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Stellar isn't decentralized. Just like Ripple, it uses Federated Byzantine Agreement, which means that nodes use a list of other nodes they trust. The fact that

Stellar isn't decentralized. Just like Ripple, it uses Federated Byzantine Agreement, which means that nodes use a list of other nodes they trust. The fact that this scheme has nothing to do with the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency, aside from the hype train, doesn't appear to have percolated into the collective mainstream or even geek consciousness yet.

nindwen 8y ago
> Stellar isn't decentralized. Just like Ripple, it uses Federated Byzantine Agreement, which means that nodes use a list of other nodes they trust. The fact that this scheme has nothing to do with the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency There is no centralized authority, which means that the protocol in decentralized. It's just not decentralized in exactly the same way as something like Bitcoin. Some might call that a good thing.
- sneak 8y ago
  As long as centralized authorities are subject to government coercion (and all are and always will be), this remains a bad thing, because it leaves strangers in whatever government the authority sits within with veto power over your ability to spend your money. Fuck that.
- decentralised 8y ago
  There's only one development team behind the protocol and only one client implementation (afaik), which means that pressuring only two or three people is enough to guarantee that a backdoor is implemented or some form of transaction censorship happens. edit: implementation / implemented
  - simias 8y ago
    That's moving the goalpost pretty far. In this context the discussion is whether the protocol is decentralized. Whether the development is or isn't decentralized is also potentially an issue but it's a completely different discussion. Even if bitcoin had only one development team and only one implementation the protocol would still be decentralized.
    - decentralised 8y ago
      I understand your comment but to me and others working on web3 projects, decentralisation is always measured in 3 categories, political, architectural and logical so from my perspective this isn't shifting goalposts, it's being accurate. I think I've already shared Vitalik Buterin's article elsewhere but in any case, https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274 https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentrali... I saw a twitter thread today that covered the arguments against EOS (as an example) by judging them exactly on how their architecture, logical and political systems doesn't fulfil the requirements to be considered "decentralised" that might be interesting. Here: https://twitter.com/jamesspediacci/status/1049811607876861952?s=21 https://twitter.com/jamesspediacci/status/104981160787686195...
Suncho 8y ago
This is why Stellar probably doesn't count as a real "blockchain." It's also why Stellar is potentially a lot more useful than blockchain. You don't have to do proof of work, which is wasteful of resources by design. Note that the cryptocurrency people use the word "decentralized" differently from the rest of the world. They use it specifically to mean that the mechanism for determining consensus is perfectly distributed among an unknown number of arbitrary nodes. Stellar consensus is decentralized in the conventional sense. Federation is a form of decentralization.
- decentralised 8y ago
  There are plenty of consensus protocols that don't waste energy but I think it's important to understand why PoW relies on an unproductive algorithm. Mining fulfils two roles: - identity management: To identify who is a trustworthy block producer in an anonymous and trustless network, mining introduces a cost to the block generation process and we use a game theory assumption that it serves as a barrier for attackers. This doesn't mean there aren't validation checks performed by other nodes in the network and the consensus forming rules themselves of course. - consensus formation: In a distributed network, nodes are bound to disagree on which is the canonical chain out of two or more competing forks. The most common algorithm calculates the accumulated computational effort of each chain of blocks and picks the "heaviest" one, ie the one with the most work done on it. This has the nice side effect of ensuring economic finality for the transactions in those blocks. Now, regarding decentralisation you state that "the cryptocurrency people" use it wrong, but the definition you gave is incorrect. As a cryptocurrency person, Vitalik Buterin described decentralisation here: https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274 https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentrali...
  - keymone 8y ago
    PoW isn't wasting anything. PoS is not cheaper that PoW. this myth just won't die..
    - decentralised 8y ago
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
https://www.etherchain.org/charts/topMiners https://www.etherchain.org/charts/topMiners
hellbanner 8y ago
http://arewedecentralizedyet.com/ http://arewedecentralizedyet.com/ 95% centralized

nindwen 8y ago

> Stellar isn't decentralized. Just like Ripple, it uses Federated Byzantine Agreement, which means that nodes use a list of other nodes they trust. The fact that this scheme has nothing to do with the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency There is no centralized authority, which means that the protocol in decentralized. It's just not decentralized in exactly the same way as something like Bitcoin. Some might call that a good thing.

sneak 8y ago
As long as centralized authorities are subject to government coercion (and all are and always will be), this remains a bad thing, because it leaves strangers in whatever government the authority sits within with veto power over your ability to spend your money. Fuck that.
decentralised 8y ago
There's only one development team behind the protocol and only one client implementation (afaik), which means that pressuring only two or three people is enough to guarantee that a backdoor is implemented or some form of transaction censorship happens. edit: implementation / implemented
- simias 8y ago
  That's moving the goalpost pretty far. In this context the discussion is whether the protocol is decentralized. Whether the development is or isn't decentralized is also potentially an issue but it's a completely different discussion. Even if bitcoin had only one development team and only one implementation the protocol would still be decentralized.
  - decentralised 8y ago
    I understand your comment but to me and others working on web3 projects, decentralisation is always measured in 3 categories, political, architectural and logical so from my perspective this isn't shifting goalposts, it's being accurate. I think I've already shared Vitalik Buterin's article elsewhere but in any case, https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274 https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentrali... I saw a twitter thread today that covered the arguments against EOS (as an example) by judging them exactly on how their architecture, logical and political systems doesn't fulfil the requirements to be considered "decentralised" that might be interesting. Here: https://twitter.com/jamesspediacci/status/1049811607876861952?s=21 https://twitter.com/jamesspediacci/status/104981160787686195...

Suncho 8y ago

This is why Stellar probably doesn't count as a real "blockchain." It's also why Stellar is potentially a lot more useful than blockchain. You don't have to do proof of work, which is wasteful of resources by design. Note that the cryptocurrency people use the word "decentralized" differently from the rest of the world. They use it specifically to mean that the mechanism for determining consensus is perfectly distributed among an unknown number of arbitrary nodes. Stellar consensus is decentralized in the conventional sense. Federation is a form of decentralization.

decentralised 8y ago
There are plenty of consensus protocols that don't waste energy but I think it's important to understand why PoW relies on an unproductive algorithm. Mining fulfils two roles: - identity management: To identify who is a trustworthy block producer in an anonymous and trustless network, mining introduces a cost to the block generation process and we use a game theory assumption that it serves as a barrier for attackers. This doesn't mean there aren't validation checks performed by other nodes in the network and the consensus forming rules themselves of course. - consensus formation: In a distributed network, nodes are bound to disagree on which is the canonical chain out of two or more competing forks. The most common algorithm calculates the accumulated computational effort of each chain of blocks and picks the "heaviest" one, ie the one with the most work done on it. This has the nice side effect of ensuring economic finality for the transactions in those blocks. Now, regarding decentralisation you state that "the cryptocurrency people" use it wrong, but the definition you gave is incorrect. As a cryptocurrency person, Vitalik Buterin described decentralisation here: https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274 https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentrali...
- keymone 8y ago
  PoW isn't wasting anything. PoS is not cheaper that PoW. this myth just won't die..
  - decentralised 8y ago

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

https://www.etherchain.org/charts/topMiners https://www.etherchain.org/charts/topMiners

hellbanner 8y ago

http://arewedecentralizedyet.com/ http://arewedecentralizedyet.com/ 95% centralized