#33 - The Game Theory of Staking (DPoS) on Hive and Steem

I just listened to this Q&A clip from Andreas Antonopolous in which he addresses concerns over the security of Proof of Stake systems and a few of the potential attack vectors.

Over the past 30-40 days, we’ve seen Justin Sun take advantage of a Delegated Proof of Stake system on the Steem blockchain.

Sun did this by acquiring such a large stake in the network that he controlled the witness elections and thus, could control the rules of block production.

With Delegated Proof of Stake, having 1 person/organization (or even a handful of people) with so much control over the supply of the network is dangerous. They can change the elected officials on the blockchain at will and thus, can change the rules of the blockchain itself.

We see the same issue happening with TRON and with EOS — a small group of people have too much control over the network and with that control, they cause a high degree of centralization and manipulation. These are not true decentralized blockchain networks. They are centralized networks masquerading as decentralized networks.

These 2 major issues — a centralized force doing an OTC deal for a controlling stake acquisition and also the exchanges getting involved in proof of stake/Delegated proof of stake consensus — have been addressed by the Hive blockchain and will need to continually be addressed by other PoS/DPoS  blockchains.

In This Episode:

• Brief Intro to Justin’s Attack on DPoS and How He Controls the Rules of Block Production
• The Danger of Centralization in PoS/DPoS (and PoW)
• What if Someone Buys All the Stake of a Coin?
• Justin Bypassed the Market by Doing a Closed-Door Deal
• Another Attack Vector for PoS/DPoS — Centralized Exchanges
• How Hive Was Formed and How it Addressed These 2 Major Points of Weakness — DAF & 30 Day Voting Lock

Links Mentioned:

• Andreas Antonopolous on "The Game Theory of PoS” - https://youtu.be/MHYS0xgZ9dQ
• Transparent, Open-Source Development Fund (DAF) on Hive - https://peakd.com/@steem.dao/transfers

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