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Cryptocurrency governance basically boils down to one dollar one vote. That’s, um, not what you want if you are looking to empower the working class

by seoaeu 5y ago

scottiebarnes 5y ago
Bitcoin has no formal governance system, on chain or off chain. Could you be more specific? Unless you're talking about blocks/hashing power. But that's consensus, not governance of protocol.
- epistasis 5y ago
  No formal governance does not mean no governance. It just means obscured governance with more hidden power structures. If people haven't read it, I highly recommend reading The Tyranny of Structurelessness, even if the political context of its writing is uninteresting to you, because the lessons are deep: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structureless... And if course, there's value in the critiques of it too. Libertarians can learn a lot from anarchists attempts at building social structures that don't have rulers.
  - tboyd47 5y ago
    Bitcoin does not have "structurelessness." It has a clear structure. A better word for what it has is "tensegrity."
- shyish 5y ago
  I believe that he is referring more broadly to forms of governance in DAOs (though I believe they're all on turing complete chains). For example, OpenZeppelin provides some quickstart governance contracts[1] that are all coin-based voting systems. There are some simple ways around this, like to make voting power proportional to the square root of token ownership but obviously one address != one human voter. Vitalik wrote about some alternatives[2] on his blog, such as proof of humanity, proof or participation or staking based solutions primarily but most significant projects are still using coin-voting. [1]: https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/governance https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/governance [2]: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/08/16/voting3.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/08/16/voting3.html
ryanlol 5y ago
In most cases mining and PoS-schemes can’t really be meaningfully called “governance”. The miners hold very limited decisionmaking power, in the case of Bitcoin they can’t do much more than censor transactions (and even that is hardly practical).
- seoaeu 5y ago
  Who decided the block size? Who decided to adopt SegWit?
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    Not the miners. They’re only one of many parties with influence over Bitcoin development.
    - kayamon 5y ago
      Miners are the only people who decide the rules of Bitcoin. They vote with their mining power. (this is in the paper)
      - wmf 5y ago
        Bitcoin isn't bound by the white paper.
  - mateuszf 5y ago
    > Who decided the block size? Who decided to adopt SegWit? Users running bitcoin nodes doing transactions validations, not miners creating transactions.
- mclightning 5y ago
  Miners/Pools could go on strike. PoS schemes will require you to pool as well, meaning there will be centrally controlled staking pools. These pools will yield great power too.
  - 5y ago
lowkey 5y ago
Let's compare it with the baseline alternative, the fiat currency called the US dollar - Call it $1USD, no vote. With USD, the long-run target inflation rate as stated by the Federal Reserve is 2% per year. Seems small, some would argue - a small price to pay to avoid the dreaded risk of deflation. (Side note: why is deflation expected and approved of in computers and electronics but not healthcare or higher education?) What if I told you that the average worker who works for wages for 40 years, will lose 40% of the value of their lifetime earnings if inflation was 'only' 2% per year? What if I told you that the current inflation rate according to official sources is over twice the target inflation rate and all signs indicate it will remain elevated for years to come? What if I told you that the real problem with fiat currency is all the trust required? What if I told you that as a worker you now have an alternative to store a portion of your wages in a currency that is engineered using properties of digital scarcity, incredible security, and ingenious game theory to preserve, store, and even grow the purchasing power of your savings at a long-term rate of return that greatly exceed the rate of inflation or the performance of even the riskiest stocks. Why is it bad for workers to have another option for storing their savings, an option that doesn't leak value due to manipulation by centralized actors? No one is forced to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a choice. IMO Bitcoin is the better choice. YMMV.
- virgilp 5y ago
  > Side note: why is deflation expected and approved of in computers and electronics but not healthcare or higher education? That's... not deflation? It's literally building wealth. Cheaper computers means more people can afford them/ people can afford more of them. This is a good thing! Cheaper healthcare (or higher ed) would also be a good thing. But for it to be a good thing, you would have to make it objectively easier for more people to access the same-or-better-quality healthcare or higher ed! If by "deflation" here you simply mean "there's the same overall quality and quantity of higher ed, but older people (who had time to hoard money) can access it a lot easier, to the detriment of young people"... that would clearly be a bad thing. Money is not like that, though. There's no economic advantage to be gained from people hoarding money - they're supposed to be a medium of exchange. If money increases value, you're not spending or investing them, which means less economic activity, hence less wealth for everyone. Money is just a vehicle, never an end-goal. Tl;dr: wealth is, largely speaking, "more and better stuff for everyone!". More and better computers, electronics, higher ed, healthcare. And money, too, I guess? Except that "more money" is typically associated with "inflation" - which shows you that money doesn't really count, it's just a vehicle.

