2023-02-16 · timestamps by ADAtainment
UPD 02/16/2023
- A February 2023 video defending contingent staking, a minor feature that has become a proxy fight over how Cardano governance will actually work.
- The design is a minimum viable multi sig pattern where both a staker and a pool operator can set signing conditions and attach metadata, accommodating many use cases.
- The opponents' core argument is a slippery slope, that merely adding the option forces the removal of normal staking, which ignores that Ada holders control the update protocol.
- Real actors already run non standard pools: universities, schools, charities, ISPOs, and political candidates, and they deserve a way to stay compliant.
- The bigger worry is discourse itself: straw men, drama, and manufactured consent will make CIP 1694 and on chain governance impossible if not corrected.
- The path forward is a fact based Twitter space debate and a proper CIP process, since success or failure is now in the community's hands, not Hoskinson's.
48 entries
Return to contingent staking again because the community's reaction to a minor feature is a teachable moment.
A poll shows the community wants a live Twitter space debate, so one will be arranged in the week of February 16, 2023 with a moderator.
The frustration is that the worst forms of argumentation, slippery slopes, straw men, and drama for its own sake, are being deployed.
If this is how the community debates a minor issue, it will get nowhere on CIP 1694, post quantum work, or input endorsers.
Cardano is a living organism that requires proper, fact based, fair debate to keep evolving.
The media and modern politics have turned debate into a death match where winning matters more than facts or fairness.
Staking as a concept started with peer staking in the 2016 Ouroboros paper.
By 2023 there are non standard stake pools, like the University of Wyoming running an SPO through its blockchain lab.
Charity pools, ISPOs doing token distribution, and regulated yield enhancement products all run through stake pools.
The Cardano native asset lets projects like World Mobile, NFTs, and SundaeSwap reuse the staking mechanics for their tokens.
Tokens carry different rules, like an Ape society DAO that is a closed membership club with its own governance layer.
The minimum viable design adds a multi sig transaction where both sides set signing conditions and attach a metadata payload.
Opponents claim the mere existence of the feature means a government would force the elimination of normal staking.
To actually remove normal staking, Ada holders would have to vote for it and engineers would have to hard fork the protocol.
If a regulator were determined, the feature is irrelevant: without it every operator is simply non compliant.
In that case a regulator would just get exchanges to delist ADA as a blacklisted protocol, with or without contingent staking.
A Senate candidate required by the FEC to know his donors could use a stake pool to raise transparent money.
The Ada holder never loses control, so no one can explain the step by step mechanism by which the slippery slope actually happens.
Building this on layer two would lose trust, automation, and universality, since the protocol cannot enforce rules on layer two.
Contingent does not mean KYC: the condition is anything the pool operator wants.
A condition could be signing terms of service or proving you are over an age via a zero knowledge proof with no personal data revealed.
There would be hundreds of use cases built on the feature that have nothing to do with KYC.
A difference of opinion is whether a tax rate should be 25 or 35 percent, not an unsupported slippery slope claim.
To be fair, read a Reddit critic line by line, since it is the only response with a step by step structure.
Opponents offer no solution for how governments, universities, and regulated not for profits that run pools can stay compliant.
Anyone who wants fully anonymous staking already has that in the normal stake pool certificate, which is not being removed.
The complaint that US universities cannot run pools reveals how far US finance lags Africa's progress.
An ISPO is dangerous without entry conditions and contracts in place before it takes customer funds.
Stake pool operators compete and charge fees like Bitcoin mining pools, optional but valuable service providers.
Operators should have a say in who they do business with, since even public utilities have contracts with customers.
As Voltaire looms, contingent staking is a minor concern next to the funding, trade off, and roadmap decisions ahead.
Even people you think are wrong have the right to their own choices: delegate anywhere, run a private pool, or vote no.
Argumentation should follow a process like the scientific method, where peer review catches problems, rather than who feels right.
Governance can only work if the community stops low information, knee jerk reactions to issues not even codified in a CIP.
The hope is that D reps and MBO members rise above these polarizing channels to build a structured, transparent, fact based process.
The fear is Cardano becoming Bitcoin, a cult around orthodoxy, or getting co opted by demagogues wielding straw men.
Critics are declaring they will sell all their ADA because Cardano is now a governance coin owned by the US government.
Over five years an SPO will run side chains, Mithril, Hydra, and other infrastructure, each a revenue stream.
A pool running many side chains earns the most, so which pool is the public good, the delegator decides in a competitive market.
No one has to run a kill the squirrels side chain they object to, because that infrastructure is optional and chosen by delegation.
Regulators do not control the update protocol; the Ada holder does through CIP 1694, so nothing happens without user consent.
This dynamic is manufactured consent, the same propaganda pattern that once justified the divine right of kings.
Dissent gets labeled hate speech or problematic to remove people from the conversation, seen in covid policy and beyond.
Contingent staking was raised in 2021 with no issue, so the difference now is a political medium that has radicalized people.
A fair critic must acknowledge these actors exist and explain why they should not get a protocol feature the community wants.
Without the feature, a kludgy layer two gets cobbled together, gets hacked, and money gets stolen.
The crux is whether CIP 1694 and on chain governance can work at all, since the experiment is only as good as the nodes cooperating.
Success or failure is no longer in Hoskinson's hands but the community's, and being truly decentralized means being good enough to handle this.