I have some suspicion a coin I'm staking had a team take over it that "cooked it's books" somehow. The wallet keeps stalling and will not sync, and there are others on the thread/channel that say they are able to sync and stake. This has happened a number of times since a person took over the development. The blockchain their new coin creates never works for more than a few weeks but supposedly for a couple people it does. Many chime in on the thread that they are not able to sync.
I know behind the scenes at the code level (or maybe node level) there is a lot of control a developer can have. Is it possible for a corrupt team to make it that only certain people are getting stakes?
I do not consider that a decentralized system.m Firstly, the number one characteristics of a blockchain is decentralization. Where no particular person has control over how the algorihm is run or executed. then, it should be open sourced. so everybody can see and those who audit can also be in the loop as to what is happening. So, I do not consider the said protocol a blockchain.