I would recommending having a listen to this interview, and to watch if you can -- some interesting comments in the chat. There is a lot of good information in the interview. I will write my thoughts as I have them while listening so you can see my thought process. I will edit them mostly for typos and clarity -- so excuse me if I have a tone with a few of them. This will be my second time listening to this so these are not completely raw thoughts.

"A portion of our transaction fees go to something other than mining." Afterwards, masternodes decide how to distribute these funds. We can do this, but without masternodes making the decisions about fund allocation. I can think of a few ways off the top of my head. Give me some time to make sure they seem like they could work and to make them presentable = ). I hope to have something released for community feedback by/around January 15th.



"...anyone who wants to run one of these networks." We don't want to run a network, we want the network to run. It's a mentality.



There is something to say about centralization speeding production, but it comes with a very large risk. Once you centralize at the core level, it is nearly impossible to decentralize. If you are centralized, you can be targeted. Governments, if they turn against anonymous networks, might target Dash masternodes, which are already legal unknowns. Consider Ancient Rome: before emperors, Rome was run by a senate. Rome was a republic -- decentralized/representative -- and would appoint a "Dictator" for times where the need for rapid production and reaction allowed by centralized control presented itself: mostly for wars or for the completion of hyper-specific tasks. After the war, or after the task was completed, or after a set length of time, the dictator was removed from power. Eventually, the system fell into complete centralization and power was given to something we call "Emperor." Get started with history! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator It can be argued that it failed because they had a human system based solely on trust and not an open source algorithm based mostly on code.



They are looking into building ASICs for their masternodes -- further centralization.

Instant send sounds like an amazing mechanism, but it is not yet secure and its utility will undoubtedly be replicated through other mechanisms -- the ability to transact without waiting is necessary for all financial tools.

Private Send seems pretty neat. If I understand correctly, an auditor can still identify a buyer with confidence, however it seems like they will need more than just the transaction data to confirm what they want to confirm. "We believe that this actor is bad. If they are one of the actors in this private send jumble, the probability that our belief is accurate increases." Something like that might be able to hold in a court of law? ... it sounds sort of like a warrant.

"Does Dash Core have centralized control over the Dash network?" -- This question is never answered. There are some good statements about centralization when needed, but that's what they are: general statements one would expect from a politician, not a developer. See my comments about Rome above. There are other ways to implement temporary centralization to drive hyper-specific goal completion. I have several ideas. Give me some time to put them together and make them presentable = ). I hope to have theory and skeleton outlines regarding implementation for Gridcoin released for community feedback by/around January 31st.

"... we could turn off a few features." "Very quickly... someone creates a new version of the network." Very quickly create a new version of the network?! Come now. Someone with more knowledge please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like it would take a lot of work and time to fix, fork, and rewind a network which was just corrupted by a rogue actor. Not to mention the loss of trust in the protocols and operation structures.

Dash proposals are all about marketing and are generally... none are about development. Development is centralized.

https://dashvotetracker.com/

https://www.dashcentral.org/budget

Masternodes can turn off keys? Someone with more knowledge clarify this please.

"Right now features like Instant Send are still maturing." "We need to reach a certain comfort level that these features have been tested enough...." I agree! Let's wait until they build the functions into the code and then take another look at the code!

"We are not abusing that power and we have no plans to." Neat, but let's not rely on the indefinite benevolence of leaders. Let's think long term. Once all the amazing and benevolent leaders of organizations pass into the great unknown, can the system be corrupted?

"We thought of use-case and designed for the use-case." He says this like it's ground-breaking. That's literally how Bitcoin was designed, yes? It's heuristic. You're supposed to start with and design off of absolute proofs or theory, not use-cases. Like Ouroboros.

"There are a lot of different components that need to be built from scratch." Let them build them! Then let's look at a potential switch.

"Let's. Do. It. Right." Yes. Yes. Yes.

I agree with the microtransaction economy thought. That's pie in the sky dreaming for the next couple decades. Can't wait!

After this they talk about stuff that's not necessarily relevant to Gridcoin... unless we actually go back to PoW, which I really hope we don't.

After Thoughts:

The danger of Dash which I'm talking about are economic, political, and regarding the incomplete and insecure mechanisms that the proposal of this thread seeks to bring to Gridcoin. For cryptographic security, until I learn more, I deffer to the opinions of the developers who have earned the trust and respect of the community through their actions and products (never just their words).

Instant payments failed and the centralized team stopped services. Good for this security flaw scenario, bad in principal, particularly long term.

To me, masternodes sound like a bank and a human/trust-based-government in one entity. That is something that even the most hard core capitalists think is dangerous. They have thought this since the development of capitalist theory and the implementation of capitalism.

Maybe Masternodes will be the way to go, but I vote that we let them prove it first while also waiting to see what else people come up with to solve these problems. In the meanwhile, let's prove to all the people dedicated to science and open and accessible data analysis that we are here for them: let's work on BOINC and how we can structure our operation around our ethos.

Disclaimer:

I believe that the price of Dash is likely to skyrocket over the next 6-12 months (it may even have the potential to directly compete with BTC), but that doesn't mean it is right for Gridcoin at this time. There is a difference between being multi-billion dollar secure (which Dash admits they are not) and having groundbreaking tech. Most groundbreaking tech will be in smaller marketcap coins. Once those coins reach a billion dollar marketcap, their security will begin to be seriously tested. Just like what happened with Dash and the Instant Send mechanism.