Is delegated Proof of Stake vulnerable to government censorship?

Question

EOS uses delegated Proof of Stake, Dan's innovation used also in previous graphene blockchains such as Bitshares and Steem.

I was reading commentary from a blockchain news and commentator, Bruce Bates, on LinkedIn, who claims that dPOS is vulnerable to government intervention in response to someone suggesting that EOS is a better blockchain than bitcoin. He goes on to use a quote from NEO about the blockchain being able to reverse a transaction if the government orders it.

"The dBFT combines digital identity technology, meaning the bookkeepers can be a real name of the individual or institution. Thus, it is possible to freeze, revoke, inherit, retrieve, and ownership transfer due to judicial decisons on them. This facilitates the registration of compliant financial assets in the NEO network. The NEO network plans to support such operations when necessary."

However, does this really mean ALL dPOS is vulnerable to government interference? It seems to me, that providing all Block Producers are in different nations, any attempt by a single government to censor the Block Chain would result in Block Producers in their country being voted out by ones outside the jurisdiction?

How vulnerable is EOS to attempts at censorship? If all governments acted in unison, how would it cope? If all governments wanted to censor something (perhaps different things), how could the Block Producers continue to function? None of them would legally be able to host the whole chain in such an instance...

Answer 1

The short answer is Yes it is vulnerable to government censorship but not because it is dPOS. Dan Larimer has argued that having 21 Block Producers is enough for decentralization and this number can be increased if needed. Additionally, the block producers will be worldwide beyond any one country's jurisdiction.

However, decentralization does not necessarily mean it is censorship resistant. The EOS platform is not intended to be anonymous or censorship resistant. Identities can be associated with wallets, there is an arbitration process is in place for disputes, and private keys can be recovered.

It is completely possible to build an anonymous and censorship resistant blockchain using dPOS but EOS is not that platform.