An analysis on EOS decentralization

With all the excitement surrounding EOS launch in June and with all the controversy surrounding its decentralization, I wanted to share some thoughts and hopefully not get downvoted to oblivion. Ethereum for the moment is the leading platform for smart contracts, it has around 20M users, it has become widely adopted and with all this adoption people are arguing that it is too late for another smart contract platform to catch up. “Ethereum bulls commonly argue that it’s too late for any other smart contract platform to catch up; that Ethereum’s network effects, developer community, brand, and ecosystem integrations are so ingrained, and accelerating so quickly, that another platform cannot possibly catch up.” - @kylesamani Even though Ethereum is the leading platform for smart contract, it has its limitations of scalability. EOS is a blockchain and smart contract platform with a focus on speed, scalability, and user experience. EOS uses delegated proof of stake (DPoS) and a “token ownership as bandwidth” model to achieve high throughput and zero transaction fees. So basically, Ethereum has prioritized decentralization at the expense of scalability, whereas EOS has prioritized scalability at the expense of decentralization. The decentralization maximalists do not accept EOS as decentralized platform because it is not sovereign-grade censorship resistant, sovereign grade censorship resistance means that the system must be designed to withstand direct attack from powerful, sovereign entities and governments. Not every decentralized application requires the same throughput, security guarantees, level of decentralization, programming language, expressivity, privacy, latency, or consensus structure. Different use cases have different requirements, and developers will choose to build on the platforms that most effectively support their goals. EOS recognizes that for global scale dApps, having each and every transaction validated by a large network of consumer-grade computers all over the globe is both unrealistic and unnecessary. So EOS has settled for platform-grade censorship resistance, simply means that there is no single platform operator who can censor one’s use of the system. Now let me state some facts about sovereign-grade censorship resistant decentralized platforms such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. 90% of the mining power is controlled by 16 entities in Bitcoin and 11 in Ethereum. 51% of the mining power is controlled by 4 entities in Bitcoin and 3 in Ethereum. If you look at the big picture a complicated quorum system with 21 nodes is more decentralized than having these entities with a huge amount of power where one shutting down the network would be severely throttled for weeks. It all boils down to 21 Block producers vs a few Mining pools creating blocks in Ethereum & Bitcoin: In Bitcoin & Ethereum you contribute hashrate to mining pools. In EOS you vote for block producers with your coins. https://imgur.com/a/RkVC47qhttps://imgur.com/a/x8w3cbO Articles referenced(DYOR) : https://ift.tt/2HG0iL0

Submitted May 01, 2018 at 04:08PM

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