Thoughts on potential for greater decentralization

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maxp

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Would it be possible to further break down the ownership of masternodes via something like a smart contract? I realize that they're not a part of Dash (right?), but is there any way to implement it? As of now, the only way that I've seen to "own" a small part of a masternode is to trust one of a few members of the community, and while I don't suspect they are undeserving, doesn't that kind of go against the general concept of decentralization? Also, as far as I can see, those who "invest" with them have no real voting power, which further centralizes the system. Couldn't a system in which people trustless-ly own a share of a masternode, and also participate in a voting process equivalent to their portion size (the more popular opinion of which would be voiced by the node) be far better, both in greatly leveling the playing field for less wealthy members of the community, and in increasing the voting demographic? With only the super-wealthy being able to purchase masternodes, doesn't that also mean that, in truth, a very small percentage of the community holds all the power, and in turn, doesn't really represent the opinions of dash users as a whole?


Sorry for rambling, I've had that thought in the back of my brain for awhile, and felt like I should put it out there, to generate discussion among people who might actually be able to act on it. It's also late and I didn't think a proofread was necessary, as long as my general thought process was somewhat understandable.
 
maxp said:
Would it be possible to further break down the ownership of masternodes via something like a smart contract? I realize that they're not a part of Dash (right?), but is there any way to implement it? As of now, the only way that I've seen to "own" a small part of a masternode is to trust one of a few members of the community, and while I don't suspect they are undeserving, doesn't that kind of go against the general concept of decentralization? Also, as far as I can see, those who "invest" with them have no real voting power, which further centralizes the system. Couldn't a system in which people trustless-ly own a share of a masternode, and also participate in a voting process equivalent to their portion size (the more popular opinion of which would be voiced by the node) be far better, both in greatly leveling the playing field for less wealthy members of the community, and in increasing the voting demographic? With only the super-wealthy being able to purchase masternodes, doesn't that also mean that, in truth, a very small percentage of the community holds all the power, and in turn, doesn't really represent the opinions of dash users as a whole?


Sorry for rambling, I've had that thought in the back of my brain for awhile, and felt like I should put it out there, to generate discussion among people who might actually be able to act on it. It's also late and I didn't think a proofread was necessary, as long as my general thought process was somewhat understandable.
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They dont want the number of masternodes to increase.
This is part of their design, in order to be able to shut down the dash network with 3 clicks, in case it turns dangerous for them.
 
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Not sure what you mean by wanting to be able to shut down the dash network like that, I'll assume it's sarcasm. Anyhow, this wouldn't actually require the modification of the technology behind masternodes to change. With a separate system, it'd basically be a group buy for a masternode. Additionally, each group-funded masternode could hold independent polls of its shareholders, determining the alignment of its singular vote. The only problem I've yet to consider is the hosting of the masternode - I don't know how one could set up a hosting solution for a single masternode in a way that is decentralized/trustless.
 
maxp said:
Not sure what you mean by wanting to be able to shut down the dash network like that, I'll assume it's sarcasm.
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Its is not sarcasm. The masternodes are 10000 at max, and they are all static IPV4 IPs, so they can easily shut them down.
 
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demo said:
The "trustless masternode shares" do not solve the problem which is that the masternode servers have public static IPV4 IPs, and that they can be 10000 at max.
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No, but I think it answers the question the OP was really asking :)
 
Tallyho said:
No, but I think it answers the question the OP was really asking :)
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Thats true. Some people ask wrong questions, or questions that have been already answered.
Someone should inform them about it, and point them to the right questions.
 
There is some optimal number (really, a range of numbers) of Masternodes to support the network. Less than that is not optimal to process transactions promptly and securely. More than that is not optimal, because eventually all the Dash becomes unavailable, since it's stashed in the Masternodes.

Thoughtfully, our Devs have considered this issue and made provision to increase or decrease the incentives for Masternodes to keep the number in the optimum range.
 
First off: Ignore everything "demo" says. He's the resident doofus in here and hardly provides useful input. He doesn't own a Masternode but thinks he knows exactly how Dash should be run. Attention-whore, really. Don't give him the time of day (except tagging his posts as "Trolling" of course :D).

Now on-topic:
This has all been taken care of already in the roadmap. In Evolution you gain proportional voting rights to your locked up savings. "Locked up" because otherwise it would enable "Hit and Run" voting that could badly damage the network. Example: Whale buys tons of Dash, votes in terrible proposal and sells all Dash as damage is done now.

Additionally the locked up savings will serve as interest bearing accounts that are powered by trustlessly pooled Masternodes.

