Is decentralized funding for developers a reality or a pipe dream?
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1) Is decentralized funding for developers a reality or a pipe dream?
Developers are the core resources in blockchain projects. They promote the long-term stable operation and continuous evolution of the network by developing codes and upgrading protocols to create greater value. So how to motivate developers? Some projects obtain initial funds through pre-excavation or ICO, and in order to expand the entire ecosystem, foundations that hold initial funds generally fund third-party developers.
This post compares five different blockchain projects: Tezos, Zcash, Nano, idena, Nyzo, explores how they incentivize developers, and compares the degree of decentralization required to achieve this.
Tezos: With a massive over $600 million in funding, 78 new projects have been funded totaling $38 million according to a recent update.
Funding Process: Knockout Test - Technical Committee Evaluation - The Tezos Foundation makes the final decision; participants of the Tezos network have no say in this, all decisions are made by members of the Foundation.
Tezos Funding Decentralization Score: 1 Star
Another star project, Zcash, uses miners' tax to obtain the foundation's initial funds. Zcash still collects 20% of the tax after the first halving, and the distribution ratio of this part of the tax is: ECC-35%, Zcash Foundation - 25%, third-party development fund - 40%.
Funding Process: Submit Proposal—Review by Zcash Foundation—Zcash Foundation may appoint an arbitrator to focus on the relevant team
Zcash Funding Decentralization Score: 2 Stars
Conclusion: Nyzo is the most decentralized one for developer funding (Satoshi Mamoto’s note: on the other hand, the Nyzo team controls more than 80% of the tokens in the entire network), Nyzo > Idena > Nano = Zcash > Tezos
2) Our Network: Analyze the status quo of Polkadot, Enterprise Ethereum, Handshake, Opyn, Kadena, and Nervos networks
This week OurNetwork focuses on emerging networks, including Kusama, Handshake, Kadena, Nervos' network status, and Opyn's transaction volume. Refreshingly, PegaSys Product Manager Tim Beiko wrote about the current state of “Ethereum Enterprise,” trying to analyze its impact through on-chain data on Enterprise Ethereum.
Enterprise Ethereum and private networks were once nearly synonymous. But in 2019, things have changed. We're starting to see early signs of traditional corporate adoption of mainstream blockchain networks: from $112M bond issuances, to private networks compatible with (Ethereum) mainnet, most recently using Ethereum mainnet as the system of record middleware.
These early signs — the warming up of businesses to enter mainstream blockchain networks — are encouraging, but it’s hard to quantify their impact or scale. Since quantitative data is redundant, it needs to be supplemented by qualitative analysis. Taking bond issuance as an example, we not only look at the amount of on-chain activity, but also its complexity.
3) Spot transaction rate comparison: Binance US, FTX, OKCoin and Poloniex are the cheapest
This is a recent research report from The Block, which analyzes the spot transaction fee rates of 20 exchanges, including: Coinbase, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Kraken, FTX, Poloniex, Bittrex, Gemini, etc.
Overall, Binance US, FTX, OKCoin, and Poloniex are the cheapest spot exchanges; for retail investors, FTX is the cheapest, and for large traders, Binance US and OkCoin are the cheapest; Liquid Bitfinex has a low Maker rate and a relatively high Taker rate.
Coinbase, bitFlyer EU, Bitstamp and Gemini are by far the most expensive exchanges. For retail investors, Coinbase, Bitstamp, and Gemini are particularly expensive. However, for larger traders, Gemini is relatively cheap. ItBit is the only exchange that offers discounts to Makers, but it has one of the most expensive Taker rates.
The numbers in the table are the rate rankings in the corresponding column, the lower the rate, the smaller the number
4) The death of Steem and the rise of Hive
Justin Sun’s acquisition of Steemit Inc sparked opposition from the Steem community, from Binance and Huobi embezzling user tokens for voting, to the hard fork of the Hive network. Ben DiFrancesco believes that this may be following the Ethereum The DAO incident, Bitcoin block After the big and small disputes, the most interesting example of decentralized governance.
The turmoil surrounding Steem has subsided and the network status quo has inevitably splintered, but the most interesting questions remain. Can the community-led Hive network outperform the original Steem network under the direction of Justin Sun? Or after this incident, both networks became irrelevant? Only time will tell.
If you are someone who is skeptical of DPoS networks, then this incident may prove to me the network's weaknesses. After all, block producers are indeed colluding, and the consensus mechanism itself is fragile and vulnerable to attack.
Stepping back, there is also a broader lesson from this incident that should be heeded by other members of the cryptocurrency community. The measure of cybersecurity is not whether it can be manipulated or attacked, but how difficult it is for any given entity to carry out an attack.
If we really care about building a robust decentralized network, we shouldn't shy away from these uncomfortable facts (exchanges have a voice over PoS networks, a handful of mining pools own a lot of Bitcoin and Ethereum's computing power, etc.), or Try to cover them up. Instead, we should acknowledge them and try to alleviate them. The hostile takeover of the Steem network is a dramatic reminder of the true nature of decentralized governance: behind it all, everything ultimately rests on social consensus. We forget this at our own peril.
5) This article explains the difficulties of decentralization and expansion of cross-chain anchored BTC projects
This is a popular science article written by blockchain investor Andrew Kang. At present, most DeFi applications are concentrated on Ethereum. The market value of the underlying blockchain is large enough to support the activity of the upper-level economy. Bitcoin is the asset with the largest market value. , There are more and more solutions integrating Bitcoin into DeFi. Andrew compared the existing mainstream solutions, including: imBTC, wBTC, pBTC, renBTC, sBTC, tBTC.
In fact, we found a negative correlation between scalability and decentralization.
