Mustafa Al-Bassam, the trust-minimization engineer and co-founder of Celestia, elucidated the five cornerstone values governing the social layer of the Celestia network in a comprehensive post on 12th October 2023. These precepts are devised to bolster the trust-minimizing facet of the Celestia blockchain, ensuring a well-aligned community capable of consensus on protocol amendments.
The pivotal essence of Celestia’s social layer is the belief that off-chain governance supersedes token-holder governance. As Al-Bassam quoted David D. Clark of IETF, “We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code.” This framework postulates that no faction, regardless of size, can unilaterally alter or breach protocol rules. The canonical fork, along with the state transition function of Celestia’s blockchain, is fundamentally governed by its social and ecosystem layers, not by token voting or validators.
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