So by creating a savings account in Dash Evolution you earn interest and get to vote, no matter if you're a big or small investor.

Last but not least: Dash scales with network demand for capacity. Not with user demand for wealth.
 
Macrochip said:
First off: Ignore everything "demo" says. He's the resident doofus in here and hardly provides useful input. He doesn't own a Masternode but thinks he knows exactly how Dash should be run. Attention-whore, really. Don't give him the time of day (except tagging his posts as "Trolling" of course :D).

Now on-topic:
This has all been taken care of already in the roadmap. In Evolution you gain proportional voting rights to your locked up savings. "Locked up" because otherwise it would enable "Hit and Run" voting that could badly damage the network. Example: Whale buys tons of Dash, votes in terrible proposal and sells all Dash as damage is done now.

Additionally the locked up savings will serve as interest bearing accounts that are powered by trustlessly pooled Masternodes.

So by creating a savings account in Dash Evolution you earn interest and get to vote, no matter if you're a big or small investor.

Last but not least: Dash scales with network demand for capacity. Not with user demand for wealth.
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First off: I dont own a masternode because I dont care about richness. I am paid in faith, not in money. I owe a lot to my master and I have to repay him in order to set me free.

Now on-topic: You should incentivize and give voting rights to the people who do a lot of transactions, and not to the people who lock their Dash. You should incentivize those who consider dash as a medium of exchange (which is one of the main properties of the real money) and not those who consider dash as a store of value or as a collectible item. Dash is money, it is not a diamond, or gold, or a rare stamp you put it in a safe-locker. Those who lock their dash should lose their voting rights.

Elementary, my dear Macroship. Use your little brown cells...
 
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Why demo, this is a brilliant idea!!... If your objective is to destroy Dash, that is.

Sure, let's give the biggest vote to the spammer that is able to send the most transactions. He most likely doesn't have any bad intentions, right?

Unsavory, my dear demo. Stop abusing your little mind...

And just for reference: Your flaw in logic doesn't end there: Saving money and spending it aren't mutually exclusive things, that's why there's multiple units of it. Maybe you spend everything you get the second you get it (which would explain why you don't own a Masternode), I don't know? But I assure you most of the people are wiser than that.
 
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Tallyho said:
@maxp check out the Dash Evolution roadmap. Trustless masternode shares are coming ;) (can't post links)
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Macrochip said:
First off: Ignore everything "demo" says. He's the resident doofus in here and hardly provides useful input. He doesn't own a Masternode but thinks he knows exactly how Dash should be run. Attention-whore, really. Don't give him the time of day (except tagging his posts as "Trolling" of course :D).

Now on-topic:
This has all been taken care of already in the roadmap. In Evolution you gain proportional voting rights to your locked up savings. "Locked up" because otherwise it would enable "Hit and Run" voting that could badly damage the network. Example: Whale buys tons of Dash, votes in terrible proposal and sells all Dash as damage is done now.

Additionally the locked up savings will serve as interest bearing accounts that are powered by trustlessly pooled Masternodes.

So by creating a savings account in Dash Evolution you earn interest and get to vote, no matter if you're a big or small investor.

Last but not least: Dash scales with network demand for capacity. Not with user demand for wealth.
Click to expand...

Anyway, trustless masternode shares with proportional voting rights are exactly what I was talking about, just worded more succinctly. Glad to hear it's already being worked on.
 
Macrochip said:
Why demo, this is a brilliant idea!!... If your objective is to destroy Dash, that is.

Sure, let's give the biggest vote to the spammer that is able to send the most transactions. He most likely doesn't have any bad intentions, right?

Unsavory, my dear demo. Stop abusing your little mind...

And just for reference: Your flaw in logic doesn't end there: Saving money and spending it aren't mutually exclusive things, that's why there's multiple units of it. Maybe you spend everything you get the second you get it (which would explain why you don't own a Masternode), I don't know? But I assure you most of the people are wiser than that.
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You forgot a critical piece of the whole puzzle. The proof of individuality.
Dash should first implement a proof of individuality, then give voting rights to the anonymous individuals who do a lot of transactions.
That way you can spot the spammers, distinguish the real transactions (which are made for real commodities and services in the real economy) from the spam and virtual transactions and help Dash to become a real digital crypto cash.
And thus escape from the fate of the pathetic collectible item you have deliberately designed for it to be, in fear that the digital cryptocash will substitute the money of the world monetary system.
 
