SuperClam, coins are not corporations. In the latter case, there is a legal right to elect a board, which in turn gives control over management and ultimately the assets (shareholders can even vote to dissolve the corporation, which gives them access to the assets directly).
There are no such powers that exist on the part of coin holders. There are really only two things that coin holders can do:
1. Stake according to the network rules and their own individual best interests and without collusion, which makes the network secure provided that the stake is adequately distributed.
2. Individually or in collusion with other coin holders, stake maliciously and "51% attack" the network. This can include: a) blocking all transactions in a sort of doomsday button to destroy the coin, b) selectively blocking transactions (and/or blocks) to gain some advantage for the attacker, c) rewrite the chain to perform double spend attacks.
This idea of coin holder voting is creating a system that facilities and to an extent legitimizes #2. It makes the entire system less secure and therefore ultimately less valuable, even though it may seem expedient in the short term for the purposes of "governance", especially if you happen to be in the majority.
As I've already stated earlier, the best ways to make changes to a coin are:
1. By overwhelming consensus of the community (such that there is no significant opposition and everyone just goes along with the change). This obviously does not exist for rewriting the digging rules. It does often exist for other changes that are routinely made to coins such as bug fixes, tweaks to transaction fees, some forms of new features, etc.
2. By creating a new coin with different rules such that the people can decide via a market process which to support. This requires permission from no one since anyone can create a new coin.
SuperClam, coins are not corporations.
I agree that coins are not corporations.
I don't think that means that there cannot be parallels between the two systems.
In the latter case, there is a legal right to elect a board, which in turn gives control over management and ultimately the assets (shareholders can even vote to dissolve the corporation, which gives them access to the assets directly).
There are no such powers that exist on the part of coin holders.
I would argue, given how liquid exchange is between crypto markets and the transfer-ability of advantage between networks, that coin holders have more control.
It is a near zero fee (ignoring spread) proposition to reallocate resources.
The debacle around Bitcoin XT illustrates just how 'legal' it is to 'elect a board'.
If Bitcoin XT had dominated the nodes and stakeholders on the network, it would have been the equivalent of "electing" Gavin and Hearn to the board of directors.
There are really only two things that coin holders can do:
1. Stake according to the network rules and their own individual best interests and without collusion, which makes the network secure provided that the stake is adequately distributed.
2. Individually or in collusion with other coin holders, stake maliciously and "51% attack" the network. This can include: a) blocking all transactions in a sort of doomsday button to destroy the coin, b) selectively blocking transactions (and/or blocks) to gain some advantage for the attacker, c) rewrite the chain to perform double spend attacks.
This idea of coin holder voting is creating a system that facilities and to an extent legitimizes #2. It makes the entire system less secure and therefore ultimately less valuable, even though it may seem expedient in the short term for the purposes of "governance", especially if you happen to be in the majority.
I categorically disagree.
I do not believe there is any redeemable argument against creating a system in which network participants can express their opinion about the direction of development.
The alternative is that the development team pays no mind what-so-ever to the users of the network.
I think one of the points of contention here is a misunderstanding about what is intended by this process.
We are debating different points.
Every single soft-fork in crypto history (though there have been few) has relied on this metric.
The primary difference is that we are suggesting there be a method to expose this network intent data prior and during the development process.
This is in contrast to a change which is mandated by the development team and then evangelized to get over a threshold for activation on chain.
All of the remaining hurdles which must be overcome to implement a change still exist.
This process does not effect network protocol consensus at all.
Changes must still be developed.
Updates must still be executed by network participants at their choice.
Services must still be informed and also choose to update.
This does not "lower the bar" for a successful forking change.
It simply provides a provable and fair means for the CLAM community and development team to propose and express support for potential changes.
We prefer to target our development energies towards propositions which have a likelihood for support.
I don't think that is unreasonable.
In fact, I think it is the only way forward that is "fair" and makes any sense whatsoever.
What is the alternative?
We take a poll of "shills" on BTTalk?