This is a problem all smart contract technology has , even ethereum , augur especially . they might as well be called "dumb contracts "
The blockchain is a ledger , secured by a consensus mechanism that is economically difficult to attack the larger it gets . any smart contract that requires any sort of "proof" of the contract being fulfilled , be that an escrow , and exchange , a betting market , anything outside of the blockchain. Then you have shifted the consensus to outside of the security of the blockchain.
People need to confirm the events that took place for the smart contract to be fulfilled, this is why augur runs on reputation because inside the blockchain the smart contract has no single clue what happened outside of the blockchain it is beyond its powers to be able to confirm or verify. So you have to rely on people to confirm what actually happen , Offering an incentive for them to not lie , because the consensus of people is centralized and a hell of alot less secure than the mathematical proofs of a blockchain ledger.
101 delegates isn't exactly fully decentralized but any coin with smart contracts cant be currently , it is impossible, they rely on an outside source to confirm the actions and fulfillment's of the smart contracts that aree outside of the blockchain.
With things like AT (atomic transactions) now there are ways to be able to do trades cross different currencies while still not needing someone to confirm that the transaction went thru , the smart contract can confirm for itself , it has bridged the gap and expanded the purview of the blockchain to another connected blockchain , but still for the majority of tasks people claim smart contracts can deal with, the inescapable truth is , that without a centralized authority that can confirm consensus to events outside of the blockchain , smart contracts are useless.
This is what i think Mal is talking about, this is a temporary solution to the fact that outside consensus is impossible for smart contracts to function without something in place to allow outside consensus , 101 delegates does seem like one of the best solutions currently to allow smart contract to function outside of the blockchain. but obviously as technology develops in the coming years and there are expansions to blockchain tech and the ability to reach consensus on events that take place outside of the blockchain , then it can become more deentralized , more secure and remove any potential bad human actors within the system
Yes, I do understand all of this, but it's not really relevant to my main concern, which is about the way delegates claim their position. However, if the delegate pool was to be made substantially larger, wouldn't any centralisation claims be easier to fend off?
Here's an interesting little thing about predicting voters turnouts... at least, I find it interesting:
There is an (admittedly disputed) formulae for this:
PB + D > C,
P is the probability that an individual's vote will affect the outcome of an election,
B is the perceived benefit that would be received if that person's favored political party or candidate were elected,
D originally stood for democracy or civic duty, but today represents any social or personal gratification an individual gets from voting, and
C is the time, effort, and financial cost involved in voting.
For an average Lisk voter, we can already see that both P and B are essentially zero and I can't imagine D would be very high. C would likely be quite/very high due to the effort of reading about delegates and especially paying to vote.
Now look at it from a (selfish) large Lisk holders/group point of view:
P would be high, because a high Lisk holder or group can put a lot of Lisk into voting and quite possibly affect the outcome. B would be astronomical because he's hoping to get a delegate out of it. We'll leave D as before because we can afford to, and C would be possibly quite high due to cost, but not as high as B, because B is where the profit is.