Introduction :
Ethereum operates without a central governing body and doesn’t use a governance token for onchain decisions where token holders vote on proposals so how exactly does the ethereum community make decisions ethereum employs offchain governance moving the decision-making process away from the blockchain and into the hands of ethereum stakeholders this group includes ETH holders application users application developers node operators validators and core developers.
What is EIP:
At the center of this offchain process is the ethereum Improvement proposal also known as EIP which serves as the standard for proposing changes to ethereum an EIP can be created by anyone in the ethereum community with enough technical proficiency via GitHub and needs to include all necessary information regarding the proposed changes.
Creation of an EIP:
An EIP is created the ethereum community engages an EXT ensive discussions to reach a rough consensus on whether the proposed changes outlined in the EIP will be implemented or not the governance process begins with EIP authors outlining their proposed changes on GitHub this includes details such as rationale technical specifics and security considerations like risks and how they might be addressed.
Gather Feedbacks:
The Next Step involves feedback from ethereum stakeholders via a public forum such as ethereum magicians here the authors of an EIP get to learn the community’s thoughts on their idea receive feedback and address concerns much like politicians they strive to Garner support for their proposal a crucial factor in determining whether the EIP will be implemented or not.
Presenting core EIP to core developer:
For core EIPS which propose fundamental changes to the ethereum protocol and therefore require broader consensus as all nodes must upgrade to stay part of the same network EIP authors need to present their proposals to core developers during their weekly meetings the core developers will discuss the EIP leading to a typical outcome of a rough consensus on whether the proposal will be considered or rejected this decision hinges on factors such as Community sentiment Technical soundness and of course potential contentiousness aiming to prevent a network split similar to the one in 2016.
Incorporating Community Feedback:
If the EIP advances the authors must incorporate feedback received from the community and adjust their initial proposal accordingly this involves a back and forth process iterating until all concerns are addressed and the EIP gains approval.
Implementation and Testing stage:
following this stage the development team proceeds to write the necessary code to implement the EIP and comprehensive testing follows the EIP is then bundled with others and goes live after a network up upgrade is activated ethereum’s transition from proof of work to proof of stake is an example of a process which took years of discussions testing and upgrades to come to fruition as you can probably already tell throughout the process there’s no single metric that can be used to gauge Community consensus generally stakeholders reach a rough consensus through long back and forth discussions.
Outro :
So do you think ethereum’s governance should be more efficient or or does it do a good enough job as is and be sure to check out our ethereum versus ethereum classic video to find out the differences between the two chains after the contentious fork in 2016.
Disclaimer:
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