LONDON (Bywire News) - A quick look around the world suggests Western democracies aren’t in the best shape. From Donald Trump to Boris Johnson they have a habit of electing buffoons, charlatans, and tinpot dictators. The brightest and the best need no apply. Small wonder, then, that China looks on and tells itself that the West has had its day. But the problem is less to do with democracy itself, but the way it is being applied. Blockchain, and particularly EOS, show a possible way forward.
Nowhere are the troubles of democracy more apparent than in France which recently had its now regular flirtation with the far right. Voters were presented with an unappetising choice between an unpopular president and a far-right puppet of Putin. They were effectively being asked to choose between a cup of cold sick and a cup of cold sick with a dog turd in it.
Time and time again that is the unpleasant choice voters are left with. Candidates vie over an increasingly tight group of ‘swing voters’ which leaves everyone else more or less out in the cold. It leads to elections that seldom reflect the wider consensus.
The system, then, is broken and it leaves people more disillusioned with democracy than ever. It is precisely this type of disillusionment that powers much of the enthusiasm for the blockchain.
Democracies are at the heart of blockchain. By definition, they are intended to be decentralised and community-led. Its supporters promote it as solving all sorts of problems from poverty to cancer and of course faltering world democracies.
New ideas such as the decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) create exciting visions of a more democratic, transparent and accountable way of doing business. Rather than the traditional top-down corporate structures DAOs see decisions made collectively by the community. Its procedures are located on smart contracts and are completely transparent to the rest of the world. It is, many believe, the future of the corporate world.
Even so, the picture is not that simple. Democracy may be at the heart of the blockchain project but very few of them are truly decentralised or community-led. Power is often concentrated in the hands of a few stakeholders often white and male. It’s one of the least diverse industries out there, with large parts of the mining power concentrated in the bastions of democracy such as Georgia, Russia, and China. Democracy might have been a goal of the blockchain, but it’s one that it has struggled to deliver.
There is, though, one blockchain that is leading the way – EOS. Decentralised, community-led, and powered by a revolutionary form of fractal democracy it is now not only the world’s best blockchain, but it’s also now the most democratic. It’s pioneering a model which has lessons not only for the wider blockchain but also the wider world.
It was not always that way. For most of its early life, EOS was dominated by Block.one which launched it on the back of a $4bn ICO. In a world that was passionate about decentralisation, EOS was inextricably linked to a corporation. Moreover it was a corporation that was constantly under investigation by the SEC. The result was stagnation, distrust, and anger.
Last year, though, things changed. In what became a real community led revolution the EOS community effectively showed Block.one the door. Since then it has been putting the institutions in place to power real community-driven democracy.
Key to this has been the creation of its governance layer, EdenOnEOS. Developed by one of the founders of B1, Dan Larimer, who quit the company abruptly in 2021, it set out with the ambition of supporting its members, building consensus, and securing ‘life liberty and property for all.
At the heart of this project is a concept of fractal democracy which has governed elections for Eden’s Chief Delegates. Anyone interested in taking part can sign up for a candidate pool. They will be divided into small groups and vote amongst themselves to elect a representative who will move to the second round. Once again they will be divided into groups and a representative elected. The process continues until you have the final group of Chief Delegates, one of which is randomly chosen as the head chief delegate.
The aim of this system is to find the most effective way of reaching a consensus among the community. So far it’s been shown to work extremely effectively in two election cycles and there are suggestions its process could be applied to other organisation and even governmental organisations.
At the head of this charge is Brock Pierce who himself represents much of the dissatisfaction surrounding conventional democracy. The former child actor, turned successful blockchain entrepreneur ran for President last year on a platform that proposed a very different vision for the outdated and broken two-party system and is currently aiming for a place in the US Senate.
Alongside the other chief delegates, he is transforming Eden into the world’s first true DAO, bringing transparency, accountability, and true democratic oversight to the EOS community. It gives EOS something to which other blockchains have aspired but never really achieved – true democratic oversight and an environment in which the community truly controls its own destiny. As such, it’s an example for other blockchains as well as our somewhat faltering democratic world order.
(Writing by Tom Cropper; Editing by Cléo Celeste)