Algorand CTO responds to criticisms of centralization and permissioned nature of blockchain
Algorand Foundation CTO John Woods has responded to criticism from Cyber Capital’s Justin Bons that Algorand is “centralized and authorized.” Woods accepted some “critical views,” but argued that the chain was still decentralized or permissionless.
I clearly disagree with Algorand being centralized and allowed, but there are a lot of fair criticisms in this thread.
Thanks for the thoughts Justin.
Launching a relay program is part of our 2023 strategy. https://t.co/RaoxAxR7A5— John Woods (@JohnAlanWoods) October 21, 2022
Centralization and censorship in Algorand
Bons took to Twitter on October 21 to praise Algorand’s “cutting-edge” technology, but claimed that “allowed gatekeepers can censor arbitrary TX at their whim.” 25 The tweet thread details that Algorand is a centralized blockchain managed by the Algorand Foundation.
“Consensus is run through unauthorized ‘participating nodes’, while ‘relay nodes’ are hand-picked and authorized by the Foundation!”
According to Bons, relays are “only responsible for propagating blocks,” so they can act as “gatekeepers for the entire system.”
In one tweet, Bons acknowledged that Algorand “can be fully decentralized with only a few relatively minor code changes.” However, as he hypothesizes that “relay nodes” could be forced to comply with the OFAC sanctions list, much like we have seen with Ethereum, he believes the current state of blockchain I believe in
Bonds also commented on claims that Algorand has solved the blockchain trilemma problem. The trilemma is that achieving the right level of security, decentralization, and scalability is the limit of blockchain configuration. His argument is that while Algorand’s approach to the trilemma may be “good enough”, it has “some major limitations.”
it solves it with some big limitations
This means it’s still within the trilemma, but it might work well enough
So if relay nodes are fully decentralized, that’s a big question mark here
— Justin Bonds (@Justin_Bons) October 21, 2022
John Woods reaction
Woods denied Bonds’ central claim, but the CTO of the Algorand Foundation affirmed, “It is imperative that critical voices be considered and accepted!” To accept some of the chain’s current failures.
Woods also retweeted a reply from TxnLabs CEO Patrick Bennett. Bennett argued that achieving a “majority of relay nodes” is not trivial given the randomness built into the relay system.
Additionally, Woods confirmed that the start of the relay program will be a “priority for 2023” amid modest acknowledgment of the limitations of the current closed system. said Agreeing that the issue is “important” and the need to “be more open”.
A relay is equivalent to a network switch, but a node gossips to 4 random relays. To censor, all relays must be censored. At least for me, I need to censor 4 random relays that a node happens to be communicating with at *that* time. So the “majority of relay nodes” is important here.
—patrick.algo (@patrickbennett) October 21, 2022
Overall, Bonds’ criticism is based on his evaluation of the Algoran blockchain, stating features such as “ALGO’s on-chain governance is… excellent.” Bons and Woods’ conversations within the thread demonstrated the ability for true dialogue and progression to occur on Crypto Twitter from time to time.
Conversations have been highly technical at times, but it’s fascinating to see high-level discussions about improving technology with a market capitalization of over $2 billion being openly discussed in public. is. Additionally, public interaction with the subject demonstrates the technical competence of the web3 community as a whole.
