Question about DPOS system

#1

Hi,
I thought I’d ask this in the general form as it might be a stupid question (my misunderstanding things, not actually a technical problem). But I saw i saw on Elastos news (not allowed to link to it but will quote from it):

Elastos DPoS Supernode Election Rules

(6) 1 ELA may be used to vote for a maximum of 36 different nodes and 1 ELA may only give the same node a maximum of 1 vote.

What’ to stop someone buying 100 ELA and voting for the same node or group of nodes repeatedly?

Presumably the miners will have the most? I saw the foundation cannot vote with their coins, but what about bitmain, they will have a lot of voting power.

Also I didnt understand part 7 or 8 (will quote below):

(7) After ELA has been used to cast votes (i.e., the vote has been successfully cast), the corresponding ELA will no longer be used in circulation. If ELA is transferred after being used for voting, then the original vote will naturally be revoked after transferring and there is no revoke period for revoking votes;

The part that confused me here is that the first sentence says the ELA will no longer be in circulation. Second second sentence says “if”. So does this mean it stays in circulation or not?

(8) ELA used for voting in the DPoS supernode election may also be used for Cyber Republic Consensus Committee elections and other items.

This relates to my confusion about part 7. Is the ELA you vote with gone, spent i.e. no longer yours?

Thanks for reading and looking forward reading replies. Want to make sure I fully understand.

#2

To my understanding, a vote once cast is valid indefinitely until you will decide to change it.
Or until you will touch coins from the address reserved for voting.
Bitmain collects over 1000 ELA a day from August 2018, isn’t it?
This is not much, relatively to circulating supply.

#3

When you vote for a supernode, you have to send a special voting transaction. So, let’s say you have 500 ELA and you want to use all 500 ELA to vote for 36 different supernodes so these 36 supernodes get 500 votes each. You can do this. But as soon as you initiate that vote transaction for that 500 ELA, this ELA is bound by certain rules. One of them being that as soon as you try to move any of these 500 ELA from that account to somewhere else, the voting transaction is cancelled and all 36 of those nodes you voted for will lose your votes. This prevents people from just moving ELA around to vote again and again.

ELA used for voting is not part of circulation because you cannot use these ELA to initiate any other transaction as they are bound by the voting transaction you initiated. However, if you wanted to use these same ELA you used for voting for supernodes, you could use them for things like voting for Cyber Republic council member election too. That’s what #8 is talking about.

#4

Thanks for the clarifying explanation.

So the voting coins are effectively “locked” but still yours as soon as you have voted with them.
They can they then only be used for voting in the Cyber Republic council member election.

2 New Questions:

  1. How long are the coins ‘locked’ (to your account) after they have been used to vote with?
  2. In It says “and other items” - what are the other items referred to in #8?
#5

I wouldn’t use the word “locked” because it’s not really locked. It’s just bound to certain rules. U can cancel ur vote transaction at any time. So it’s there as long as u want ur votes to count.

#6

Ok, makes sense.

So to make sure I understand: The coins used for voting - is the time period indefinite? like if you changed your vote/moved your coins 1 week or even years later and had been holding your coins at the same address whole time (so the vote counted), the voting power would then be removed from the node the coin holder had voted for, then if they voted for someone different, the vote would go to them?

Wondered if there were be periodic voting rounds like in some other dpos systems - seems like there aren’t and its just continuous?

Also these other items in #8, any clues about that?

Thanks

#7

That’s correct. The ELA You use for voting; as soon as you initiate that voting transaction, that is up on the blockchain forever until you decide to cancel your voting transaction.

The voting period is continuous however the votes are recounted every 72 minutes in order to account for new votes coming in or old votes going out.

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#8

Interesting system! Thanks for explaining :slight_smile: