EOS User Agreement update finalized, questions remain unanswered

Aneta Karbowiak, a senior writer at EOSwriter (a publication focused on reporting news related to the ongoing development of EOS, one of the largest smart contract-enabled decentralized application deployment platforms) has revealed the approval of an updated EOS User Agreement.

EOS, which operates based on the delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism, has a built-in protocol which it claims allows its community members to democratically elect full-node operators who’re tasked with validating blocks of transactions on the network.

Nodes that help process transactions on EOS are referred to as block producers and the EOS Constitution requires that 21 such validators be elected at all times, in order to manage the multi-billion dollar dApp development platform.

All 21 EOS BPs Sign Platform User Agreement

Karbowiak wrote that the EOS User Agreement was signed by all 21 EOS BPs and that this move has effectively replaced the previous interim version of the EOS Constitution. The unanimous approval, which has resulted in the new user agreement being put in place, did not come easy. This, as Karbowiak noted, came only after months-long debates and arguments related to how a decentralized platform such as EOS should be managed.

Confirming that EOS token holders retain the rights to be the primary decision-maker on the dApp creation platform, Karbowiak and other members of the global EOS Community believe more governance-related involvement is necessary at this point. Going on to mention that the EOS mainnet went live in June 2018, after only barely reaching the 15% threshold required for chain activation, Karbowiak noted that Dan Larimer, the CTO at Block.one, called for a change to the existing EOS Constitution.

Although Larimer’s specific recommendations did not come right away, most members of the EOS Community realized that they needed to draft a new EOS User Agreement (EUA) which has now been finalized and made effective.

EOS EUA Proposed As Referendum Document

A couple months back, the EUA was proposed as a referendum document, and a deadline for May 9th, 2019 had been set, by which the formal write-up should have been drafted. Karbowiak wrote in EOSwriters’ update blog that “99% Yes votes” were received “over No,” suggesting that an overwhelming majority was in favor of the new rule changes.

According to EOSwriter, this “means that the proposal has collected [only] 1.7% of [the] tokens participation [required] while for the referendum to be deemed as passed it would need [a minimum of] 15% maintained for 30 days in the 3 months window period and with 10% more of votes Yes over No.”

The blog post regarding the EOS update further notes that the “referendum bar has been set very high and no referendum proposal has reached such threshold yet.” Moreover, the proposal which receives the most votes “would [then] direct additional funds to the [EOS Resource Exchange] REX pool [which] has [a] 2.33% tokens participation [level] and the deadline [for it is set for] May 12th, 2019. “Until more voters ... come or some whales start voting, … this proposal [may] end up” being rejected, Karbowiak wrote.

Are BPs Themselves Changing The System?

“BPs faced with the difficult problem” of dealing with blacklisted accounts, which could be discarded by the EOSIO Core Arbitration Forum (ECAF), reportedly “decided to take things in their hands and put the EUA up for 21 BPs” to approve, EOSWriter reported. The publication further noted that “what [this] means [is] that BPs themselves change the system without waiting for the referendum results.”

It added that critics of the “EUA have argued that it was missing the BP Agreement mentioned in the same EUA, [while] others [noted] that the referendum should be used as a main signalling instrument rather than [as] governance by BPs.” Moreover, BPs and other whale EOS token holders have been thought to have ”true influence on the rankings,” EOSWriter’s blog stated.

“First Time EOS Mainnet Properly Ratified”

Notably, EOSWriter also revealed that the proposal has been signed only one day before the official deadline. The publication added that the “21 BPs out of [the] 30 who signed the EUA include: “eosnewyorkio, argentinaeos, cypherglass, eosnationftw, eoscafeblock, atticklabeosb, eosflytomars, eosbeijingbp, eosbixinboot, eoshenshenio, eosdacserver, eosiosg11111, eosauthority, eos42freedom, eos.fish, eosriobrazil, eoscannonchn, eoshuobipool, cochainworld, jedaaaaaaaaa, bitfinexeos1.”

Commenting on the matter, David Packham from EOS42, noted “The supermajority approval of the EOS User Agreement represents the first time the EOS Mainnet has had a properly ratified agreement in place as part of governance. This forms a stable foundation upon which future amendments can now be proposed and made as EOS and the community needs develop out.”

Notably, Karbowiak also wrote that “BPs are simply putting Delegated Proof of Stake into action despite [having] pledged to [abide by] the rules set by the previous constitution.” She further noted that “things are not so black and white as one would think.” Elaborating on the overall situation, the writer at Cryptonomist noted that “the interim constitution is not so easy” to understand. She believes “the rules” created so far “have proven to be unenforceable, [and that] the ECAF itself had little power to enforce anything if BPs didn’t agree.”

“ECAF Members Appointed,” Rather Than Voted In?

According to Karbowiak’s assessment, ECAF’s members “were appointed rather than voted in by the token holders and the threshold for changing the interim constitution with another [rulebook] seems very high” at the moment. She also thinks that “the EOS community has finished in a limbo where the rules have been disregarded, [and also] where certain things have been passed directly by BPs vote, but the more important changes” are still awaiting approval such as for the referendum to pass.

“The biggest hurdle,” EOSWriters’ blog noted, is “the blacklist backlog” which now consists of “hundreds of cases” that have not been addressed, including those by “users who have been phished, hacked or scammed.”

Currently, the EOS Community, as a whole, appears to not have decided on the “steps that [need to] be taken [in order] to resolve this issue.”

Suggestions On How To Resolve Blacklisted EOS Accounts

When asked which options are available to resolve blacklisted EOS accounts, Luka Percic from Chainrift BP was quoted as saying: “either by nulling keys, key switching, or signing in random standby testing, which would clear out the transactions from those accounts instead.”

In statements shared with EOSWriter, Kevin Rose from EOS New York, remarked:

“Governance is, very simply, the collective decisions we make, the mechanisms we leverage to make them, and the methods we use to enforce those decisions. The common document for EOS is now one that is clear, reasonable, and enforceable with regard to all three of those pillars. From here, we can focus on building solutions that leverage the powerful features of EOS with regard to governance challenges. The more of this process that is transparently on-chain the better."

 

Read more:

• Are Coinbase pumps a thing of the past? EOS, Maker and Augur all dump after listing
• EOS stolen funds arbitration ruling scoffs at decentralization
• Will this be the year of Proof of Stake coins?

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Originally posted on Crypto Insider : https://cryptoinsider.com/eos-user-agreement-update-finalized-questions-remain-unanswered/

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