Can the goal of economic autonomy be achieved without decentralization?
The NEO Foundation (NEO) is a blockchain platform where developers can build decentralized applications (dApps). NEO provides infrastructure such as decentralized storage, oracles, and domain name services to allow developers to build dApps that automate resource management using smart contracts.
The protocol’s ultimate goal is to become a decentralized and open network for the “Smart Economy.” The Smart Economy in question refers to a financial system that is fully compatible with blockchain. NEO is aware that this stage cannot be reached overnight, so the company devoted itself to transforming the entire system one protocol at a time.
Switch to premium developer tools
DeVadoss mentioned that Web2 developers are used to building on traditional platforms, which are not financial platforms. However, DeVadoss says that blockchains are economic platforms, meaning that inherent crypto-economic protocols are built in.
“there’s a huge gap between what developers expect and what’s available… Many so-called premium blockchain platforms, in terms of the development experience, are very primitive… When you play with it, you realize. How do people actually build something ?”
The NEO platform aims to solve this problem. The team is primarily concerned with the quality of the developer tools on their blockchains. It claims that its quality and ease of use will increase the number of financial dApps with real value, leading the community to NEO’s ultimate goal of becoming the network for a smart economy.
Secure self-sovereignty
According to DeVadoss, NEO competes with platforms like Azure and AWS, rather than large blockchains like Ethereum (ETH) and Polygon (MATIC) that host many dApps.
Although it may be much younger than web2 giants like Azure, NEO has the advantage of running on the blockchain. Technical stacks built on a blockchain provide individual sovereignty when it comes to data. This also leads to self-regulation, which are aspects web2 can never provide.
DeVadoss has potentially divisive ideas about decentralization hype. He argues that decentralization is overrated, and it would make no sense for a blockchain to be centralized as long as it offers self-sovereignty and self-regulation. He said:
“It’s a myth decentralization gives you. But it’s not always true. There are a lot of networks out there where the control of their nodes lies within a very small set of people.”
That is why, says DeVadoss, organizing the underlying nature of blockchains should prioritize self-regulation and self-sovereignty rather than decentralization.
He argues that the crypto community was led to this “detour” of decentralization by a certain group that creates an advantage on it. Instead, the community should step back and focus on its core needs for self-regulation and self-sovereignty.
