RE: Response to Vitalik Buterin on EOS
Now don't get me wrong here people I like the concept of EOS and own a bit myself.
But... EOS itself does not exist yet, and is actually run on the Ethereum network platform for now right ? EOS' ICO only takes Ethereum as a form of trade/payment as well.
A decentralized platform is not helped at all by centralizing the nodes needed to confirm a transaction, no matter how many transactions are able to take place. Buterin does have a point here whether you like it or not and i don't see it so much as an attack but rather a credible criticism.
You can use all manner of meaningful criticisms you like but DPOS still reduces the overall number of points in the overall system that need to be coerced or corrupted to gain control of the network and/or cause harm to it.
Your 51% graph posted above does not take into account the numerous individuals within those pools that make up those pools, as opposed to just a hundred or so individual nodes as proposed in the DPOS network for EOS.
Vitalek Buterin is a very smart individual, as also is Dan Larimer and I would not want to bet against either of them in this game, and I don't as a matter of fact. I back both as much as I can.
But I do wonder why Buterin is still there with Ethereum and from the start, and Larimer keeps on moving on from one to the other instead of staying with a project.
Again I do like the concept of EOS and have sunk a lot of funds into it as well, but why is it run on the ETH platform if it is supposed to be an ETH KILLER ?
Why not get it up and running and give it 'Proof of Life' before raising over $200,000, 000 on the initial offering and then have a 12 month ICO before it is even a thing ?
Ethereum is often said to have scaling issues, but if you actually take a proper look at how ETH's transactions work you will find that they scale quite well as they are needed to as do the transaction fees.
Ethereum Killer ? ? ? Maybe in the future, but the first positive proof of that will be for EOS to leave the Ethereum Platform successfully.
Draw a map of points that need to be corrupted to compromise a network and/or cause harm and I assure you ETH has fewer points of corruption. Namely, I would corrupt the operators of the two largest pools and get a 51% attack.
ETH is delegated proof of work with 7 meaningfully elected positions with 2 controlling 51%
ETH recommends 12 confirmations, in a window of 12 blocks 7 will be produced by 2 people and the other 5 will be produced by 5 people for an average of 7 unique individuals confirming a transaction.
The economics of block production on ETH falls off dramatically once the number of blocks produced per day falls below the cost of operating a node. EOS and STEEM both have the same trail off on the long-tail which means that economically speaking, the total number of block producers will be the same in both systems. The difference is that DPOS makes sure the top 21 are all unique and equally weighted in each confirmation window (45 seconds) vs unequally weighted in each ETH confirmation window (3 minutes).
So do the math, their claims of decentralization and/or centralization are entirely bogus and unfounded.
The fact remains though that the narrower the points you place trust/confirmations in the chain the more chance there is of corruption or coercion. In your example you point to the 'operators' of said two pools while ignoring the makeup of said pools which could number in the thousands instead of the minimal numbers which would exist with DPOS, the math might be enticing but there is no way around the actual numbers which will confirm the overall chain history. You also ignore the ability of Ethereum transactions to increase with increased demand on the network as well.
No one I have asked the question of about EOS only existing on the Ethereum network as it exists now has answered that question either.
I don't want to fight with you people, I am one of you if you hadn't noticed . I have a couple of grand $AU invested already, but I do think that I have some legitimate questions to ask at least.
Why is EOS totally dependent on Ethereum to exist right now for a start ?
EOS doesn't exist on Ethereum. It is being developed. The Ethereum based tokens just represent EOS tokens when they become available, at which point they'll be exchanged for actual EOS tokens.
I don't think EOS is dependent on Ethereum. They could probably just as easily have released the tokens on Bitshares.
This is exactly the point @southerncross is trying to make: Why didn't they?
Thank you. I am still curious as to the answer, since it would seem to also promote BTS. However, perhaps the most likely one is "it would have raised less money" because Eth use > BTS use atm.
Because exchanges are more familiar with trading eth tokens, and trade is important for distribution to be closer to PoW by controlling price by making it too expensive to buy all coins. All done with goal of security later.
Looks like both reasons make sense.
Again, who are the "make up of said pools"? If you're talking about miners, the equivalent in DPOS is stakeholders (miners delegate their PoW vote, stakeholders delegate their stake vote). In both comparisons DPOS works out better. There is far higher stakeholder participation in Steem for example than the percentage of Bitcoin or Ethereum miners who contribute PoW. But neither miners nor stakeholders are actually involved in block production.
EOS doesn't exist now by choice. It could be started immediately using Graphene and have every change hard forked in, but that makes development slower so EOS will be matured somewhat prior to launch after the tokens on Ethereum have been frozen.
Great discussion and question. You seem to know a fair bit about EOS. If you come up with an answer, I hope you'll post about it.
Fenbushi invested in EOS with a reason I guess?
Who are you referring to, the miners? Miners are no more involved in block production in Ethereum than stakeholders are in Steem and BitShares. The direct equivalent of Witnesses in Ethereum, those producing blocks, are the pool operators. Just like witnesses they can be multiple people in practice, but they function as a single entity. In practice there are more individual block producing entities in any given time frame in the DPOS blockchains than in any of the PoW or direct PoS blockchains.
