I’ve been thinking about the upcoming EOS launch and what a governance structure should look like. It makes sense to refer back to the gold standard of political rules sets. That’s right the US constitution. It has flaws and it can be corrupted but it is hard to argue that there is a better political system out there. The checks and balances of the system work to eventually bring everything back to the middle. But the real question here is how you govern a widely distributed, public, open source blockchain?
Stake holders that need to be balanced:
Executive Branch – block.one (@dan and crew) Power is in the form of influence, github presence and 10% voting stake.
Judicial – EOS Arbiters will be randomly selected through on-chain grievance process.
Legislative – Mass of EOS holders and proxies who vote for proposals and BPs.
Administration/Deep State/Military/Police – BPs enforce the rule of law and keep the chain running.
Business Lobbyists – DApp Devs (most will also be BPs)
There is a ton of power in the block.one and BP arenas. This is probably needed as this whole concept is new but I can see things being very different in the future. As you grow the project out, Dapps and side chains could have their own dispute resolution. Think of this as local, state, federal governments. This is starting to get off track but what if the real innovation of DPOS is truly a distributed and fair internet governance system? Would this be a new form of democracy? I can see this happening down the road, at some point it would likely involve a hard fork away from the block.one chain in order to distribute power a little farther away from central control. An elected judicial branch would also be needed as I don’t think the current selection process is going to work well. I also reason some of the voting policies from traditional democracies should also be implemented. Votes cast for BPs should expire at some point and need to be renewed. This ensures active members have the most say. I also like the idea of a ranked ballot system to make it easier for change in the BP system. One or two vetos (negative votes) would be a useful tool in the BPs elections.
I haven’t gotten very far but my brain hurts so I’m going to wrap this up. IMO the best thing that can be done for the launch is to keep the constitution as simple as possible. Amendments can be added in later as different issues arrive but initially every token holder should be able to read and understand the document in less than 5 mins. These are exciting times and I cannot wait to see the outcome of the launch(es).