Mance is the co-founder and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph blockchain, a next-generation distributed ledger technology that claims to be faster and more secure than existing blockchain solutions.

& ldquo; When we talk about decentralization, I think it is very important to say exactly what we mean blockchain.

What exactly is being measured when we talk about Layer 1 protocols when we talk about decentralization? Two different types of decentralization are important: 1) governance and 2) transactional agreement.

First, governance: How many different entities (people or organizations) are involved in making decisions about product roadmaps, pricing for services, compensation, and other management decisions. Are all of these entities known by name or can they be anonymized? If they can be anonymous, there is no way of really determining how decentralized governance is, as one and the same anonymous actor can pretend to be many different entities. Is it possible to consolidate voting rights? For example, if voting rights are linked to governance tokens, a single actor can increase their influence by buying or earning more tokens, resulting in a consolidation of rights and improved concentration.

The Hedera Board model is characteristic among the public ledgers. It consists of up to 39 long-term organizations selected to represent a wide range of industries, with member centers around the world operating hubs on six different continents. The board members are all publicly available, minutes of board meetings are published (and hashed on Hedera via the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS)) and each member has a unique voice to ensure fairness, stability and truly decentralized decision-making. Even the LLC membership agreement that companies must sign to join the board of directors is public and hashed on HCS. This model is in stark contrast to protocols that are managed by a small group of core developers or a single platform.

Next, the transaction order hierarchy: what is the minimum number of entities required to order transactions on the network? With Bitcoin, for example, only a handful of miners (usually five or fewer) control more than 50% of the network’s hashing power, which is enough to dictate transactions. (As of this writing, only three mining pools control 47% of the hash power of Bitcoin and only two mining pools control nearly 48% of the hash power of Ethereum). In addition, if a network allows node operators to remain anonymous, it is impossible to know how much any particular instance controls the hash performance of the network.

Phase 1 of the Hedera network requires more than two-thirds of its council members to agree on the order of transactions, and each board member now has an equal share of their vote. Since every board member is publicly known by name, we can say with certainty that the order of the transactions is decentralized. This was more decentralized than Bitcoin and Ethereum. In phase 2, publicly identifiable community nodes are added, and only when there is a very high level of certainty that a participation merger is unlikely are anonymous nodes added to the network.

The Hedera network was fundamentally geared towards the ideals of sustainable decentralization, both in its governance model and in the technical order of the transactions. & Rdquo;