Deposits, votes and lots

Every blockchain is run by a handful of operators who agree on what happened. Somebody has to decide who they are, and it turns out that’s an old political question wearing new clothes.

Most chains ask for a deposit. Put money down and you can help run things; misbehave and you lose some of it. It’s tidy and it works. It also means that, over time, the network tends to belong to whoever can afford the biggest deposit. People have been noticing that about money and power for a very long time.

The way we’ve built it, there’s no deposit. Operators keep showing that they’re there and doing the work, and the community votes on who it trusts. Those who are present and trusted get chosen and share the rewards. Those who aren’t chosen don’t earn anything. Nobody gets fined. You just don’t get paid for work you aren’t doing.

That isn’t free of problems either. There’s a well-known result that once there are enough options, every way of voting can be gamed somehow. So instead of worrying about who has the most money, you worry about whether the vote is honest. We think that’s a better worry to have, but it’s still a worry.

The ancient Athenians had a third idea: choose people by lot. No money, no popularity contest, just chance. Nobody runs a chain quite like that, but we like remembering it. It’s a reminder that every way of choosing who’s in charge is really a choice about which kind of failure you can live with.