How centralized is EOS?

[c0rv0s]

With the eos launch just happening it seems like it’s getting a lot of attention. It worries me that there are only 21 block producers because that’s so few people that need to collude to just do whatever they want. A way around this is that you could start your own eos network but that would be at least somewhat costly to set up and smaller fragmented networks are less secure than one big one. Also you’d have to convince people to join your network.

Did I miss anything? I find this deeply concerning   

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[ttookk]

(…)

Did I miss anything? I find this deeply concerning  

It fucking is. And it is a huge, huuuge problem. Blockchain is meant to deal with extreme edge cases, which rarely happen, if at all. For the most part, you can trust centralized services, as long as they profit from you and are somewhat known (like Paypal).

Bitcoin and blockchain is designed with the edge case that, for whatever reason, this trust is breached. But since this resilience is not visible, is bought with massive performance issues and it doesn't happen on a daily basis on regular projects, regular users with little to no understanding of the underlying technology and knowledge about why it fucking exists in the first place flock to projects which basically use "blockchain" as a buzzword and sell you your "a server and 20 backups" solution.

And it works because nothing will go wrong for a really, really long time. Why should it, block producers have absolutely no incentive to screw over their userbase. But what happens it that changes? Let's say, some state knocks at their door and asks to blacklist this and that address? Yeah, exactly.

This is why this sucks so bad and this is why this is such a big problem.

[bbc.reporter]

With the eos launch just happening it seems like it’s getting a lot of attention. It worries me that there are only 21 block producers because that’s so few people that need to collude to just do whatever they want. A way around this is that you could start your own eos network but that would be at least somewhat costly to set up and smaller fragmented networks are less secure than one big one. Also you’d have to convince people to join your network.

Did I miss anything? I find this deeply concerning  

EOS investors should be more concerned in how the SEC classifies EOS. Ethereum is not a security under the SEC's guidelines because its coin distribution after coin offering is decentralized, EOS is not.

Also collusion is very easy in EOS. The blockchain freeze proved that the 21 Block Producers, like a board of directors in a company, can all talk and can decide what to do with the platform. I reckon there is nothing wrong in that, but as an investor, you should know that EOS is not decentralzed and the SEC's classification is unknown. It might be a security.

[Crown1]

I also think that the SEC's definition of EOS may not be very good. Currently, most EOS are in the hands of a few people.
Moreover, after the main network of EOS is online, various problems often appear, which is very dangerous.

[c0rv0s]

And it works because nothing will go wrong for a really, really long time. Why should it, block producers have absolutely no incentive to screw over their userbase. But what happens it that changes? Let's say, some state knocks at their door and asks to blacklist this and that address? Yeah, exactly.

This is why this sucks so bad and this is why this is such a big problem.

it's strange  because there kind of isn't any point. whats the difference between AWS and EOS? EOS is open source, you're just trading off on who runs the show, it's not "by the people". I think people get caught up in the whole "it's on the blockchain" but it "also has the 1million tps". EOS sacrifices what makes BTC/ETH good but also doesn't have what makes an actual centralized platform like AWS/google cloud good.

sheesh

[TwisterPipister]

I know that there can be 100 nodes in the EOS network, which means that it is quite centralized, for example, the government can determine all these nodes and try to influence them somehow, so EOS is only conditionally decentralized in my opinion.

[kinki32]

They try to solve the problem of scale but sacrifice decentralized function. Nothing new.

[Masha.G]

I don't know if it is centralized(but in my opinion it is, but I am diletant at this question so ) but that fact that the majority of coins are stacked in a few wallets says that it is risky idea to invest. Especially now, when this year-long-lottery ended

[jin_dv]

Many users continue to Express doubts about the success of the resource. Although statements about free transfers and regulated scalability may well be true, it will not be possible to verify their authenticity. According to the well-known stock analyst and DEVELOPER Chris de Rosa, the EOS project is completely detached from reality and should not be taken seriously. The followers consider this platform a new milestone in the history of cryptographic money and call it "new Ethereum".

[ttookk]

And it works because nothing will go wrong for a really, really long time. Why should it, block producers have absolutely no incentive to screw over their userbase. But what happens it that changes? Let's say, some state knocks at their door and asks to blacklist this and that address? Yeah, exactly.

This is why this sucks so bad and this is why this is such a big problem.

it's strange  because there kind of isn't any point. whats the difference between AWS and EOS? EOS is open source, you're just trading off on who runs the show, it's not "by the people". I think people get caught up in the whole "it's on the blockchain" but it "also has the 1million tps". EOS sacrifices what makes BTC/ETH good but also doesn't have what makes an actual centralized platform like AWS/google cloud good.

sheesh

Heh, exactly.

It's somewhat funny actually. It's kinda like someone took a look at a decentralized network and said "you know what would make this way more efficient? Servers."

I mean, to some degree, there is merit to this. For businesses, it's probably preferable to have someone they can hold accountable for whatever comes up. But all in all, this is falling back into the old tracks without realizing it.

I think to a big degree, the problem is "regular" people getting into crypto. The first wave were cypherpunks, ultra-paranoid, over-the-top security nerds. They understood the whole "there's no such thing as too much security" deal.

Regular users don't. They log into facebook on their work PCs, they use the same email address for everything.

I mean, they don't even make backups and then cry when their harddrive fails, because every harddrive fails eventually. And they were told this over and over.
What do you expect?

And the experts, those that understand the system are mere Kassandras, doomed to predict failure that's not going to come because market incentives keep even the crappiest system afloat.

