Decentralization

Ultimately, “DeFi” protocols should be controlled by their communities. Sustainable DeFi is different from TradFi in this sense — the technology can scale to democratize decision making among stakeholders. That being said, decentralization comes with costs — it’s difficult to make necessary changes quickly, should any need to be made. The Protocol also doesn’t have sufficient data for the community to be able to make objective decisions about certain variables and control structures. Lastly, it becomes difficult to protect the security of a decentralized Protocol at low levels of TVL because well funded organizations or individuals can attempt a financial hijacking of the Protocol’s governance.

For these reasons, the Protocol is initially launched in a centralized manner — where solely the GLIF core team has limited control over certain Protocol parameters, upgrade paths, and security mechanisms. These centralized controls and safety mechanisms exist for the safety of both stakers and Storage Providers.

The plan is to release control over the protocol, and to decentralize its governance as soon as it's stable and is safe to do so. Safely decentralizing a DeFi protocol takes time, effort, and money to get right. Despite the limited centralized safeguards, GLIF Pools and the Infinity Pool are still the most decentralized option in the Filecoin DeFi landscape for both token holders and Storage Providers. If you are a FIL holder or a Storage Provider, and are not ok with the GLIF team having limited control over the systems, you should hold-off on getting involved for the time being.