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From the article > There are also people who try to claim that PoS allows big stakeholders to control the protocol, but I think those arguments are just plain

From the article > There are also people who try to claim that PoS allows big stakeholders to control the protocol, but I think those arguments are just plain wrong. They rest on a misconception that PoW and PoS are governance mechanisms, when in reality they are consensus mechanisms. All they do is help the network agree on the right chain. A block that violates the protocol rules (eg. if it tries to print more coins than the protocol rules allow) will not be accepted by the network, no matter how many miners or stakers support it. Governance is a completely separate process, involving users freely choosing to download software, and BIPs and EIPs and all core devs calls and other bureaucracy to coordinate which changes get proposed. The funny thing is that bitcoiners (who tend to be the most pro-PoW) should understand this well, as the Bitcoin civil wars in 2017 demonstrated really well that miners are quite powerless in the governance process. In PoS, it's exactly the same; stakers don't choose the rules, they just execute the rules and help order transactions

littlestymaar 4y ago
He's right, PoS or PoW never were related to governance in Ethereum: the governance process has always been entirely controlled by the Ethereum foundation in a centralized way. but his argument about “bitcoin civil war”, is disingenuous at best, concluding that miners are “powerless” about governance process is really a strange way to analyze this event (which illustrated that they where not in fact “all powerful” which is quite different from being “powerless” …) He's also making a common, but misleading claim here: > A block that violates the protocol rules (eg. if it tries to print more coins than the protocol rules allow) will not be accepted by the network, no matter how many miners or stakers support it He's separating “miners and stackers” from “the network” which is a common position trope, but in reality a blockchain is a node of validators (miners, or stackers) with optional spectators, most of which don't even have enough data to take positions on whatever the validators are doing. Only the (scarce) full nodes can see that something fishy is happening, but they actually have no control on what happens on chain, all they can do is blow the whistle. What makes a blockchain work is the game theory incentives alignment which helps making sure miner/stakers don't collude together, not because “the network” (miners/stakers aside) can do anything to prevent malicious actions from a cartel of validators.
- PretzelPirate 4y ago
  > the governance process has always been entirely controlled by the Ethereum foundation in a centralized way. The EF has little to no say in the protocol nowadays. One of the reasons that multiple protocol teams exist and all decisions are made in the open is so decision making can be transparent and criticized.
survirtual 4y ago
Ownership of the minting policy of any currency is ownership of the governance of said currency. By locking minting behind the gates of riches, you give those same people a perpetual license to govern. They spread their tokens how they wish; they choose which projects live and die by their usage of currency. Because they are embedded in the minting process perpetually, their stack keeps growing. They can stake earnings and their stack grows at a compounding rate. With exponential growth, they create an accelerating divide between themselves and no stakers. The limit of this pattern results in a small minority owning a money tree which allows them to feed scraps to the innovators, creators, etc and decide who lives and who dies. With that money, they also have the influence necessary to dictate what core devs work on. A lot more to say but the summary is: I am not sure if Vitalik is talking in bad faith (he seems genuine and honest) or he is just naive (he became rich very young and doesn’t seem to be connected with reality). It seems to me he has a surface level understanding of freedom, tyranny, poverty, wealth, etc but a deep technical understanding and he is only focused on achieving the technical goals. This is very dangerous.

littlestymaar 4y ago

He's right, PoS or PoW never were related to governance in Ethereum: the governance process has always been entirely controlled by the Ethereum foundation in a centralized way. but his argument about “bitcoin civil war”, is disingenuous at best, concluding that miners are “powerless” about governance process is really a strange way to analyze this event (which illustrated that they where not in fact “all powerful” which is quite different from being “powerless” …) He's also making a common, but misleading claim here: > A block that violates the protocol rules (eg. if it tries to print more coins than the protocol rules allow) will not be accepted by the network, no matter how many miners or stakers support it He's separating “miners and stackers” from “the network” which is a common position trope, but in reality a blockchain is a node of validators (miners, or stackers) with optional spectators, most of which don't even have enough data to take positions on whatever the validators are doing. Only the (scarce) full nodes can see that something fishy is happening, but they actually have no control on what happens on chain, all they can do is blow the whistle. What makes a blockchain work is the game theory incentives alignment which helps making sure miner/stakers don't collude together, not because “the network” (miners/stakers aside) can do anything to prevent malicious actions from a cartel of validators.

PretzelPirate 4y ago
> the governance process has always been entirely controlled by the Ethereum foundation in a centralized way. The EF has little to no say in the protocol nowadays. One of the reasons that multiple protocol teams exist and all decisions are made in the open is so decision making can be transparent and criticized.

survirtual 4y ago

Ownership of the minting policy of any currency is ownership of the governance of said currency. By locking minting behind the gates of riches, you give those same people a perpetual license to govern. They spread their tokens how they wish; they choose which projects live and die by their usage of currency. Because they are embedded in the minting process perpetually, their stack keeps growing. They can stake earnings and their stack grows at a compounding rate. With exponential growth, they create an accelerating divide between themselves and no stakers. The limit of this pattern results in a small minority owning a money tree which allows them to feed scraps to the innovators, creators, etc and decide who lives and who dies. With that money, they also have the influence necessary to dictate what core devs work on. A lot more to say but the summary is: I am not sure if Vitalik is talking in bad faith (he seems genuine and honest) or he is just naive (he became rich very young and doesn’t seem to be connected with reality). It seems to me he has a surface level understanding of freedom, tyranny, poverty, wealth, etc but a deep technical understanding and he is only focused on achieving the technical goals. This is very dangerous.