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Stellar is run by a set of trusted third parties, which makes it permissioned. If it gains any sort of traction, it will undoubtedly come under the control of a
by CryptoPunk 9y ago
Stellar is run by a set of trusted third parties, which makes it permissioned. If it gains any sort of traction, it will undoubtedly come under the control of any number of governments, thus negating the "peer-to-peer" part of cryptocurrency, and making usage conditioned on approval from some set of intermediaries.
- corford 9y agoBut isn't Mobilecoin just borrowing stellar's approach to consensus? And what stops anyone from setting up a full node?
- pollen23 9y agoIt's not run by "a set of trusted third parties". It's run by SETS of trusted third parties, where each individual node specifies what set of nodes it trusts to not collude against it. You don't need any ones permission to run a node, but it is up to other nodes if they want to trust you
- CryptoPunk 9y agoIf your set is not the same as everyone else's set, you risk being forked off. Trusted third party based schemes have a tendency toward centralization, making them less resilient than ones based on cryptoeconomic incentives. Inevitability it will mean TTP based ledgers will be permissioned, with the TTPs acting as gatekeepers, rather than p2p. This isn't just theoretical either. Stellar has co-authored a paper arguing for regulations against anonymous cryptocurrencies: http://www.lhoft.com/assets/uploads/images/WhitePaper_LHoFT_Stellar_2017_A_04.10.compressed.pdf#asset:216 http://www.lhoft.com/assets/uploads/images/WhitePaper_LHoFT_... It's clear that it's positioning itself as a gatekeeper-based ledger that stays on the good side of regulatory agencies.