screening based on customized indicators, such as fees, ideas, and number of mortgages.

First objected, then defaulted, now open?

When EOS was launched for the first time in 2018 after a lot of hardship, early participants spent a lot of time designing a "constitution" to govern its ecosystem, and the idea of ​​a ban on bribery in the draft constitution was also reflected in EOS The project initiated a consensus among the grassroots organizations.

However, when the EOS blockchain was launched, it did not include any governance processes in its code (except for the selection of block producers). As a result, after their rapid development, the giant whale swept through thousands of troops, which also proved the original design The "constitution" is nothing more than a piece of paper.

At the end of 2018, a vote in purchases led to a minor scandal in EOS. The following year, EOS gave up the idea of ​​establishing an end-user license agreement-this time there was no mention of a purchase vote. Today, however, EOS not only tolerates ticket purchases, it has normalized it.

Colin Talks Crypto is an anonymous YouTuber and leader of EOS agency. He has been working on EOS for a long time. Before that, he also opposed EOS's governance model, and also created a voting agent to fight ticket buying behavior. However, in a video last September, he acknowledged the reality of EOS buying votes and announced that he was building a second voting agent to support the best block producers.

Block.One CEO Brendan Blumer also expressed support for the purchase vote, and in early February 2020 he tweeted:

"Voting rebates are simply returning value to EOS token holders, and I strongly support doing so."

In fact, Block.One has a large number of tokens that can completely change the composition of the voting structure, but so far they have not voted on governance participants. But according to a tweet posted by Brendan Blumer on February 19, the company may start participating in blockchain voting this year, saying at the time:

"B1 voting is coming. We are working to establish a non-profit entity, which will provide another voting option for EOS token holders, and will work to redefine the viability and competitiveness of the EOS public chain."

What it is, what it is!

According to relevant market surveys, the general consensus reached by some crypto thought leaders seems to be that the phenomenon of buying votes in blockchain governance may be inevitable. For example, Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer of CoinShares, believes that crypto governance is a "hot issue" in itself, but she also said that crypto projects have a service that can manage the buying and selling of votes, which is better than the black-box market. Meltem Demirors even happily said:

"Great, let's set transparent prices for governance. Collusion, coercion, manipulation, lobbying, bribery and bribery are integral parts of the modern democratic process. If you feel that crypto governance will not be dominated by these forces, I All I can say is that you are too stupid. "

Blockchain Capital Ventures partner Spencer Bogart made a similar point, saying:

"I think that even if not all, most on-chain governance will eventually have an explicit or implicit purchase voting method, so EOS is in their interest to do so, at least they are embracing this fact, not avoiding it."

However, Spencer Bogart specifically stated that he has been skeptical of the project since the launch of EOS.

Economist Joshua Gans, who works on token economics, believes that voting could trigger second-order effects of corruption, he wrote:

"When the buying and selling vote becomes normal, people also have no incentive to really know if someone is a reliable node operator, and even less to understand whether they can get a reliable 'return'. Becoming a node, you will get Pay as much as you get. "

But Joshua Gans acknowledges that all this can still be solved. He added:

"The problem is that we can't completely deny this approach, after all, the network is running and the cost has been borne."

"V God": All this has been foreseen

In fact, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, "V Godik" back in March 2018, an article entitled "Governance, Part 2: Plutocracy Is Still Bad" China analyzed the inevitable emergence of EOS ticket buying behavior, he wrote at the time:

"Bribery is actually bad, but in fact, some people dispute this claim, and these people usually think that bribery votes can improve market efficiency."

But Vitalik Buterin believes that buying votes will lead to centralization of the system, and the result of centralization is that the token will eventually move towards the path of imitation of the old economic model. He said:

"Ordinary voters have very few opportunities to influence elected representatives … so their motive is to vote for the highest and most reliable people."

Indeed, the only real power EOS holders have on the network is to vote on block producers. In contrast, ordinary token holders of Tezos can theoretically vote on code changes, and on EOS these permissions are completely monopolized by block producers. Although on the surface EOS voters can kick out block producers at any time, there are a large number of voters and a small number of block producers-so it is difficult to coordinate and weigh among them.

At the core of Vitalik Buterin's predictions for buying votes in EOS is "cartel". He believes that entrusting candidates will eventually inevitably offer various preferential conditions in order to win voters, until a group situation is formed. To make matters worse, EOS may even have a single entity cartel as described in the Binance report: some organizations obtain more than one position in the block producer list by pretending to be multiple entities.

(Planet's Note: cartel) An organization composed of a series of independent companies that produce similar products. Producers of collective action aim to increase the price of such products and control their output.)

Rumours of EOS cartels abound, but no clear evidence has yet been found. On the other hand, although it is true to buy votes, the community is slowly accepting it despite dissatisfaction. After all, as long as the rules allow it, some people will do it. As YouTuber "Colin Talks Crypto" put it in his video:

"Playing games according to the rules is the best thing we can do on EOS until we can really solve the governance problem."

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!