Nick Szabo doesn’t like EOS
The crypto space is (slowly) growing up, but it’s still dominated by amateurs, shills, scammers, chancers and those who don’t really have much of a clue about what they’re doing but want to give you their opinions and advice anyway.
There are relatively few people who are worth listening to. We’ve grown weary of ‘experts’, and the experts from the non-crypto world – bankers, central bankers, economists, media – have repeatedly proven they don’t understand bitcoin and crypto. That’s why when one of the few genuine crypto experts says something, it’s worth listening.
Nick Szabo has been around the crypto world since before there was crypto. He was an early pioneer of decentralised currencies, and his work on ‘bit gold’ was a direct forerunner to bitcoin. (Bitcoin draws on and refines the ideas of bit gold.) In fact, so integral was the idea to bitcoin and other circumstantial evidence that he’s been named as a prime candidate for the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto – something he denies. Szabo also came up with the idea of smart contracts, well before the inception of blockchain. In short, he’s big on decentralised cash protocols and the guy knows his stuff.
So when Szabo criticises a blockchain protocol, it’s worth paying attention. One recent tweet reads: ‘In EOS a few complete strangers can freeze what users thought was their money. Under the EOS protocol you must trust a “constitutional” organization comprised of people you will likely never get to know. The EOS “constitution” is socially unscalable and a security hole.’ (https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4/status/1008974899690463232)
Szabo’s point is that EOS relies on ‘wet code’ – in this context, meaning interpreted by humans – making it ‘an utterly idiotic way to run a cryptocurrency compared to secure automation.’ EOS has 21 block producers, chosen by vote by token holders. So what happens when the protocol scales, and you don’t know the parties you’re voting for? How do you trust them? The idea starts to resemble existing forms of banking.
EOS’s Constitution has already met with criticism, not least because unused accounts can be seized and auctioned: ‘After 3 years of inactivity an account may be put up for auction and the proceeds distributed to all Members...’ (Article XVII, see https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/blob/37ce45c0b60d2710569c2d1a9229945cc0e855a9/governance/constitution.md)
Will this be a dealbreaker as EOS grows? Is EOS secure? Will current holders care? It will be interesting to see how this one pans out.
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What EOS holders?90% of tokens is owned by creator of EOS.It's more centralized than XRP!
Americans in particular really blew it, didn't they? So focused on being jealous and bitter they miss out on the opportunities of a lifetime. Let the Chinese and other serious, intelligent people eat your lunch. We had a long time and rock bottom prices to get on board. But the NAYsayers outnumbered the yaysayers.
Still it seems like a very ignorant opinion. The constitution is a Template that can be adjusted for any new enterprise. You associate with those you agree with, and voluntarily. So many interests are aligned. Crime can be banned, rules can be enforced and bad actors excluded.
And it does scale, why not? Yes, we have to pay attention to things that we used to let slide. And we get "taken to the cleaners" while we are looking askance. Even here at STEEMIT I am personally guilty of not looking into the governance sufficiently.
But even look at people like Woz from Apple. He's not really up on crypto currency. Most of his opinions are superficial. And that goes for most of Silicon Valley and The Haves in the Tech Industry. Many of them do not yet really understand crypto. They've been employed helping Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter and the old guard.