One of the enticing features of decentralized governance is the voting power conferred to stakeholders ( miners, developers, users/participants) when it comes to making decisions that will promote the project further. Be off-chain or on-chain governance, it made investors develop the feeling of being part of the project, but with on-chain governance where voting power is based on the number of tokens in possession, one may wonder if the so-called decentralized governance applied here is different from the governance exercised by a centralized system. Take for example the recent Junoswap incident where a proposal was passed for a whale airdropped token to be reduced to the whale cap of 50k Juno. If you followed the whole incident, you will agree with me that considering the voting power of most validators and the voting power of the Junoswap team, there was no way the proposal would not be passed. I am not in support of the whale's action but at the same time, we cannot say with certainty whether he intentionally staked Atom in multiple wallets just to maximize his Airdrop share. My point here is this, no matter the number of participants that want to support the whale to retain his airdropped tokens, their voting power cannot compete with that of validators and the Junoswap team whose vote will surely be a YES. The token was indeed returned to the community pool after it was removed from the Whale wallet, but decentralized governance in this situation had many attributes of centralization.
Outside the Junoswap incident, the fact that one can delegate his voting power ( by delegating his tokens ) to another puts a big question on decentralized Governance. Some of us who have figured out that delegating to validators with higher voting power is in itself a means of promoting centralization have resulted in delegating to validators with lower stakes, but is this sufficient? Has it stopped those with higher stakes from voting proposals that will favor them more, than the blockchain?
The fact is that the term Decentralized Governance needs to be redefined. If we want to be decentralized, the proof of stake protocol should seek ways to reduce/remove the power abuse in Governance. The off-chain governance is even quite better, that some disputes can result in a "fork", thus some stakeholders' opinions are not trampled on. Whether we like it or not, the decentralized governance we practice today is still deficient in some aspects, and until a clearer part is created, there will be a lot of challenges from it.
Also posted here
Really, you made some significant points here. Since it a Decentralized system, the community voices matter. Thanks so kindly for this piece. I hope to see more from you.
Thank you for stopping by. One of the things I love about comet Ranker is the fact that the comment box is where we share our ideas and support each other opinions.
You said it well, decentralization is not a destination but a journey and we need to ask questions to ensure that we are heading in the right direction.
Yeah!!!! I am aiming for Level 4 and I will get there soon. That you Wil. for all you do. Comet Ranker has been a home for me and most of us there. We feel at home sharing ideas and queries there because we know we have people of like minds that will contribute to it. Thank you, Wil. am proud to be part of Comet Ranker
It's so great to hear your thoughts about why the comments (and questions!) matter so much Joseph! Thank you for investing yourself at HQ AND in the comments here on Hive!
I'm certainly glad to be on this journey with you! ☄️
See you over at our digital home! 🙌
@wil.metcalfe
Comet Ranker
Surely am always there. There is no place like home
☄️
We all need to continue asking the questions that need to be asked like your doing up close and personal here. Questions and inquiring minds are the base that all freedom is built UPon.
I believe that we can be inspired... but unless we are also aspire towards further innovation new and better ways to human can not possibly be undertaken. THAT is exactly why we must build a culture that questions and examines everything!
Just because something isn't tangible (in that can not be held in your hand) doesn't mean that it can not be carefully examined. I'm glad your taking the time to do this. We can learn a lot this way.
What I learned from what you have written... is that decentralization is NOT a destination... it is a journey... it is a collective process that we must all chose to undertake. And because of that it is more important than ever to establish a norm of observation and question asking.
Thank you for this one Joseph.
@wil.metcalfe
Comet Ranker
P.S. I have targeted ⭕ this one with @comet.ranker and I'll also be boosting your engagement on the Hive Blockchain!
We wrappedUP the Reconnect & Reset LIVE today (You can find the video playback in the 'live-archive' at HQ. Just an FYI!) and that's what's deployed these specific actions! Thank you for being such an active and valued member of the #CometCrew over at HQ!
You unlocked Level 3 (and that's why I sent you 3 Comet Tokens!) and you managed to do that with an outstanding 153 comments! Nicely done!!! 🙌
☄️☄️☄️