It’s become more apparent to me that there is no clear definition of decentralization and there are so many factors that there is no way to easily classify something as decentralized.
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I’ve decided to create a matrix that will serve as a reference to accurately determine if something is decentralized and to what degree on a spectrum. This is particularly being made with blockchain social platforms in mind, but I’m sure most elements could be applied to other projects.
• Can anyone monetize?
• Is there a KYC process?
• Are the tokenomics of the system sustainable?
• Do they have a terms and conditions?
o Do they have something like a “we always still retain the right to ban you” clause?
• Do they sell premium features
o Are they payable without KYC?
• Are there “back-doors” or super administrative users that could log into or manipulate a user’s account in some way?
• What is the initial token distribution/was there a pre-mine or ninja-mine?
• What is the ratio of tokens staked vs liquid tokens? How many people are staking?
• Number of core developers?
• Can you self-host content and or utilize peer to peer technology?
• Number of decentralized application (dapp) developers?
• Can anyone post content and participate? (Is it invite-only)
• Can anyone develop third party applications/tools/services for the platform?
• How challenging/easy is it to fork or clone?
• How is privacy handled?
• Is it open source?
• How concentrated is the wealth of the ecosystem?
• Is their cryptocurrency an actual cryptocurrency?
• Does it support and uphold free speech?
• How are moderation and censorship cases handled?
o Do they go after copyrighted material?
• Is the governance decentralized?
o Is it a DAO?
o Is there a company and or CEO behind the project?
o Is voting transparent while also protecting privacy?
o Is there anything protecting the governance model from an attack?
• Does the project actually use and integrate with a blockchain?
o How many nodes are there?
o How distributed are the nodes?
o What’s the barrier of entry to start a node?
o Are they incentivized fairly without over concentrating wealth to the top nodes?
• Does it use Amazon Web Services, Google, Cloudflare, or another service that could create a single point of failure?
• How many of these factors are trustless versus policies/promises?
Some further questions can be considered to further determine if that platform is also a decent one.
• Is it free to use?
• Does it have working media functionality?
• Are the load times reasonable?
• Is it easy to sign up?
• Is there a decent sized community?
• Are there language filters?
• Do you have to download something to use it?
• Does it have a mobile application?
Did I get anything way wrong? Am I missing anything? What is the best way to measure if something is decentralized? Should decentralization even be the goal? Let me know what you think about this in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe!
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and is purely for entertainment purposes. What you see, hear, or read is my personal opinion, and any statements made are based on my views and should not be misconstrued as fact. My crypto portfolio may or may not be simulated
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"Decentralisation" is really an adjective pretending to be a noun.
Decentralised-WHAT? From metal to meatware there are 6 or 7 (or many) levels to a network.
Is "decentralised" any different to plain ole "distributed"? In this case, yes - a network can be distributed and yet under one authority eg all witnesses running on different machines yet under one personal control.
But the big con IMO are those systems that pretend to be decentralised - they even start off that way - but the algorithms are so feeble that the system is quite easy to control. Hence, i would define the "decentralising" algorithms, so that it becomes a verb - what does the system do to promote or maintain its decentralised parameters?
Well how many witnesses/nodes are there for Blurt?...
Why ask something so obvious that you can look up?
is the same gov setup as steem/hive.
Was there a point you were trying to make?
Should blurt be somewhere else on the matrix?
oh my, had a look at the matrix. You created a political axis to then manifest your political bias. lol. Placing Hive and Steem at opposite poles is very funny, when they are the same system run by cabals.
So none of the axes really describe "decentralisation", hence making it difficult to make a judgment.
Libertarians and Authoritarians meet round the bike shed and discuss the freedom to control versus the right to control.
I'd list each network level, from metal to meatware, then list dependencies at each level. If decentralisation means anything it is the minimising of dependencies. Indeed, one may end up with some critical dependencies. ;-)
yeah, maybe I should write that article. I'm not sure it will reveal more than the obvious - but maybe is not obvious to most readers. The D-word has distorted so much crypto chatter - I suspect now that such a meaningless word was inserted into the debate to obfuscate the truth that it has no clothes.