Cryptocurrency governance basically boils down to one dollar one vote. That’s, um, not what you want if you are looking to empower the working class

by seoaeu 5y ago

Cryptocurrency governance basically boils down to one dollar one vote. That’s, um, not what you want if you are looking to empower the working class

scottiebarnes 5y ago

Bitcoin has no formal governance system, on chain or off chain. Could you be more specific? Unless you're talking about blocks/hashing power. But that's consensus, not governance of protocol.

epistasis 5y ago
No formal governance does not mean no governance. It just means obscured governance with more hidden power structures. If people haven't read it, I highly recommend reading The Tyranny of Structurelessness, even if the political context of its writing is uninteresting to you, because the lessons are deep: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structureless... And if course, there's value in the critiques of it too. Libertarians can learn a lot from anarchists attempts at building social structures that don't have rulers.
- tboyd47 5y ago
  Bitcoin does not have "structurelessness." It has a clear structure. A better word for what it has is "tensegrity."
shyish 5y ago
I believe that he is referring more broadly to forms of governance in DAOs (though I believe they're all on turing complete chains). For example, OpenZeppelin provides some quickstart governance contracts[1] that are all coin-based voting systems. There are some simple ways around this, like to make voting power proportional to the square root of token ownership but obviously one address != one human voter. Vitalik wrote about some alternatives[2] on his blog, such as proof of humanity, proof or participation or staking based solutions primarily but most significant projects are still using coin-voting. [1]: https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/governance https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/governance [2]: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/08/16/voting3.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/08/16/voting3.html

ryanlol 5y ago

In most cases mining and PoS-schemes can’t really be meaningfully called “governance”. The miners hold very limited decisionmaking power, in the case of Bitcoin they can’t do much more than censor transactions (and even that is hardly practical).

seoaeu 5y ago
Who decided the block size? Who decided to adopt SegWit?
- ryanlol 5y ago
  Not the miners. They’re only one of many parties with influence over Bitcoin development.
  - kayamon 5y ago
    Miners are the only people who decide the rules of Bitcoin. They vote with their mining power. (this is in the paper)
    - wmf 5y ago
      Bitcoin isn't bound by the white paper.
- mateuszf 5y ago
  > Who decided the block size? Who decided to adopt SegWit? Users running bitcoin nodes doing transactions validations, not miners creating transactions.
mclightning 5y ago
Miners/Pools could go on strike. PoS schemes will require you to pool as well, meaning there will be centrally controlled staking pools. These pools will yield great power too.
- 5y ago

lowkey 5y ago

Let's compare it with the baseline alternative, the fiat currency called the US dollar - Call it $1USD, no vote. With USD, the long-run target inflation rate as stated by the Federal Reserve is 2% per year. Seems small, some would argue - a small price to pay to avoid the dreaded risk of deflation. (Side note: why is deflation expected and approved of in computers and electronics but not healthcare or higher education?) What if I told you that the average worker who works for wages for 40 years, will lose 40% of the value of their lifetime earnings if inflation was 'only' 2% per year? What if I told you that the current inflation rate according to official sources is over twice the target inflation rate and all signs indicate it will remain elevated for years to come? What if I told you that the real problem with fiat currency is all the trust required? What if I told you that as a worker you now have an alternative to store a portion of your wages in a currency that is engineered using properties of digital scarcity, incredible security, and ingenious game theory to preserve, store, and even grow the purchasing power of your savings at a long-term rate of return that greatly exceed the rate of inflation or the performance of even the riskiest stocks. Why is it bad for workers to have another option for storing their savings, an option that doesn't leak value due to manipulation by centralized actors? No one is forced to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a choice. IMO Bitcoin is the better choice. YMMV.

virgilp 5y ago
> Side note: why is deflation expected and approved of in computers and electronics but not healthcare or higher education? That's... not deflation? It's literally building wealth. Cheaper computers means more people can afford them/ people can afford more of them. This is a good thing! Cheaper healthcare (or higher ed) would also be a good thing. But for it to be a good thing, you would have to make it objectively easier for more people to access the same-or-better-quality healthcare or higher ed! If by "deflation" here you simply mean "there's the same overall quality and quantity of higher ed, but older people (who had time to hoard money) can access it a lot easier, to the detriment of young people"... that would clearly be a bad thing. Money is not like that, though. There's no economic advantage to be gained from people hoarding money - they're supposed to be a medium of exchange. If money increases value, you're not spending or investing them, which means less economic activity, hence less wealth for everyone. Money is just a vehicle, never an end-goal. Tl;dr: wealth is, largely speaking, "more and better stuff for everyone!". More and better computers, electronics, higher ed, healthcare. And money, too, I guess? Except that "more money" is typically associated with "inflation" - which shows you that money doesn't really count, it's just a vehicle.