Recently, user @Erkan posted a nice summation of many of the issues that are being discussed regarding GridCoin.
There's a whole lot going on in that topic, so I thought I would kick off a series of posts to break down the individual issues I've seen discussed and provide my two cents on the subject.
Today, let's talk about the voting weight calculation on the GridCoin blockchain voting system.
1 Vote Equals 550,000 Votes?
I actually participated in my very first GridCoin blockchain poll this morning, by happily voting to approve a plan to compensate our developers at a rate of $30/hour on billable hours. I knew votes were weighted in some way based on your magnitude and your GRC balance, but I was never actually sure how my weight would calculate until now.
My vote was cast, and my weight was at a modest 550,000. In essence, this means my vote counted for 550 thousand votes. I say "modest" because there are plenty of people on the list with far higher weight than mine:
I've got a magnitude of 750 currently and a balance just shy of 100,000 GridCoins. I'm not a whale --- maybe a dolphin? Probably more like a sea bass. Either way, I was pretty happy with my weight and I'll tell you why.
Your Voting Weight Should be Determined by Your Demonstrable Stake in GridCoin
We are taught our entire lives that this is wrong, correct? The rich should not be able to control democracy. Many of us take that idea and we apply it all the way down to GridCoin to suggest that there is wrongdoing taking place.
I believe that is misguided.
In an actual democracy, there are competing priorities just like there are with GridCoin, however, GridCoin has one primary common goal: to maintain and even increase the value of GridCoin. It doesn't matter if you're a whale, a dolphin, or a minnow, we all benefit when the price of GRC rises.
Why would a whale, for example, vote against lifting the team requirement? We are all aware that lifting the team requirement should lead to an increase in GridCoin's price because there is an incentive for miners to hold GridCoin. More holders = more scarcity of the coin which = higher value of the coin. Yet we have a recent poll that narrowly voted to keep the team requirement in place and it is clear that many whales and prominent miners voted this way.
The reason many of the whales & prominent miners voted against lifting the team requirement is because the <a href="https://cryptocurrencytalk.com/topic/44260-discussion-mandatory-team-gridcoin-membership-requirement/?page=6>discussion on CryptoCoinTalk contained a lot of unresolved concerns with lifting the team requirement with the primary reason being: there's a question of whether we were ready to scale quickly without DDOSing the BOINC servers and potentially taking down the entire coin. There is also the issue many miners have that a massive increase in mining activity will equal much fewer coins being distributed per miner (and I will write a separate article about this later).
I would argue most/all of the polls I have seen have followed good logic once you read the background discussions (IE: it's easy to understand why the vote resulted the way it did). And I see many examples of polls which clearly sway to the benefit of miners and small holders more than large investors. Why? Because everybody --particularly large holders/whales-- have a clear motivation to do what's best for the coin.
What's the harm in giving every CPID a "1" weight so everybody's votes are equal?
The biggest fundamental flaw with this idea is that you are granting equal voting weight to people who have little/no material stake in GridCoin's success and thus are not likely to put depth into their thinking/research before casting a vote. These are not the votes you want to have much weight.
It also opens the GridCoin voting system to be defrauded much more easily. Great example: CPIDs are free and easy to obtain. Anyone can have as many CPIDs as they want, theoretically. All you need is an email address. What's to stop an unscrupulous individual or group from registering thousands of CPIDs over time, filling each one with the minimum required GRC to vote, and using their sway to influence polls in a way that will harm GridCoin? Currently, there is a large financial barrier to attempt to maliciously sway GridCoin blockchain polls.
How does the current voting weight system benefit us all?
Other than my previous point where the current voting weight system encourages informed voting decisions made by people who have stake in GridCoin, the current system also provides a motivation for people to hold their coins.
I cannot underscore how important this incentive is for a mineable coin.
The biggest problem with mineable coins is that the vast majority of its miners will operate on what I call a "mine and dump" system. This is to say that when they get paid, they quickly sell the coin (usually converting it back to FIAT). This creates consistent selling pressure and is not good for the value of the coin. One of the best detractors of this behavior for GridCoin is the voting weight. It's what helps convert people out of the pools when they have enough coins, and it's what incentivizes them to hold more coin than they otherwise would. Want to increase your voting weight to help push through an issue that's important to you? Hold your coins! :-)
My Bottom-Line Proposal
The voting weight issue is good for the long-term health of GridCoin. I believe those with low voting weight should focus on increasing their influence on those who have higher voting weights. Do the research, make your case as to why people should vote a certain way, and make sure your proposal gets disseminated to the right people.
I also believe for each major poll, someone should create a Steemit post containing an unbiased "Pros & Cons" of each side of the issue, which could be linked with the poll itself. Most polls contain a link to a CryptoCoinTalk topic containing the discussion, but oftentimes those discussions are several pages long and it isn't reasonable to expect thousands of GRC holders (again, particularly those with low voting weight) to read through so much information. Perhaps a quick "ELI5 style" description of the issue along with a link to the discussion would be beneficial.
I hope you enjoyed this article -- I will do many more breaking down other issues I've seen come across Steemit, the GridCoin Subreddit, and other places.