Vitalik Backs Anonymous Voting for Ethereum — Can It Stop Governance Attacks?
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a two-layer governance framework that depends on nameless voting to fight collusion and seize assaults, marking a dramatic reversal from his 2024 stance towards anonymity in crypto.
The system separates accountability mechanisms from preference-setting by utilizing prediction markets that feed into an nameless voter consensus, with MACI expertise to scale back coordination dangers.
The proposal addresses a elementary weak point in token-based governance methods the place rich individuals can accumulate 51% management.
Buterin’s shift comes as a number of decentralized social platforms wrestle with governance challenges, together with Farcaster’s recent decision to return $180 million to investors after failing to attain sustainable progress.
Two-Layer Design Separates Execution from Preference-Setting
Buterin outlined his imaginative and prescient in an in depth submit explaining that future onchain mechanism design would observe one sample: “one thing that appears like a prediction market” feeding into “one thing that appears like a capture-resistant, non-financialized preference-setting gadget.“
The accountability layer maximizes openness by market mechanisms that maintain individuals accountable for their selections, whereas the choice layer prioritizes decentralization and intrinsic motivation.
The prediction market serves as a “decentralized government” as a result of “essentially the most logical primitive for ‘accountability’ in a permissionless idea is strictly that,” Buterin wrote.
Alternatively, methods might use a replaceable centralized government on the accountability layer whereas sustaining decentralized preference-setting.
The choice layer can’t depend on tokens as a result of “token homeowners should not pluralistic, and anybody can purchase in and get 51% of them,” Buterin defined.
Instead, votes ought to be nameless and ideally use MACI (Minimum Anti-Collusion Infrastructure) expertise to scale back collusion dangers.
One commenter supported the framework, noting prediction markets “actually do map nicely to a ‘decentralized government’: in a permissionless system, pores and skin within the recreation is about as shut as you will get to credible accountability.”
However, one other raised pointed questions on whether or not Buterin’s help for prediction markets has benefited Ethereum, noting “the highest 3 prediction markets should not constructed on Ethereum, not even on L2 presently.“
Sharp Departure from 2024 Anti-Anonymity Position
The nameless voting advocacy represents a whole reversal of Buterin’s August 2024 position, which referred to as for the top of “nameless society” in crypto.
He beforehand argued that decentralized methods threat reverting to centralized management with out multidimensional id frameworks, claiming anonymity fails to handle collusion and governance assault challenges.
At that point, Vinay Gupta, a outstanding blockchain technologist, sharply criticized that earlier stance as “a genuinely horrible concept,” arguing it will undermine crypto’s core worth of self-sovereignty by faceted id.
Gupta warned that introducing wealthy, intersectional identities would result in “a society characterised by entitlements and exclusions” requiring larger surveillance and management.
The philosophical shift seems influenced by failed experiments in crypto-based social platforms.
BitClout raised $100 million from main enterprise corporations in 2021, with creator cash permitting customers to put money into celebrities and influencers, however confronted accusations of deceptive the general public and working as a possible pump-and-dump scheme through which coin values fluctuated purely on shopping for and promoting exercise relatively than underlying enterprise success.
Creator DAO Model Offers Alternative to Token Governance
Buterin proposed a creator coin system utilizing non-token-based DAOs, impressed by Protocol Guild, through which members vote anonymously to confess new individuals.
These DAOs would intentionally embrace opinionatedness relatively than aiming for common attraction, with handpicked preliminary membership maximizing alignment round particular content material kinds or regional focuses.
Token speculators would predict which creators these high-value DAOs settle for, with profitable admissions triggering coin burns funded by DAO proceeds.
“The final decider of who rises and falls isn’t speculators, however high-value content material creators,” Buterin defined, assuming “good creators are additionally good judges of high quality.“
The proposal critiques current creator coin platforms like Zora and BitClout, the place prime performers are “individuals who have already got very high social standing” relatively than rising expertise.
Buterin contrasts this with Substack’s success by hands-on curation and income ensures for chosen creators.
Farcaster’s latest struggles present governance challenges in decentralized social platforms.
Merkle Manufactory is returning $180 million raised over 5 years to buyers following Neynar’s acquisition, with co-founder Dan Romero acknowledging that the platform “wants a brand new strategy and management to achieve its full potential” after struggling to maintain progress as a social-first product regardless of roughly 250,000 month-to-month lively customers in December.
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