I recently listened to a debate on the @Bankless pod with @Austin Campbell and @Omid Malekan 🧙🏽‍♂️ that covered a key topic of blockchain that I want to further analyze: neutrality. Blockchain neutrality is one of the founding ideologies of decentralization. Everyone has equal access onchain, regardless of their status or wealth. There is no single entity controlling a public chain. The debate centered around the drawbacks of having a neutral chain, with one of the key points being the inability to claw back funds; once funds move from one wallet to another, there’s no disputing that transaction and no support number to call. It’s done and it’s permanent. That’s the immutability of blockchain. The alternative to these neutral public chains are those built out by corporations. These corporate chains may be willing to sacrifice neutrality for convenience, and more importantly, control. They will favor their own products and chase economic incentives while breaking the rules of neutrality, defeating the whole point of a decentralized system and turning their chain into just another database. In my view, blockchains are public infrastructure and should maintain full neutrality, where all members of that chain abide by the same rules. Any disputes about onchain transactions must be resolved by the parties involved without affecting chain operations. By maintaining neutrality, blockchains can deny involvement in any disputes that arise over onchain transactions by claiming that the rules are the same for everyone and they can’t do anything about it. A great example brought up was control over stablecoins. Stables backed by USD are controlled by the US government. Similarly, any stables of other currencies, for example a Yen stablecoin, would be also controlled by that government. But while the underlying currency itself is controlled by a government, a stablecoin is just a representation of that money onchain. It is just a means of holding and transferring value that utilizes the underlying currency to assign a certain value to a line of code. Blockchains are meant as a way for these currencies to transact with one another on an open platform. They should NOT let different parties operate by special rules because that defeats the whole point of having a fair and open market. If China wants to dispute a USDC transaction, they can’t do so by freezing the entire chain and forcing node operators to move those funds. The transaction reached finality and the funds are settled. Rather, they must go to the party responsible for the underlying asset of USDC, which is the US government, and reach an agreement without disrupting the operations of the entire chain. Neutrality is one of the core tenants of blockchain. If we remove credible neutrality from blockchain, it becomes just another database controlled by some entity rather than a global town square open to everyone. While corporate-run chains may seem fine in the short term because they increase blockchain awareness and adoption, they are not sustainable long term. Given enough control over a chain, any group would be likely to chase their own incentives and break neutrality for personal or financial gain. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."