As a result your prior statement is untrue, when measured empirically:
The mining pools referred to above are made up of many individuals rather than voted for 'Nodes'. They may act as a single entity but only up to the point of their own self interest. And please tell me again what is the difference between thousands deciding on an outcome rather than hundreds deciding an outcome for everyone else concerned, other than a concentration of opinion and self interest ?
I am only approaching this from the point of view of liking the decentralization aspect of the blockchain, and I don't see EOS as embracing this aspect with it's centralized Nodes at all.
The future and the people will decide the eventual outcome in the end, but all the Ethereum Killer hype and bluster for what is now an ERC-20 token based solely and distributed solely for Ethereum alone is a bit of a story in itself for now.
I am not a hater at all, I just have questions is all, I own some EOS and am Intrigued by it's promises, but just don't get people buying it at $1.70 right now on exchanges when they can get it for less than .70 each day from the ICO right now.
Mining pools are nodes that are voted for. Witnesses can be several or hundreds of people just as easily as a mining pool can be.
Nobody in this conversation has called you a hater, or derided you at all. You are simply incorrect on the matter of which system is more decentralized in reality (DPOS systems exist today, Steem and BitShares, and they are more not less decentralized than Bitcoin, Ethereum and other PoW and direct PoS systems).
You have not addressed anything at all here I have raised other than to throw in a red herring statement. Narrowing the pool of possible numbers that confirm contracts of the total chain is not a good thing to my mind, nor is it a positive move from decentralizing the overall aspect of blockchain.
Merely questioning such a move towards DPOS which is central to the EOS protocol is making yourself a target on such a post as evidenced in the reply's above and in the OP with such statements as Vitalek Attacks DPOS.
"Attacking DPOS
Next Vitalik goes on to attack Delegated Proof of Stake." From the OP.
People that get all excited about an ETHEREUM KILLER while pumping an ERC-20 token that exists solely on the ETHEREUM Platform and has an ICO that will run for the next 11 month's at least, and which deals only in ETHEREUM for it's Token need a reality check. Especially when people just come and ask questions.
Been buying EOS form the first period and can confirm that so far the cheapest price was $0.86 in first period and has been up since than but never $0.70.
Never the recent lows of the last few day's then at all, or all the rest of those day's at all either.
Don't forget there is still another 300 plus day's of sales still to come yet. Just one could net you thousands of EOS with just a single ETH if you are lucky.
But it all still rides on ETH to be worth anything as of yet.
vegolino's correct, it hasn't been that low recently, seems US $1.18 seems the lowest recently, according to http://eosscan.io/ - if you need a reason why the ICO was on ethereum, my best guess would be "that's where the money is". And if you want to raise capital, you "follow the money". Also, there's nothing to say they're holding all the proceeds in ETH either. For all we know, they've already withdrawn a big chunk of it to fiat as working capital.
If you want to make a case as to what the "right price is", well, that's a whole other issue, and quite separate from the technology itself. Put a low bid, and maybe you'll catch some at 10 cents in a flash crash, just like what happened a few weeks back on GDAX with ETH.
Pull up a historical price chart of STEEM, or another other crypto, or any stock for that matter. EOS will be no different in that regard, and there will more than likely be plenty of bumps along the way. Some will panic, others may see opportunity. Pick your spots as things unfold.
Other than that, I wouldn't posit to have any clue, except that from what I've seen so far, EOS does seem to be quite impressive, technologically speaking. And I even got a testnet up and running in a 3 euro / month VM, as described in my last post.
Good points, but I would like to correct you that EOS is an application platform itself and does not run on the Ethereum platform. Only the current EOS token is being distributed on the Ethereum platform because they're trying to keep EOS hands off, maintenance-free during development.
That's mostly what I want to say. More description below of my understanding if you want to read:
Why have a token on Ethereum platform?
Then why have ICO over 12 month period now instead of after launch?
Will it be an Ethereum killer?
Then is it good idea to invest in EOS?
This may just be a technicality because they can't promise anything, but if these tokens CAN'T be traded for EOS tokens on the EOS Platform or have any value attached to the EOS Platform, then we might be screwed over. But otherwise, in my opinion yes, EOS is a good investment, maybe not the best, the potential for profit and ROI may not be astronomical like Ethereum was, but I believe EOS is still undervalued in the long-term. If EOS, after token distribution is done, ever becomes a tenth of what Ethereum is today, then if you bought in now, you would begin to profit. Personally I would either get in now for short-term investment because many people transferred large amounts of altcoins to BTC for the free BCC (Bitcoin Cash), and are likely to transfer back to altcoin after this, so I would expect altcoins to rise a bit in a few days (just my unprofessional speculation), or I would wait at least a few months since we might be on a decline and end of a bull run in the crypto space (again, speculation), but I wouldn't be surprised, especially with the 12-month distribution strategy, for EOS to drop further in value this year. Especially next year as EOS nears launch and people start questioning what this this token is worth since they claim in the terms that it has no value. On the other hand, even though EOS is competing with Ethereum, as an investor, I would consider investing in both Ethereum and EOS. If you believe in the application platform technology, it doesn't matter which one wins out, you'll profit because one will skyrocket.
Great stuff, thank you.