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posts/2022-05-02_peace/README.md

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+---
+title: "Peace!"
+publication_date: 2022-05-02T13:17:22Z
+slug: peace
+tags: [peace, cosmos, "gno.land"]
+authors: [jaekwon]
+---
+
+# Peace!
+
+I've never been put in such a difficult position, of having information that I
+cannot reveal. And if you know me, you know that I like to speak my mind. But
+I cannot say the things that I would rather say, because you get a lot of flack
+for saying anything bad about a public chain.
+
+So I have been sitting on this issue, losing sleep about it for years, because
+it leads me to worry about the safety of the hub. From an external person's
+point of view, the solution is obvious -- reveal the information for the
+betterment of everyone, no matter the consequences, because that is the right
+thing to do. As a stakeholder, and I agree with the majority of the community
+that peace and silence is better, with exceptions.
+
+So without turning this into a war of accusations bringing back past drama,
+let's just do this: dear core contributors, Ethan Buchman, Zaki Manian, Jack
+Zampolin, and everyone, here is my peace plan.
+
+----------------------------------------
+
+## On Prop 69
+
+Prop 69 is about adding CosmWASM to the hub. I have repeatedly talked about
+the dangers of adding CosmWASM to the hub, including a document shared two
+years ago.
+
+https://github.com/jaekwon/cosmos_roadmap/tree/master/shape_of_cosmos#smart-contracts
+
+Even before prop 69, I had declared publicly that stakers voting yes to adding
+WASM on the hub would not receive airdrops. Primarily, because it increases
+the surface area for attack by an order of magnitude. CosmWASM adds two layers
+of new complexity to the hub. WASM itself, as well as CosmWASM. WASM as a spec
+and its implementations are still maturing, and though available on browsers,
+and some blockchains, it still hasn't gone through the gauntlet of time. All
+new complex technologies like WASM, like Java, Linux, and even Go, in hindsight
+have numerous bugs that could have or were used maliciously. The same will be
+true of any WASM integration with the hub, and this potential for exploits
+combined with the massive potential rewards (especially of pegged PoW tokens)
+makes such exploits an inevitability.
+
+In Juno recently there was a bug that halted the chain for three days. Worse
+can happen on the Cosmos Hub. The very identity of the Cosmos Hub (it's most
+valuable asset is specifically a schelling point brand, of being a "common IBC
+hub") is threatened if a bug were to result in the theft or loss of coins. On
+platforms like Ethereum or Polkadot, perhaps they would have a better time
+rolling back the chain to undo a hack as in the DAO hack. The major difference
+with an *IBC hub* is that it cannot simply reverse the transactions of other
+chains.
+
+We have yet to experience such a bug in any of our zones on a major scale, and
+have yet to learn how to coordinate in the case of such in an interconnected
+web of zones. Where are the planning documents for disaster scenarios? Between
+PoS chains with good governance, we will learn how to roll back transactions
+across connections, if need be in exceptional circumstances, but we aren't
+there yet. This option isn't even available with pegged PoW coins.
+
+Yes, the contracts that are approved to run will be governance gated, but this
+is not enough. For one, even with perfect governance, there are two new pieces
+of complexity that will see more zero day bugs in the future for exploitation.
+In terms of governance, the contracts are probably going to be written in Rust,
+and so suddenly the validators that joined the project by inspecting the Go
+code is now required to also audit Rust code. But also, we are now truly
+opening the doors to all kinds of contracts to be run, because while governance
+does sometimes reject proposals, it is generally accommodating to new features
+especially endorsed by core contributors.
+
+I know of three alternatives:
+
+(1) we can use IBC to offload features to other zones. For liquid staking
+(which should not be the focus of the hub) the hub could allow validators to
+restrict the destination of unbonded ATOMs, and smart contracts running on
+other zones can distribute those ATOMs according to the logic of whatever
+liquid staking contract. This ensures separation of concerns, and a minimal
+hub.
+
+(2) we can use Go plugins to extend the functionality of the chain.
+
+(3) we can do nothing. if liquid staking is such a big deal, something is wrong
+about priorities for a cosmic "hub". If the liquid staking market is larger
+than the base non-liquid staking market, the system is open for manipulation
+and is insecure. The focus should not be on self-limiting use-cases, but the
+infinite market of running validators with replicated security, perhaps running
+a simple dex, and most of all innovating on and offering interchain security,
+the business of judging validation faults as related to Tendermint, and perhaps
+the interpretation and enforcement of self-enforced customs (law) of a
+blockchain as defined by its shareholders who defer validation (and perhaps
+judicial services) to the Cosmos Hub because it has a reputation for being the
+longest ever running proof of stake hub that has never gone down, even as
+compared to the upcoming Ethereum2.0.
+
+And note, I'm not proposing that the ATOM stakers forgo the benefits of
+supporting contracts with CosmWASM. I support Juno and Tardigrade and Ethan
+Frey’s work, but I also support the Hub running shared security, especially
+simple replicated shared security where the validators also validate other
+chains. I think this, and interchain staking, are the only profit models needed
+for the hub (besides being a hub). NOTE: But those "consumer chains" ought to
+be provided with full disclosures that the Cosmos Hub validators do not
+maintain their respective software (as it would be impossible to audit all
+zones that would benefit from the hub's security) but only offering validation
+services as-is. This would force the hub validators to solve process isolation
+(and I would much prefer building the protocol to NOT require particular
+solutions like Docker, but allows validator choice), or else they would quickly
+get slashed from malware (and that would be good to prune those validators from
+the hub).
