Some good points that address critiques of $NEO have gained traction on Reddit recently -@ByteSizeCapital on Twitter
fairytailzz
https://www.reddit.com/r/NEO/comments/7rwwsk/some_good_points_that_address_critiques_of_neo/Credits to @ByteSizeCapital
This is his twitter account:
https://twitter.com/ByteSizeCapitalsource:
https://twitter.com/ByteSizeCapital/status/954845409905541120Recently, the following critiques of $NEO have gained traction on Twitter & Reddit without appropriate response:
1) NEO's consensus network is and always will be centralised 2) Consensus nodes need to be centrally approval 3) The number of consensus nodes is too small.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBJMg2UMAAEKka.jpghttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBJNmCUMAA0_El.jpgWe'll start with NEO's consensus algorithm Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT).
dBFT shares similiarities with dPoS:
1) Consensus nodes are elected by $NEO holders (1 NEO = 1 vote) 2) Consensus is achieved when >66% of all CNs agree on the next block.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBNl-kVMAA82HD.jpghttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBNmCgX0AA0l-m.jpgBFT & PoW consensus algorithms each come with their own advantages and disadvantages, summarised in the comparison table. The important differences are in:
Node identity management
Scalability (no. of nodes)
Performance (throughput).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBPcZdUMAAJZAw.jpghttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBPcc5VwAANSaR.jpgIn a PoW blockchain, nodes do not need to "know" each other - anyone can download the mining software and participate in network validation.
PoW consensus is characterised by competition - nodes race to find the unique solution to the hash/nonce calculation.
Because of the competition, the addition of nodes is trivial. Malicious nodes attempting to alter the blockchain need to complete the cumulative PoW to succeed.
In a BFT blockchain, nodes need to "know" each other - 66% of nodes must come to agreement on the next block.
BFT consensus is characterised by cooperation - nodes review transactions in the mempool & suggest the next block. There is no race.
Because of the cooperation, the addition of nodes is difficult. Malicious nodes will succeed if they comprise >66% of the network.
Building the network in a PoW blockchain is easy: persuade others to run your mining software. How? Some things I've noticed:
Claim your blockchain does not allow ASIC mining
Make a nice logo
Market your coin on
http://bitcointalk.orgMemes
Call it "Bitcoin [X]".
Building the network in a BFT blockchain is not so easy: you must grow it carefully, ensuring at all times that >66% of nodes are benevolent.
At a critical mass, CNs in a BFT network are able to govern the addition of new nodes - alongside $NEO voters - in a distributed yet coordinated manner.
It is a republic, not a democracy: $NEO owners vote for nodes & existing CNs act as the distributed constitution.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBZ1ykUQAYayU2.jpghttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBZ12SWAAUkuf8.jpgThus, a BFT network must start centralised and slowly decentralise. How?
1) Vote in trustworthy nodes via a central entity 2) Hold the nodes accountable until the network is large enough 3) Relinquish control of voting & establish a distributed "node constitution" mechanism.
Do the actions of $NEO Council make sense now?
1) Manually voting in corporate nodes like @KPN 2) Holding nodes legally accountable (temporary until critical mass) 3) Distributing the 50 million NEO held by NEO Council over a timeline in the form of strategic investments.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBeJfNUMAATnPo.jpghttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBeJicVMAEH6rX.jpgFinally, @coz_official & NEO Council are already working on developing the "node constitution" logic to be implemented once the BFT network is successfully bootstrapped to a certain critical mass.
This is the final step needed to truly decentralise $NEO.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUBebOPVwAI4ji7.jpgI hope I've brought to light the technical & operational complexity involved in building $NEO.
It's certainly not as easy as forking an existing codebase and changing a few parameters or hashing algorithms.
If the multi-year effort is successful, NEO will be a global, distributed, highly scaleable, high finality (unforkable) & high concurrency network powering Smart Economy.
Owning $NEO is literally owning a share of this network and all $GAS fees. I'm willing to take the risk.
PoW vs. BFT:
http://vukolic.com/iNetSec_2015.pdfNEO Consensus:
http://docs.neo.org/en-us/node/consensus.htmlNEO Coopetition:
https://medium.com/proof-of-working/decentralization-from-coopetition-b10d7ce3b9d