Steem-Engine Decentralizing?

It looks like there is another step in the process to decentralize things a bit more around here.

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Steem-Engine is the layer two exchange that was tied into the Steem blockchain. It is its own chain that broadcasts all activity to Steem. Being a DEX provides greater freedom and flexibility than being a centralized entity. This allows any front end to tie into the exchange.

One of the drawbacks to the world of "enterprise" blockchain is the lack of decentralization. When a few banks get together to build a blockchain, one they collectively control, is it really anything different from what was used before? Even if the technical aspects resemble blockchain, the control makes it look more like a shared database.

Steem-Engine appears to be taking a step further in the decentralized control area.

@harpagon put together a post relating to the consensus layer of the Steem Smart Contracts that he designed.

In the post, he talks about the work he is doing to set up a DPOS system for running the blockchain. It is being designed to resemble the common structure of 21 witnesses, 20 of which are automatically in a round and the last spot on a rotating basis.

The election of the Witness is following the present Steem model. It is based upon the stake each person holds but in ENG tokens. Each individual with ENG staked will get 30 votes, just like on Steem.

According to the post, this is going to testnet soon with 5 people who will be used to give the system a run through.

Here is the full post to get all the details.

https://steempeak.com/steemsmartcontracts/@harpagon/steem-smart-contracts-a-few-words-regarding-the-consensus-layer

This is another excellent move for the entire platform. Decentralization is becoming an important concept. With all the havoc regulators are causing, the more decentralized something is, the better chance it has to be left alone.

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Also, we are seeing other projects starting to tie into the DEX with their own interfaces. @steemleo opened their interface up two weeks ago allowing their users access to a few of the tokens on the exchange via their interface. Having a back end which allows any project to tie into it effectively enables anyone to have an exchange through their website. While most projects might not care about it, there are some where it will become part of their branding.

Following the Witness model enables people to have more confidence in what is taking place on that blockchain. Instead of a handful (or one) node running everything, we will see more people setting up Witness nodes to help verify what is taking place. This will further decentralize the entire ecosystem as a few of the Witness will likely be different from Steem.

This takes on added importance as the Steem-Engine team (and others) start to reach outside the ecosystem. We already saw some tie in with EOS, having some of their tokens located on Steem-Engine.

It is nice to see decentalization unfolding before our eyes. The process starts to become apparent once things start to get pushed further out. With more individuals and projects, we see the layout in the previous image start to take place.

What gets really exciting is when the outer nodes start to get linked together in what some call a distributed system. I won't get in the semantics here, opting to use the term decentralized to cover it all. Nevertheless, this is the next phase in power allocation as different projects start to interact as shown by this image.

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We already see this on Steem with some projects working together in such a manner. In fact, the Steemleo DEX interface has a number of tokens that are tied to other projects creating a link there. This is reducing the dependence upon just one entity for those projects since users have a couple different options. We saw the same thing happen with interfaces to the Steem blockchain. With the addition of tribes, there are dozens of ways to post to Steem, a major difference from the early days where steemit.com was the only game in town.

Another nice aspect to all of this is the Steem-Engine Whales and Orcas are not necessarily the same as those on Steem. While there is most likely some overlap, different people were accumulating ENG tokens as compared to STEEM. We can make the same case for Steemleo who has its own set of large accounts that is different from the other two mentioned here.

Keep extending this concept out another 3 or 4 iterations and it is easy to see how power becomes diluted very quickly, especially when projects become interwoven together (ala the last image).

This is one of the things that is going to make an ecosystem like Steem more powerful. Each day, token allocation across all levels changes. As individuals maneuver around with their different rewards, their stake in the variety of projects they are involved in changes. This alters the entire power structure over time.

Steem-Engine is now an example. Those individuals who spent time accumulating ENG tokens now, because of their stake, are in a position of influence with that platform. Once Harpagon gets his work completed, the stake will be used to determine who is running that blockchain.

The importance of this will only grow as more is tied into Steem-Engine over time.

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