Time Is of the Essence

While I understand that development takes time, it is becoming much more apparent to me that our window is shrinking fast on becoming a decentralized network. I believe above all else, this should be our first priority. I encourage everyone to think of solutions that would not benefit themselves personally but benefit the network as a whole. (Looking at you large staking pools) At the end of the day, by building a flourishing network, the price will rise and benefit everyone anyway. Look at networks like Ethereum and Tezos. They are incredibly decentralized and have a thriving economy with huge plans for growth and big partnerships. It’s not only because they have the technology backing them, it’s the network that surrounds them. Nodes are spaced worldwide, securing and keeping their blockchains safe from bad actors.

f765d4b2cbdbc9f9b7bb3bf29728b664
Look at this picture. Within thirty minutes of posting this tweet almost a thousand people resoundingly responded. It’s clear how important decentralization is to this community and I believe that is why this project is being overshadowed by others.

The technology is here on Harmony and the team should be very proud of their accomplishment but it’s time to harness this technology and move forward. In my opinion, this project is incredibly undervalued. The problem is my opinion doesn’t matter. The teams opinion doesn’t matter. It’s the markets sentiment that matters. Partnerships can’t begin without market sentiment. JPMorgan didn’t allow ACH transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges until there was enough backlash. That’s a perfect example of market sentiment swaying an outcome.

The market is conclusively against centralization.

My proposal is the same it was this week during our teleconference.
Not only should we increase the number of seats available on the committee but we should also put a cap on BLS keys per node. I think that number should be 4. It will allow smaller nodes a fighting chance of being selected by delegates. Larger validator operations will have to create more nodes and thus their costs will rise. They can either choose to build more nodes or delegate some of their stake to smaller operations. Either way, they’ll still be making their passive income.

Again, I want to re-emphasize that by creating a decentralized network, more people will join the network and the price will rise.

Just waiting to see what happens is not a solution at all and will only cause the network to become more centralized by the epoch.

Thank you for reading my post and please leave your thoughts below,
Clayford

1 Like

No. I think this is a terrible approach.

The entire advantage the team has right now is that the network is still centralized and experimentation can be done. Decentralizing the network now would make it into just a worse version of Ethereum or Bitcoin.

If we hope to be competitive against established networks, we need to iron out all the problems those networks have, NOW, while it is still centralized. In fact I think way more soft-forking should be done right now, tweaking the consensus mechanism, tweaking reward rates, etc…

Decentralization will come when it is time. Until then decentralization is just a liability. What is preventing interest right now is the fact that it is simply not profitable to run a validator, and so newer members who haven’t invested the time into harmony as other existing validators have, and just want to make a profit, are disincentivized from joining the network

The picture I posted from yesterday’s poll completely negates your entire argument. Centralization is the reason projects like NEO, EOS, and STEEM are not in good shape right now. You mentioned Ethereum and Bitcoin. Look at how well those blockchains are doing. What is the common theme?
To call decentralization a liability shows how detached you are from the market sentiment.

With all due respect i strongly disagree. The reason why theyre not in good shape is because they have no hope of EVER being decentralized, not because they are currently not decentralized.

Let me repeat that: the reason why those projects are in bad shape is because they have committed to being centralized for the remainder of their existence, NOT because they are currently centralized.

the market is pricing in future expectations, and there is a chicken and egg problem. Bitcoin and ethereum are decentralized because they have a high valuation, it’s a self-reinforcing loop due to all the interest around the platforms and first mover advantage

I respect your opinion but we will have to agree to disagree.