IJCH - Inside JaiChai's Head
(meaning: My warped, personal opinions and musings)
From the Author
Salutations.
I am JaiChai.
And if I haven't had the pleasure to make your acquaintance, it's always nice to meet you now.
The Pauli Exclusion Principle -
(Wolfgang Pauli, American-Austrian-Swiss physicist)
Contrary to popular belief, the reason why objects "feel" solid, when in fact, at the quantum level, nothing is - and yet, we are able to hold things and can't simply walk through walls - has nothing to do with repulsion of like polarities (e.g., the resistance felt when pushing two negative or two positive magnets together).
The reason for the feeling of solidity in the macro world we all live in is actually because of "The Pauli Exclusion Principle" that governs electrons at the quantum level.
In the simplest terms, EXACTLY ONE - and only one - electron can inhabit one particular quantum state at any one time. After all quantum states are full, the gates close and no more occupations of a state by an electron can occur.
See: (https://youtu.be/bVrQw_Cdxyw)
What does the Pauli Exclusion Principle and the EOS DPos (Delegated Proof of Stake) protocol have in common?
Simple.
"Exclusivity" - EXACTLY ONE person (node of the EOS network) can occupy the block creator's position at any given moment and has a specified length of time to create the block.
Then it's someone else's turn and another person takes the position.
From there, it's rinse and repeat.
A Twisted Game of Musical Chairs -
The exclusivity of timed, block creator privileges within the EOS DPoS protocol is like the last stage of playing a weird version of musical chairs.
There's only one, plush and ultra-comfortable chair available.
There is always a group of twenty-one players waiting to sit in the chair (whether it's presently occupied or not).
Furthermore, the players are randomly selected from the pool of all eligible players, queued and allowed a only a brief time to enjoy the wondrous, magical powers of sitting in the chair - the ability to create a block for the EOS blockchain alone, no competitive rivals to contend with.
The Royal Throne -
The term "producer" means:
A member of the group of verifiers within the EOS consensus mechanism. A "producer" creates EOS blocks. Their work provides security and ensures finality standards are met.
Think of "producers" performing the same duties of a "miner" in the Bitcoin PoW protocol or a "validator" in the Ethereum PoS protocol.
Similar to the behavior of an electron and the rules governing its quantum state exclusivity (the quantum state it occupies ALONE) - courtesy of Wolfgang Pauli, EXACTLY ONE producer is allowed to occupy "The Royal Throne".
This royal position is endowed by the EOS DPoS protocol and grants the current King or Queen the sole opportunity and authority to create a block.
https://github.com/EOSIO/Documentation/blob/master/TechnicalWhitePaper.md
"...exactly one producer is authorized to produce a block at any given point in time..."
Twenty Kings and Queens Per Minute -
In fact, there are twenty chances (opportunities) per minute for a King or Queen to create a block.
https://github.com/EOSIO/Documentation/blob/master/TechnicalWhitePaper.md
"...The selected producers are shuffled using a pseudorandom number derived from the block time."
"This shuffling is done to ensure that all producers maintain balanced connectivity to all other producers."
"The EOS.IO software enables blocks to be produced exactly every 3 seconds..."
If You Don't Move Your Meat, You Lose Your Seat
https://github.com/EOSIO/Documentation/blob/master/TechnicalWhitePaper.md
"...If the block is not produced at the scheduled time then the block for that time slot is skipped."
Laziness and Incompetence ---> Time-Out -
Similar to "slashing" (the forfeiting of stake) in Ethereum's Casper PoS protocol being a strong disincentive for non-performance - no matter what the cause for non-performance may have been, the EOS DPoS dictates that, if a producer wastes all his opportunities - his allotted times on the King's Throne - to create a block within a 24 hour period the producer is automatically put in "Time Out".
Stated differently, if a producer is given the opportunity, but fails to create a block for a whole day, non-performance automatically pulls him from the list of eligible block creators.
In order to get back into the selected block creators group, the producer in "Time Out" must officially notify the whole blockchain of his renewed pledge to produce.
https://github.com/EOSIO/Documentation/blob/master/TechnicalWhitePaper.md
If a producer misses a block and has not produced any block within the last 24 hours they are removed from consideration until they notify the blockchain of their intention to start producing blocks again.
Malicious (Byzantine) Behavior ---> Exile -
https://github.com/EOSIO/Documentation/blob/master/TechnicalWhitePaper.md
"...no block producer should be producing blocks on two forks at the same time. If a block producer is caught doing this then such block producer will likely be voted out. Cryptographic evidence of such double-production may also be used to automatically remove abusers."
Conclusion -
In my opinion, because of the features outlined in this article (and many more), I believe the EOS DPoS protocol is far superior than the consensus mechanism found in Ethereum - the Casper and future PoS protocols.
By JaiChai
Many thanks for reading my post.
Truly hope to see you again.
About the Author
JaiChai has been in the Disruptive Technology, Computer Science and Cryptocurrency spaces for many years. He is an enigma, regarded by his cohorts as sarcastic, funny, intuitive, but most of all - elusive. He’s known for randomly submitting philosophical and contrarian posts on many diverse forums.
When asked about his vanishing acts, he says, "I’m just somebody who enjoys being nobody because I look like everybody. Besides, time checking things off my 'bucket list’ - sans notoriety - is time well spent.”