Collusion.
Crypto has a number of "hard problems" - I'd class collusion as a "very hard problem". This is because it takes place outside the system and does not manifest until it is too late to stop. It would need a truly predictive oracle to catch. ;-)
I agree most crypto related terminology is watered down, but what I've built here is an accurate reflection of the space.
With Steem, Justin Sun literally has all the power and took funds right out of people's accounts. My political bias?
What you are suggesting is very complex and not legible to normal people. The irony is that Blurt is based off the same system so what does that say about Blurt then?
You are right though, the axes don't describe decentralization, they cover two main factors and with all the questions provided you ended up with the final result on the spectrum to the right.
Are any of the questions wrong then? Are any missing?
OK, must add that I am not apportioning blame - my one aim since starting way back on steem was to understand the system - as you say, parts of it are complex - and thereby see if it can be improved. I knw, "improved" needs defining too - in this context let's define it as "becoming more decentralised".
One person overtly controlling a network is no different to a group of colluding whales controlling the system. During the steem-coup, one of the original devs posted (sorry, can't recall his name) that he felt sorry, not so much for what was happening, but because it manifested a systemic failure of the system. I thought this brave and is entirely my take on it.
DPOS governance is deeply flawed. If any cabal (group of colluders) does NOT take control, then they become at the mercy of another cabal taking control. So the game is rigged in such a way that "control" becomes an important incentive within a game that is supposed to be "anti"-control. This is even true if such a cabal was a "benign dictatorship" - relinquishing that role means that it WILL be filled - the incentives are too great.
Hence, Blurt comes from the same stable and inherited what IMO is a deeply flawed DPOS governance model. I was not involved at genesis, but within what I said above, the initial setup was for benign control tapering off into (possibly) decentralisation.
Just to add, to your question, I thus think steem/hive/blurt should be closer together on your matrix. The disregard for existing property rights, on its own, would indeed place steem (in its current setup) further away from the immutability property of the chain.
Like I said, the system isn't perfect and in the video I shared the 2 main criticisms against Hive. I think it could be better, but it's still the best we have. I've watched Justin Sun ruin platform after platform. This isn't new.
It happened the other way round. Hive forked and froze Justin Sun's tokens on the Hive chain. So Justin Sun retaliated and froze the Hive developer tokens on the Steem chain.
So @blurtyield is right they're both the same. Important to note that Hive did the freezing of funds first. They also froze the funds of innocent bystanders like @steemchiller (of Steemworld stats) simply because he wouldn't take sides. Then said they'd let him in if he "apologised" - he didn't.
Hive has established a precedent of freezing coins not just for political reasons but for thought crime - poor steemchiller lost his coins for the crime of not saying anything. That's North-Korean style authoritarianism. Arguably worse than Steem.
That is incorrect. Justin Sun bought the ninja mine staked which was promised to the community for community funding. They froze the account to prevent ruining the platform by undelegating all the community projects (which he did). He then colluded with exchanged illegally to take user funds for governance to get his way. They then froze out his funds which shouldn't be his and put them in the DAO fund to be used as it was always intended and promised.
They only didn't airdrop funds to people who supported Justin and corrected any mistakes which happened to me. I was pretty vocal about it that I didn't respect that move but I get it. Justin Sun literally drained Steem from many accounts directly.
Also nothing stops Blurt from the same, it's the same infrastructure.
You ..you are everywhere !
But you make the most money in Hive right ?
I do my best! Yes, I tend to earn the most there and on read.cash
I ll check read.cash
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Thanks for an excellent breakdown of each platform, I am happy I am in the bottom-left quadrant! Though I wish Torum was with HIVE and Blurt, otherwise I am happy where I am in the decentralized journey. #1HAM
So what would put Torum down there? The content isn't on blockchain and you can only earn from daily tasks, not from content
Or buy their coin on exchanges and pray hard for a pump which has not happened for a LONG time