Ultimate Guardians: The Human Element in Blockchain Decentralization

• Human Intervention in Blockchain Networks: Necessity of Protocol Councils
• Role of Protocol Councils
• Polygon's Protocol Council
• Understanding the Protocol Council
• ‘Training Wheels' for Decentralization
• Arbitrum and Optimism's Security Council
• A Shift in Governance Structures

Human Intervention in Blockchain Networks: Necessity of Protocol Councils

The principle of trusting human intervention is at the heart of a developing trend in the blockchain sector. Network overseers are forming teams of individuals, known as protocol councils, to guide protocol modifications and maintain security. The aim of these groups is to guide evolving networks towards greater decentralization, slowly detaching them from their original developers' control.

Role of Protocol Councils

These protocol councils, also referred to as security councils, are intended to serve as the ultimate guardians before the networks operate autonomously or under some form of democratic oversight. The practice of forming such councils has, however, drawn criticism due to blockchain's inherent goal of decentralization and has led to a debate on the necessity of such councils as the industry evolves.

Polygon's Protocol Council

For instance, Polygon$0.967 -3.65%, an Ethereum$2,315 -2.42% layer-2 network, has established a 13-member Protocol Council. Similarly, Arbitrum, another major Ethereum-focused layer-2, has a Security Council, and Optimism$3.67 -1.41% also employs a Security Council." Mehdi Zerouali, director of Sigma Prime, a blockchain security firm, and a member of Polygon's council, refers to this as a "necessary evil," given that we still need to trust this group of individuals not to collude.

Understanding the Protocol Council

Polygon formed its protocol council in October with a clear mandate to oversee any significant or emergency changes to the core protocol. The members of the council are leading figures in the Ethereum ecosystem, tasked with executing the community-led process for future upgrades. The tasks are essentially divided into two types of scenarios: regular protocol upgrades, and immediate threats to the protocol itself. In the latter case, the council can bypass the traditional governance framework.

‘Training Wheels' for Decentralization

The council is perceived as an interim step towards decentralization, where the protocol controls itself through code, running automatically as per the will of the community of network users. Georgios Konstantopoulos, chief technology officer at the crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm, compared the council's role to "training wheels used to prevent potential mishaps.

Arbitrum and Optimism's Security Council

Arbitrum's security council comprises 12 members, who are elected through the Arbitrum DAO. Similarly, Optimism's security council operates in a comparable manner to Polygon's. According to Optimism, its security for its mainnet is also reliant on a multisig (multi-signature) wallet, with council members who have access to the multisig being anonymous.

A Shift in Governance Structures

The councils are presented as an alternative to other governance structures that fall short of complete decentralization, such as the foundations that oversee numerous blockchain projects. These councils provide insight on handling various unforeseen issues that the implementers might not have considered, or on unexplored incentive directions as part of the audits of the new implementation.

Edited by Jonathan Stoker