PIVX Puts Users at the Forefront of Governance

The privacy-focused cryptocurrency, PIVX, announced a change in its voting system to ensure true decentralization, putting users at the forefront of governance.

Since the inception of Bitcoin, it could be argued that blockchain consensus has slowly veered away from the principle of decentralization. In the case of Bitcoin, with the miners unwilling to adopt the SegWit upgrade and a division embroils the community due to the decisions of a small group of the ecosystem.

Similarly, with DASH, their Proof of Service has been faltering in terms of decentralization, whereby only Masternode owners obtain exclusive voting rights, disqualifying many users from the governance choices of the community and hence risking that it becomes controlled by a few actors.

A new up and coming cryptocurrency born from a code fork of DASH, PIVX, wants to return to the cypherpunk philosophy and ensure true decentralization. PIVX comes from the phrase Privacy, Instant, Verified Transactions and has grown rapidly over the past three months. By getting masternodes to give up their votes, PIVX has replaced the governance system with a Community Designed Governance system; the voting power will be restructured and redistributed to all individuals who own PIVX.

The proposal was put forward late April and required Masternode owners to vote, whereby 62 percent participated, unanimously voting ‘Yes’ to accept the Community Designed Governance system. The 1228 to 0 vote determined that the Masternode Owners were in agreement with a high-level concept of the CDG and the community’s next step is to proceed with the next level definition.

The clear appetite for a decentralized community and ambition to improve on perceived problems in Bitcoin, such as Proof of Work, is a strong fundamental theme driving PIVX. The Community Designed Governance system started with a proposal from Eric Stanek, and required just 100 PIVX ($102 at the time of writing) for the Proposal Submission Fee and to compensate the developer.

The drive to decentralize comes amidst a month of increased developer activity on PIVX according to data from CoinGecko. The cryptocurrency is also climbing the ranks of CoinGecko’s proprietary rating system, with a respectable 58 percent for the total metrics score, comprising of market capitalization, liquidity, developer, community, and public interest. That puts PIVX ahead of the more well-know Ethereum Classic (at 49 percent) and on par with long-term incumbents Factom (59 percent) and Namecoin (58 percent).

While the community metric is 40 percent, we have to account for its age and there is plenty of growth ahead for the network that is less than two years old. The cryptocurrency does have potential and with a move toward a Community Designed Governance, should engage more people and bring them into the ecosystem. Already, their Slack channel has a lot of activity and the number of users has grown significantly since April. Even the rebranding from Darknet to PIVX was done in a decentralized fashion, with every member in the Slack channel asked for their opinion.

By including all PIVX owners in the voting and governance process, the community is aligning itself with the vision of a true decentralized system, learning from the limitations of Bitcoin and other blockchain networks and capitalizing on a second-mover advantage. All it needs now is the push from developers and the public for greater awareness and contributions. So if you are interested in participating in the future of decentralization, head over to r/PIVX or join their Slack channel to find out more.