[wyc]

Summary of argument:

- Some claim that Ether is not a security because it is decentralized and therefore not a "common enterprise" by the Howey test, but the author disagrees with this specific argument because he thinks it's centralized.

- Author believes that a "horizontal commonality" of interested Ether participants can constitute a common enterprise.

- Author believes that that GitHub and commit rights are quite centralized.

- Author speculates that the shape of the Ether pre-sale curve signifies very few participants because it strongly resembles a power curve.

[baddox]

I’m not sure I understand the horizontal commonality argument. It sounds like the author is claiming that a technology (e.g. a computer program) is not decentralized if a large portion of the users of the technology use the same implementation of that technology (e.g. use the same exact implementation of the computer program). In other words, if a group of users all run the same Ethereum client software, then it sounds like the author is considering then centralized by definition, regardless of the reasons each user decided to use that computer program, the fact that they chose the same implementation means that technology is centralized. If I’m understanding that correctly, then I find that argument bizarre.

[twblalock]

> In other words, if a group of users all run the same Ethereum client software, then it sounds like the author is considering then centralized by definition, regardless of the reasons each user decided to use that computer program, the fact that they chose the same implementation means that technology is centralized.

Seems logical to me. The motives of the individual users have created an outcome of centralization because they all use the same program to do the same thing.

[baddox]

Doesn’t that effectively mean that no decentralized network system/protocol can possibly exist according to this definition? Of course users have an incentive to be able to communicate with one another.

[fjsolwmv]

Why is it bizarre? Users are very intentionally using a specific protocol to create a single shared blockchain, not creating isolated objects of independent value.

[baddox]

It’s bizarre because, according to that definition, “decentralized protocol” is a contradiction of terms.