Vitalik Called It: Vote Buying Scandal Stokes Fears of EOS Failure

"We are aware of some unverified claims regarding irregular block producer voting, and the subsequent denials of those claims. We believe it is important to ensure a free and democratic election process within EOS and may, as we deem appropriate, vote with other holders to reinforce the integrity of this process."

The EOS interim constitutions, documents designed to put forth rules for participants on the network, clearly ban vote buying, but that constitution has never been ratified by EOS users.

Kevin Rose, community manage of EOS New York, a block producer since launch, acknowledged the point but told CoinDesk: "Profit sharing and vote trading which compromise an organization's ability to remain independent is the issue."

First, EOS has on-chain governance, albeit a system in which only one decision can be made by the EOS token holders.

Second, EOS has a constitution that forbids buying votes, but it's never been ratified.

Since users put their tokens into an exchange's wallet to use them there, an exchange would have to go to great lengths to give their EOS holders a way to vote.

The active EOS community has urged users since before the launch to take their tokens off exchanges, a point made by one user in a group video conference call of Chinese block producer candidates hosted by EOS Alliance, organized around the current controversy.

As an example, articulated the vulnerability to vote buying before EOS launched.

Scanning various EOS-affiliated Telegram channels, we saw EOS holders announcing that they'd no longer vote for any China-based block producers at all.

"As EOS grows and supports more use cases, those invested in the long-term success of the network will combat the forces, like vote manipulation, that degrade the long-term security of the network."