Addressing Concerns About Proxy Power on EOS
Addressing Concerns About Proxy Power on EOS
August 21, 2019
By Colin Talks Crypto
Being a proxy makes one responsible to its voters. So a proxy's actions must reflect its voters' wishes. If the voters don’t like what a proxy does, they remove their votes. In the case of getting the "regproducer" upgrade approved, my proxy’s votes increased by nearly 400,000 shortly afterward. This was demonstrative of the community’s opinion of it. My proxy stuck its neck out and did the right thing for the chain.
It takes balls to make the right decisions and to be accountable for them. The EOS blockchain just had its security increased as a result.
The entire purpose of a proxy is being entrusted : The proxy picks which BPs to vote for. The proxy picks which referendums to support and which to reject. The token holder has a say in this: they either give the proxy the support of their vote, or they remove their vote.
Therefore there is a complete "checks and balances" on a proxy's actions. If a proxy does something stupid, that proxy will pay for it with the cost of lost votes. A proxy is incentivized to act in the best interests of the group, or the group will not support it.
The same goes for any block producer. A BP could do something rash and stupid (like let a blacklisted scam transaction go through) and the community might reflect their disapproval of that action by removal of votes for that BP. It's the same "checks and balances" at play.
Right now we do not have a perfect governance structure on EOS. It is being manipulated by BPs/whales/exchanges. So voters and proxies must be smart and strategic-- just as BPs/whales/exchanges are-- when it comes to upgrading things on the blockchain. Sometimes this requires fast action.
Sometimes inaction is worse than action.
It is very possible the incumbent BPs would not have allowed regproducer upgrade to occur if it were left up to them. This would be a bad thing for EOS. So my proxy made sure that didn't happen. In this case there was community-wide landslide support in favor of the action because my proxy gained 400,000 votes almost overnight, after the fact.
If a proxy did something sudden, rash and (most importantly) something that harmed the network, that proxy would be struck down by the community. And rightfully so. There is no place for a malicious actor in EOS, be it a proxy or a BP, and the token holders ultimately have the final say as the judges.
It's a liquid plutocracy. Anything can change at any moment by any party. Trust is earned over time by proving reliability. This doesn't make any actor unaccountable for their actions. Trust is an ongoing thing.
Let's continue to make EOS great together. It's a community thing.