Greetings my fellow ICP supporters,
The purpose of my post is to catalyze community engagement while subsequently assisting me with connecting the dots and seeing the bigger picture.
Most recently, over the course of a few months, I’ve began to spontaneously ponder within my heart the paths of ICP which has spawned queries regarding its purpose and its claims to decentralization. Although not necessary, discernment obliges me to provide little but relevant context: I am by no means as intelligent or technically competent as the other members of this community, I have high respect for ICP and desire nothing but success for it, and I am heavily invested in this project of ICP with respect to the proportion of my capabilities and tradeoffs in my personal life.
What is the purpose of ICP? On multiple occasions I have witnessed Dominic Williams advocate that, and I paraphrase, the purpose of ICP is to revolutionize compute and to become a blockchain singularity. I question the purpose because I was naively under the impression that the purpose of the internet computer was to be a decentralized public network. Allow me to elucidate where the waters get murky for me, tradeoffs. Does a blockchain singularity trade true decentralization for the ability to revolutionize compute? This question arose from the observation of how expensive it is to acquire node provider equipment. From my general knowledge $10-$12k is about how much the price is to acquire node equipment and that’s not taking into account the technical competence required to assemble and integrate the equipment and the software into the internet computer protocol, which is a cost in itself. I am aware that the concept of value is a subjective matter, however, I know very few people that have the resources to invest $10-$12k on anything let alone node equipment. Bare in mind that this equipment is a necessity for the success of revolutionizing compute and the functioning of the network.
Why is this important? Because if the probability of obtaining node equipment favors a lower percentage of individuals that harness the capital in the form of money, this would naturally imply centralization. For me, this partially explains why Dfinity sought the capital of venture capitalists during their initial pursuit of this blockchain singularity, they knew they needed deeper pockets to accomplish the goal. It may be the case that the venture capitalists involved are not the ones in possession of the hardware that runs the network. However, I cant help but ask, at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, what failsafe’s do we have against centralized node providers, who may or may not have special interests, and the lead developers of ICP, Dfinity, from colluding with one another; and also, what sort of influences do the harbingers of the network’s hardware bare over Dfinity, if any? Furthermore, what is preventing node providers from forming a coalition consequently conferring the ability to leverage influence over the network outside of the NNS?
Last I saw on the ICP dashboard Dfinity and ICA have a combined voting power of 19.7% and from what I understand it is decreasing, however, with the convenient mechanism of liquid staking, many people, myself included, have incorporated a degree of trust in this seemingly decentralized environment and have lent voting power to Dfinity which I do not know if that is an included metric in the 19.7%. I bring all this up to say what prevents the special interests, if any, of a centralized sect of node providers to influence the lead developers code and votes to implement changes to the network which could be perceived as unfavorable by the community thus creating a subtle backdoor to the network? To be fair, Dfinity has done an outstanding job at keeping sacred the trust of the community in the form of liquid staking with the utmost honor and respect; but the solemn power of Dfinity’s vote can be felt by any SNS project that failed to acquire Dfinity’s “Yes” vote. The statement “singularity of blockchain” sounds like a noble pursuit but the phrase in itself seems to refute the concept decentralization. I see cost as forgone opportunities, and I am curious whether or not we have forgone the opportunity of true decentralization to afford the ability to revolutionize compute and become a blockchain singularity. At this time I am questioning whether it is tenable to claim that ICP is a decentralized network in its current state.
Disclaimer: I only used general knowledge and personal experience in this post, please fact check me. Also, please forgive that I wrote this quickly and if I was not able to effectively make sense of what I was attempting to convey
- Sonofman