+
+So many options that don't require putting WASM on the Cosmos Hub.
+
+------------------------------------
+
+## On Incentivized Votes
+
+In corporations, you can buy shares to influence the outcome of governance
+votes. In democracy, this is not allowed because the vote could be bought to
+infringe upon the rights of other people.
+
+What do you do when the chain's own core contributors proposes a proposal that
+you judge damages the integrity of the system? I think that's a good time to
+create a fork of the hub's ATOM distribution led by a new development team.
+Sometimes this option is the only option because of safety concerns, and this
+is the case for me here.
+
+### Why is the snapshot date 5/19/2022?
+
+A snapshot in the past is more vulnerable to insider gaming, because there is
+an imbalance of information--only the coordinator knows, and so can game the
+premine.
+
+It is good to give many people the advantage of participating in a snapshot.
+Excluding anyone who would have been an ally of a chain, in turn creates
+animosity that would rather see another project succeed where they are
+included.
+
+Even before the proposal I had pre-declared that anyone who votes for WASM on
+the hub would not receive a gno.land airdrop. The proposer probably knew this
+when the proposal was submitted.
+
+The snapshot date would have been 7/4/2022, because that is Independence Day in
+the United States. I originally chose Independence Day because of the general
+original mission of Tendermint, Cosmos, Bitcoin, and the crypto spirit; and
+because the United States (as flawed as it is) is the best historic ideal of
+human liberty we've had since before the days of Rome.
+
+Then prop 69 was submitted. I had said previously that we would exclude those
+who vote in favor of WASM on the hub, but we don't have the tools yet to tally
+the movement of tainted ATOMs after the unbonding period for the hub. So I
+decided to move the snapshot date to 5/19/2022.
+
+Now with prop 69, I see that to me, 21 days after the beginning of proposal
+\#69, 5/20/2022 (but 5/19/2022 PDT) is a chance to create a new community within
+the Cosmos ecosystem that champions safety with a zero tolerance policy and a
+mission to develop social coordination tools like the GNO smart contract VM, to
+create even better governing bodies than the one we have today.
+
+### Gno.land and Cosmos Hub
+
+Now, I feel compelled to exit should prop \#69 pass. But as it is now, 16.57%
+are voting YES, while NO and NO WITH VETO have 70.73% and 8.38% of the votes
+with turnout at 30%. If the proposal does not pass, I would feel no need to
+exit. For as long as the Cosmos Hub remains minimal and secure, we will favor
+it as the dominant or only token hub connected to gno.land via the current IBC
+implementations for the purpose of interchain token transfers. It's a job that
+we'd rather not solve, as specialization is what will get us to the finish line
+before other platforms do, and also I'm quite hooked on gnolang programming and
+just want to make gnolang apps. Not everybody wants to build a DTCC, but many
+would prefer to use it.
+
+### Airdrop distribution
+
+When I was asked on Cryptocito what I would have changed if I were to do it all
+again, well, I would put the ICF in the hands of the chain. So in gno.land, the
+ICF's portion of $GNOT will go to DAOs on gno.land. As for me, I have a
+significant amount of ATOMs that voted for NO WITH VETO, but most of my tokens
+by far are with the company that I previously founded, then called All in Bits,
+Inc. AIB will not receive any $GNOT except by completing negotiations with me,
+which is taking a lot longer than is reasonable--or not.
+
+For reference, for the genesis of the Cosmos Hub, the total distribution for
+both entities was 20% of all ATOMs, and today it is still significant. The
+total premine that I control directly or indirectly will not exceed 1/3 of the
+total $GNOT distribution, but I am considering 20% again.
+
+Some more guidelines, which may change, so don't take anything here as
+financial advice:
+
+* NO with VETO is slightly better than NO.
+* NO is better than ABSTAIN.
+* ABSTAIN is better than not voting at all.
+* Delegators inherit the votes of the validators.
+* If you vote YES on \#69, you will not receive gno.land $GNOTs.
+
+NOTE: If you don't like my airdrop rules, you are free to make your own, and if
+you're nice you can even run gno.land contracts if you so want there, or you
+can just run a fork of gaia.
+
+If you have a better ideal for such an exit-drop by tweaking the governance
+module, I'd love to hear your feedback, or generally how you think I could have
+done this better. Some say that they don't want to see more of this kind of
+forking, but I think we ought to celebrate it instead.
+
+----------------------------------------
+
+## Conclusion
+
+Here's a peace offering.
+
+Just change your vote from YES to NO, and I will not intervene upon the second
+submission of the proposal (and I would even fund its deposit if need be). But
+if you instead feel strongly about signaling in favor of CosmWASM, here you can
+express it, and I celebrate you, for being different than I, and wish you the
+best of luck. That is equivalent to a no-confidence vote on gno.land, and is a
+proper way to diss me. Again, I salute you.
+
+If you can reconsider your vote to be a NO, or even better, a NO WITH VETO, I
+welcome you to gno.land. Happy 5/19/2022 (5/20/2022 Europe) Gno.land
+Independence Day!