Decentralization Analysis of Pooling Behavior in Cardano Proof of Stake
Christina Ovezik, Aggelos Kiayias · 2022
Blockchain protocols’ main differentiator is their purported decentralization that unlocks various information technology applications that were supposedly impossible beforehand. The key promise is that incentive-driven participation of a large set of interested parties can lead to decentralized protocol states where no single operator can be a “single point of failure.” Despite this promise, there is little systematic analysis of decentralization in blockchain systems and the sporadic theoretic and empirical investigations that exist paint a rather negative picture due to resource “pooling behaviors” that are impossible to prevent in the “permissionless” setting of such protocols where parties have no designated identities.