Who has the authority to change a public blockchain?
It's a question that has been in the minds of top cryptocurrency developers as the many available networks struggle to serve their diverse, often conflicting stakeholders. But that's not to say there aren't norms and best practices - the ability to make and enforce software changes is generally split between the developers that write the code and the computers, or nodes, that install it.
However, Gavin Wood, ethereum co-founder and one of the leaders of an upcoming blockchain interoperability protocol called Polkadot, is shaking up the status quo with a newly published playbook that designates management power directly to token holders.
Distributed in a token sale last year, DOT, the internal token of the Polkadot network, allows its holders to vote directly on a piece of code, which will then automatically upgrade across the network. A way of bypassing the relationship between developers and nodes, the method is not without its controversy, but according to advocates, it's a step up from what is on offer in most blockchains today.
"This initial proposal for Polkadot governance definitely tries to address the shortcomings of many existing chains, which ended up with community deadlock or continuous splits," Peter Czaban, director of the Web3 foundation, which sponsors the research and development of Polkadot, told CoinDesk.
Stepping back, the problem of governance is at the forefront of the ethereum today, as tension concerning fund recovery has raised critiques of the effectiveness of the platform's processes.
"We might have solved consensus for what happens on the chain, but we're still woefully inadequate at solving consensus for what happens to the chain," Gavin Wood said in an interview.
Since the Parity fund freeze in November (which froze some $176 million of the Polkadot token sale), efforts to recover and redistribute funds have largely fallen silent. According to Wood, this is due in part to the absence of a clear process for measuring the consent for, and enacting, controversial changes.
https://www.coindesk.com/polkadots-radical-plan-governing-blockchain-blockchains/