[Nalbo]

21 block producers were selected from the voting of said millions.
But gods knows how many people voted for it. And again now its just 21 block producer.
Handful of people controlling the 10billion $ coin.
These people are entities can totally be influenced or controlled by a single entity or their local governments.
That would certainly compromise our expectations.

[Ayuluv2001]

They are killing themselves as well as investors somehow.

I really hope they can look into what they had done and try to salvage the situation. Going the reverse way is like Ripple which is not widely accepted.

[Gozie51]

They are killing themselves as well as investors somehow.

I really hope they can look into what they had done and try to salvage the situation. Going the reverse way is like Ripple which is not widely accepted.

Yes is just like the ripple. Where you have very people controlling the affairs of so many especially in financial system, it leads to manipulations to suite the very few and business associate. Centralized coins have this in common.

[European Central Bank]

https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1007659548176314368

https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/blob/37ce45c0b60d2710569c2d1a9229945cc0e855a9/governance/constitution.md

this is my favorite detail.

if you don't move or use your eos, or whatever the actual coin part is called, after three years they take it back off you and redistribute it. i don't see how that's possible but there it is.

[eminemcookie]

https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1007659548176314368

https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/blob/37ce45c0b60d2710569c2d1a9229945cc0e855a9/governance/constitution.md

this is my favorite detail.

if you don't move or use your eos, or whatever the actual coin part is called, after three years they take it back off you and redistribute it. i don't see how that's possible but there it is.

If you don't move or use it at all after 3 years or is this to do with the transition from the ERC20 coin to their own coin and blockchain? Seems very ridiculous to have a usage requirement every 3 years. Good to see they're using their 4bn dollars well and making smart decisions 

[European Central Bank]

If you don't move or use it at all after 3 years or is this to do with the transition from the ERC20 coin to their own coin and blockchain? Seems very ridiculous to have a usage requirement every 3 years. Good to see they're using their 4bn dollars well and making smart decisions 

it's nothing to do with coin transitions. that's happening right now isn't it?

i have no idea what they're thinking with this. people are saying it can be voted out of existence. why is it there in the first place?

[ttookk]

If you don't move or use it at all after 3 years or is this to do with the transition from the ERC20 coin to their own coin and blockchain? Seems very ridiculous to have a usage requirement every 3 years. Good to see they're using their 4bn dollars well and making smart decisions 

it's nothing to do with coin transitions. that's happening right now isn't it?

i have no idea what they're thinking with this. people are saying it can be voted out of existence. why is it there in the first place?

Well, I kinda played around with the idea of an negative interest coin before, but that was very different. It was meant as a means to incentivise users to actively interact with the network (like, when you have a PoS coin with low interest, you might want to keep users on their toes to keep staking)

I mean, I somewhat get that you might not want to have dead coins lying around, but all in all, this is not a good aproach to a "problem" which is not a problem at all.

[bbc.reporter]

21 block producers were selected from the voting of said millions.
But gods knows how many people voted for it. And again now its just 21 block producer.
Handful of people controlling the 10billion $ coin.
These people are entities can totally be influenced or controlled by a single entity or their local governments.
That would certainly compromise our expectations.

Does anyone know how many EOS tokens does Dan Larimer control? It might be that he has set up a team of people he knows to join the ICO phase. Besides that, Block One already holds 10% of all EOS tokens.

That gives us the question who voted for who to be EOS' block producers? They might be controlled by one group of people connected to Dan.

[covfefe_]

21 block producers were selected from the voting of said millions.
But gods knows how many people voted for it. And again now its just 21 block producer.
Handful of people controlling the 10billion $ coin.
These people are entities can totally be influenced or controlled by a single entity or their local governments.
That would certainly compromise our expectations.

Does anyone know how many EOS tokens does Dan Larimer control? It might be that he has set up a team of people he knows to join the ICO phase. Besides that, Block One already holds 10% of all EOS tokens.

That gives us the question who voted for who to be EOS' block producers? They might be controlled by one group of people connected to Dan.

Does they even have an option to choose from. Though they make it sound democratic. These all 21 block producers were pre-prepared. They certainly have some connection to the founder Dan Larimer. Whether the connection is just as a friend or colleague or an employer and employee would make the difference.

[eminemcookie]

If you don't move or use it at all after 3 years or is this to do with the transition from the ERC20 coin to their own coin and blockchain? Seems very ridiculous to have a usage requirement every 3 years. Good to see they're using their 4bn dollars well and making smart decisions 

it's nothing to do with coin transitions. that's happening right now isn't it?

i have no idea what they're thinking with this. people are saying it can be voted out of existence. why is it there in the first place?

Well, I kinda played around with the idea of an negative interest coin before, but that was very different. It was meant as a means to incentivise users to actively interact with the network (like, when you have a PoS coin with low interest, you might want to keep users on their toes to keep staking)

I mean, I somewhat get that you might not want to have dead coins lying around, but all in all, this is not a good aproach to a "problem" which is not a problem at all.

Yes - it's happening right now. I wasn't sure if you were saying that coins that aren't transitioned within 3 years would be reclaimed (this I could understand)

As for what it actually is, the logic is quite simply non-existant. There's little to no reason for this as ttookk has rightly said. They're trying to fix something that isn't broke. If someone wants to buy a bunch of coins and sit on them for 10 years that's their prerogative. It happens with every currency in the world already. It won't stop anyone who wants to do this, they'll just log in every 3 years and make one transaction. I guess all it will really influence is lost coins from lost wallets or dead people.