The easiest way of understanding how DPOS system works is by thinking it as technology democracy.
We vote for the people who in turn work for us to build blocks and run servers. They get to make some kind of profit out of it. The Community has the power to decide who they want to choose as Block Producers and if B.P tries to play with the rules of the blockchain, the community could downvote and they will lose their candidature.
Why Voting is important?
I take Block Producers as the caretakers of the network. If you are not that tech-savvy, take them as politicians, when they get in power they need to run the country peacefully and work on development, infrastructure and security.
Similarly, Block Producers on EOS needs to perform all above functions -
They need to keep a watch on the health of the network, look at they are not missing any blocks and network is functioning in a timely manner.
As the traffic on the network increases, they need to invest in network resources/infrastructure to meet the demands.
Network resources as in RAM, Storage, Bandwidth and Computational Power.
They need to keep check on the security of the network, stop bad actors from hacking into the network.Take step towards pushing bad actors out of the network.
They work Closely with arbitrators (yes EOS would be having a proper constitution and arbitration) and implement their rulings.
Any changes to constitution system require a nod from 15/21 elected block producers. So the point here is block producers have a lot of power on the blockchain. Though supreme power resides in the hands of communities.
How voting will work on EOS?
EOS community is still undecided on the best way to vote Block Producers. I will try to explain the current voting model to you. Please make a mental note that it could be changed in future.
Investors need to stake their liquid EOS on various resources allocated on EOS network. Investors could stake in Bandwidth, RAM, CPU, Storage and Vote.
EOS staked for bandwidth/CPU and Vote could vote for the Block Producers in 1 EOS:30 Votes ratio i.e if you have 2000 EOS you can vote for 30 Block Producers with voting power of 2000 Each.
It is somewhat similar to Steem, which in my opinion itself is not that perfect.
Challenges with Voting System on EOS
EOS voting mechanism sounds very similar to STEEM, and I'm afraid that it could affect the network making it look like a centralized network.
1. CABAL FORMATION
The 1 EOS:30 Votes, give a lot of power in the hands of whales/ the big investors. If some of the investors turn out to be bad actors, they could start voting Block Producers out of own personal needs, ignoring the platform's future. The big whales could further affect the constitutional changes and arbitration ruling in their favour. The 1 EOS: 30 Votes favours capitalism and which could lead to centralisation in future.
We cannot go with 1 EOS: 1 Vote, that won't prevent whales from taking the control, they could easily create numerous accounts and vote on the network.
I look the capitalism as the biggest challenge on the blockchain, we need to deploy an effective plan for voting to stop the network going the capitalist way.
2. Vote Buying
Though the earning of block producers have been capped and vote buying will be against the constitution. Still, it's not clear how we could stop vote-buying as the rules can be gamed easily.
The very line of vote buying is not clear. The big investors or so-called 'whales' could partner with Block Producers and share profits.
The small investors could partner with Block Producer forming a DAC (Decentralised Autonomous Corporation) and could take the percentage of profits earned in form of token. We already have a DAC in place, EOSDAC, and it is all ready to airdrop tokens in April.
If someone directly tries to pay the investors a percentage of profit then it will be called as vote buying. What's the difference between partnership and vote-buying?
Some people could suggest in partnership investor need to put his money, but how you know that they are putting their money on servers or just have partnered with them with the stake they hold.
Here, one Chinese investor partnered with 8 Block Producer Organisations.
All the three ways are just profit sharing and one kind of vote buying to me. Profit shared in any form by Block Producers is vote buying and we cannot stop that from happening.
I feel the most we could do is trying to vote B.P who are transparent enough with the allocation of profits and funds. @eosphere @eosgo @eosnewyork @eos42 agrees with the transparency and will try every major to put the data list on public platforms.
It will be interesting to know how will they draw the line between vote buying and profit sharing.
3. Voters turnout
Voting matters for insulation of network against bad actors and updating network resources with the increase in demand/traffic. Voting participation by investors becomes necessary for the good health of the network. There are different types of investors in blockchain space, tech-savvy and second those who just trade based on FOMO and FUD.
Most of the investors invest on more than three blockchain startups, thanks to the theory "Don't keep all the eggs in one basket" by Warren E Buffet.So it becomes very difficult to educate and bring them to voting. STEEM Blockchain only sees around 7.6% of the voting. On Lisk, people are incentivized for voting which again is not the best way as people in quest of earning rewards will just vote anyone without doing their due diligence.
The best way out as KATAZAZI(link in the conclusion) suggests in her blog is,
Let's give the authority to vote for dApp created over the network. In future, the main users of EOS Blockchain will be dApp owners and they would be having the vested interest in well being of the network. **
Voting Participation could be further increased by creating easier interfaces. We have a simple interface on STEEM for voting which I think is not enough to educate about initiatives/ infrastructure/ block analysis for Block Producers. We need an interface which could score/rate them Block Producers based on initiatives, infra and network. And an attached update portal which could update investors on the Block Producers undertaking.
Conclusion
It gets easier to understand EOS when you start looking at it as STEEM-POSTS+dAPP PROJECTS. The cabal formation is very much here, which we call it whale orgies in here. Voter turnout is just around 7.68% on STEEM as minnows don't care about voting much and their vote doesn't have a say. The ideal scenario could have been 1 EOS : 1 VOTE, but that could be easily gamed cause one could create numerous accounts and put the funds into them.
For Main Stream adoption of EOS, even a small dApp project developer from KENYA should have an equal say in the network. It will enable EOS to attract many developers from colleges and even attract entrepreneurs trying to venture into blockchain space. If we leave capitalist to have a larger say on the network then many small dApp developers will shy away creating a dApp project over EOS. People will always look out for similar projects like EOS which initially are less centralised towards early adopters.
EOS community is still working on Constitution and Voting System. They are well aware of all the challenges and are very open for discussions. We are still 72 days away from the launch and feel all the aspects of the voting system will be taken care of before the launch.
The best-proposed idea which I feel should be taken into consideration is Univeral SUFFRAGE FOR DAPPS A PROPOSAL. Eva the author of the post has nicely put down all the problem and have proposed ideas for implementing the best way to stop network spamming, giving dApp project owner authority to vote, merging both republic and democratic way of voting, implementing log algorithm for voting among others.
I stumbled upon one more article by DAN Reply to Vitalik, it takes into account all the challenges in the voting system and is a must-read.
It would be interesting to see could we stop centralisation of power going in hands of stakeholders, cause if that happens then the whole idea of decentralisation and blockchain will go down the drain.
What do you think?
My previous EOS posts-
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TrufflePigYour thoughts are appreciated and concern valid. Unfortunately your proposed solution is even worse despite your good intentions. I have a solution to most of your concerns. I think you will approve.
Thankyou @dan for reading through my concerns. I have complete trust in your leadership and knows well you won't let EOS go on the centralized or capitalist path.
I love the idea of work proposal funds and keeping inflation 1%. I still have doubts about B.P reward function thou, won't electing a B.P again and again would give them edge towards other B.P in terms of profit and machinery, especially in long-term. I know you would have given it a thought yourself.
Thank you @dan for being such a great leader to take concerns of every community member. EOS going to be the greatest, widely acceptable blockchain under your leadership.
very well written article, but too little payout. Following you for more.