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I can also imagine certain economic models where you put 1,000 Dash into a specific address to get your Masternode, but it could still participate in the economy. It would be sort of like a home equity loan.
demo said:
You forgot a critical piece of the whole puzzle. The proof of individuality.
Dash should first implement a proof of individuality, then give voting rights to the anonymous individuals who do a lot of transactions.
That way you can spot the spammers, distinguish the real transactions (which are made for real commodities and services in the real economy) from the spam and virtual transactions and help Dash to become a real digital crypto cash.
And thus escape from the fate of the pathetic collectible item you have deliberately designed for it to be, in fear that the digital cryptocash will substitute the money of the world monetary system.
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This sounds suspiciously like a centralized very powerful auditor (or tiny group) who have power over the Masternodes. That is not a trustless system at all. And then we would have to have an appeal system, which is another layer that has to be trusted and is subject to corruption.

No thank you.
 
solarguy said:
This sounds suspiciously like a centralized very powerful auditor (or tiny group) who have power over the Masternodes. That is not a trustless system at all. And then we would have to have an appeal system, which is another layer that has to be trusted and is subject to corruption.

No thank you.
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The proof of individuality system I proposed is a decentralized and anonymous system.
Please redirect your rational arguments (and not your suspicions) against it in the appropriate thread, and I will answer to you.

You logic is reversed and perverse. The masternodes system, as it is designed today, it is a centralized tiny group who have immense power over the Digital cash community. MNOs system is a flawed system, The proof of individuality will set the Dash community free from the dictatorship of the stupids and spies, who bought masternodes in order to control Dash.

demo said:
Spies have been instructed by their employers to destroy the DASH governance system, at all costs.
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demo said:
The same spies tremble with fear the proof of individuality because it will reveal their structured methodology.
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Please redirect your suspicions to them, and not to me.
 
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solarguy said:
This sounds suspiciously like a centralized very powerful auditor (or tiny group) who have power over the Masternodes. That is not a trustless system at all. And then we would have to have an appeal system, which is another layer that has to be trusted and is subject to corruption.

No thank you.
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And by the way, have a look of what NEM is doing in their proof of importance algorithm. The proof of importance depends on the transactions someone mades.

Proof-of-Importance
(PoI) is the name of the block chain consensus algorithm used by NEM. Each account is assigned an importance score that proxies its aggregate importance to the NEM economy. Accounts with higher importance scores have higher probabilities of harvesting a block (see section 5: Blocks and the block chain). Because all transactions are publicly available in NEM, the transaction graph of the NEM economy can be calculated exactly. The topology of the transaction graph can be used as an input into the importance of an account. The insight that the transaction graph can be used for elucidating the importance of an account is the key innovation of Proof-of-Importance. The NEM block chain platform allows all transactions to be transparently viewed. This information about value transfers between accounts can be used to determine a rating for the importance of accounts. The intuition that not all nodes in a graph have the same salience, or importance, is not new. The literature in the graph theory community is well established for computing the importance of nodes in graphs in the areas of search [11], social networks [1], street networks [7], and neuroscience [6], among others. Building off of this intuition, one of NEM’s core innovations is to use graph theoretic measures
as a fundamental input into block chain consensus. The outlink matrix that defines the transaction graph is centrally important and used in the PoI calculation.
7.1 Eligibility for Entering the Importance Calculation
To be eligible for entering the importance calculation, an account must have at least 10,000 vested XEM. All accounts owning more than 10,000 vested XEM have a non-zero importance score. With a supply of 8,999,999,999 XEM, the theoretical maximum number of accounts with non-zero importance is 899,999. In practice, the number of actual accounts with non-zero importance is not expected to approach the theoretical max due to inequalities in held XEM and also the temporal costs associated with vesting. If NEM becomes very popular, a threshold of 10,000 vested XEM could be undesirable. If necessary, this number could be updated in the future via a hard fork, which is the same procedure for adjusting transaction fees and other parameters related to harvesting.
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In NEM, they associated voting rights with proof of importance, and POI with transactions, and have a look now at their coinmarketcap graph!
demo said:
And thus escape from the fate of the pathetic collectible item you have deliberately designed for it to be
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In NEM, with their POI algorithm, they are trying to escape from the pathetic collectible item fate.

The key difference between NEM and my proposal (summarized in the below suggestion)
demo said:
Dash should first implement a proof of individuality, then give voting rights to the anonymous individuals who do a lot of transactions.
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In NEM, in case you want to propose in "NEM Community Fund", they ask for your Real identity. While in a proof of individuality scheme, no need to identify yourself. Your privacy is protected.
 
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Looking forward to trustless masternode shares - anyone able to help me understand which specific part of the road-map refers to this feature?
 
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