DPos and Zero Knowledge Proofs setting precedent for privacy preserving protocol

[cryptomarcianos]

The core tenet of any proof-of-stake blockchain is ensuring that all participants have skin in the game. You can’t just show up empty-handed to this potluck!

By having participants put something down in order to have a seat at the table, PoS blockchain not only uses its distributed wealth to protect the network from attacks but also has better mechanisms for handling inflation cheaply.

Some Projects are trying the tried and tested DPos with Zero Knowledge proofs variants.

Delegated Proof-of Stake :

This system contains a fixed number of validators on the network who have to be voted by the network. However, rather than having a rowdy system where voters, across different landscapes and timezones, may possess an undue advantage, the community is represented by elected entities known as delegates.

Candidates vie to be nominated as a delegate through community votes. Using their token, the community votes for delegates and the candidates with the most votes wins. Once appointed, users can send their tokens to delegates who will stake for them on their behalf. Block rewards earned by the delegate are shared proportionally among stakers.

However, delegates may also get to charge service fees ranging from 1–20% of the block reward. If a delegate misbehaves, the community can vote them out and vote in another candidate just as quickly.

dPoS is the most widely adopted and fastest-growing PoS consensus algorithm due to its fast transaction ability, scalability, cheap transaction fees, and novel democratic system that encourages honesty and efficiency from delegates.

Ongoing research and development on this protocol have resulted in variants addressing custodianship and liveliness.
These are:
Liquid Proof-of-Stake and
Bonded Proof-of-Stake

Liquid Proof-of-Stake: Liquid Proof-of-Stake makes delegation optional, allowing users to transfer their right to vote to another user without having to send their tokens along. It also gives users the right to vote in changes to the protocol (not just who delegates) and will penalize validators trying to exploit the network.

Bonded Proof-of-Stake: bPoS spots the same features as Liquid Proof-of-stake with one caveat; the network will penalize the validator and the stake delegated to them for jeopardizing the network’s safety and/or liveliness.

The democratization of blockchain through dPoS (and its variants) is ushering a free and fair ecosystem where anybody can participate in a peerless and distributed consensus system where their participation not only counts but is also rewarded. This is one of the reasons why privacy preserving projects like Concordium have chosen to deploy a Delegated Proof-of-Stake Consensus to both use the features of this consensus but also because they are certain that this model fits the best the current and future enterprise needs when it comes to new and agile technologies.

They also implement Zero Knowledge variant to help preserve privacy. Its mainly being used to make sure the DPos system that has been implement is a fair one without being able to track the delegates and also for various other reasons.

Have we seen any such variants before? Seems like a lot of academic research behind this in the past 1.5 - 2 years.