[NetBehaviour] arts blockchain and DAOWO

[Rob Myers]

On 26/11/17 07:06 AM, ruth catlow wrote:
> Hello Rob
>>
>> On 25/11/17 05:21 AM, ruth catlow wrote:
>>
>>> - Environmental and energy costs – more on this soon but I have been
>>> looking at Faircoin – proof of cooperation and I wonder if the
>>> clear-as-daylight, explicit mapping of environmental harm onto
>>> crypto-currency trading could provide the impetus for a global move
>>> to 100% renewables and zero carbon emissions.
>>>
>>
>> Decred's experiments in governance (and energy efficiency...) are more
>> reflexive and to my mind sounder than Faircoin's for reasons I discuss
>> indirectly in "Blockchain Poetics" -
>>
>> https://www.decred.org/
> Please could you spell it out!?

In the essay I talk about how well-meaning political changes to the
technology of Bitcoin upset the economics of it.

Faircoin uses an energy-efficient quorum of servers to assemble blocks,
it does not create new coins via mining, it has allocated large amounts
of coins to deserving individuals, it is seeking to build the price of
the currency so it can better deliver value, and it is seeking to secure
people's accounts with smart card technology.

Or, from the point of view of the economics of mainstream
Cryptocurrencies, Faircoin is baking in centralisation, pre-mining,
whales, air-drops, pumping, and trusted third part hardware. These are
all antipatterns, and all it takes is one bad actor for any one of them
to become a problem. Game theory trumps good intentions where one of the
players can defect...

These are problems of governance. The current impasse in Bitcoin
development is also a problem of governance. Decred is all about getting
governance right. The proof-of-stake system it uses to mine blocks has
been extended to a more general voting system -

https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/constitution/#blockchain-governance

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/decred-launches-proposal-system-advance-blockchain-governance/

https://bravenewcoin.com/news/decred-launches-decentralized-voting-process-for-blockchain-protocol-changes/

So while it doesn't have the same objectives for "fairness" of initial
distribution of wealth that Faircoin does, I think it has a better model
of "fairness" in governance that might have a better chance of leading
to an ultimately  fairer and more co-operative economic system within
its own limited domain.

- Rob.