Many cryptocurrencies don’t do well. Not because of the technology behind them but merely because of the organizational level they are in doomed them from the very beginning. The governance of any corporation has to be clearly and formally defined. Governance is a human issue and when not structured, open doors to confusion.
This piece is about popular crypto governance models with decentralized characteristics.
There are enough bad examples but EOS keeps popping up again and again. The network has 21 trusted parties to maintain the blockchain and receive rewards for the same. EOS has been criticized for its incomplete approach to governance.
You see, for a network to dodge out any form of attacks against it, its network has to achieve total decentralization. Its governance has to be decentralized as well. It may cost the network innovation and efficiency but considering that over $2 billion worth digital assets have been stolen since blockchain inception, it’s worth the risk.
Importance Of Governance Models
Its common knowledge that blockchain and cryptocurrency are still in its early stages of development. Although different, the technology is still being defined as a new asset class with similarities to the equity markets. The crypto markets share the same governance goal of protecting investor interests and preventing rogue executives from defrauding and fleeing with company assets.
According to Phillip hacker, a researcher on corporate governance systems, money is at stake every time a major decision is about to be made, Investor protection must hence be prioritized because it is the investor who is directly affected by these changes.
When changes are done by a small group, the majority might become victims. Bitcoin is a good example of what could go wrong. When the currency was faced with the decision to change the block size, the bitcoin core team showed resistance and this culminated to a stalemate. The investors became the bystanders in the standoff, unable to do anything. The drama resulted in a fork and bitcoin cash was created.
Bitcoin Governance Model
It’s based on a set of rules, most of them passed on by the blockchain genius Satoshi Nakamoto himself. But the rules have since changed in order to address vulnerabilities inherent. The question is, who made the decision?
The bitcoin decentralized governance model run in such a way that any individual can vote on the improvements suggested by fellow users and developers. In order to do so, however, one needs to run a full node to cast his vote, and that requires active miners in the network, not ordinary people owning bitcoin.
Ethereum Network’s Governance
The Ethereum, like bitcoin, operates under the stance of no centralized form of control. With Ethereum, there are designated developers with the mandate of network improvement implementation after the decisions have been made.
It has been argued that Ethereum’s governance model is more advanced than bitcoin. Whether true or false, we leave you to decide.
Telecoin Voting System
The network is a privacy-focused community project. The updates and advancements of the TeleCoin code are decided on a consensus on the blockchain voting system.
The network takes direct participation to a whole new level and the community can enforce the improvements and changes conveniently. A team of developers manage the code and are also indirectly owned by the network.
One needs 10,000 TELE to become an active participant and a Master node in that case. It ensures enough stake for you to act on the network’s behalf.
There are much other different governance models that works differently. What matters is whether they work well on the network’s behalf. And by working well, we mean maintaining the decentralization nature of the network while making a desired decision in regards to updates and improvements while still under no threat of a split.