by Douglas Horn
Telos arbitration is going to be revolutionary. Once it begins, we will have a way to return people’s lost keys, combat theft, and resolve disputes about smart contracts. We have already made enormous progress towards the launch of Telos arbitration. Now we’re in the home stretch. There are a few things that need to happen before arbitration can begin. Here are the steps ahead:
- Telos First Arbitrator Election ends (March 15th, 2019 9:01 UTC)
The four arbitrators on the first ballot have all surpassed the 1 million-vote threshold needed to be elected. Once the election ends, they will receive access to the arbitration contract system that administers arbitration on Telos. - Telos Second Arbitrator Election begins (March 15th — 22nd, 2019 9:01 UTC) Another arbitrator election ballot will be created immediately upon closing the first election. New arbitrator candidates will then have exactly seven days to register add their names to this ballot. Interested arbitrator candidates should request an .arb account name and read the registration tutorial.
- The Telos arbitration system contract from Peter Bue and Craig Branscom of GoodBlock is complete and tested. However, it is currently paused while awaiting the arbitration management portal, which is being completed and tested by developers from EOSphere. We expect the portal to need about two more weeks, which would be the earliest that arbitration could begin.
- I am currently writing a chapter of the Telos Users Guide on the Arbitration Process which will describe the system and arbitration management portal usage both for people involved in an arbitration, and arbitrators themselves. This will serve as an initial information source and handbook. Of course, the TBNOA and TBNARP will the primary sources describing arbitration, but the users guide will help.
Once all of these pieces are in place, the block producers will un-pause the Telos arbitration contract and users can start filing arbitration cases which will then be processed.
The type of arbitration Telos proposes is entirely new to blockchain. The closest attempt, on EOS, was not well accepted by the EOS block producers and community, and Telos has tried to address these concerns. Still, there will be several new elements that we as a community will need to figure out along the way. What will arbitration cost? What standard of proof below cryptographic proof will be acceptable? There’s no good way to determine answers to every question that may come up ahead of time, so we will all learn these as we go along.
I’m hopeful that the first arbitration cases can be filed or begin around the end of March. Personally, I’m really looking forward to this process. I know there are a few people out there waiting to have lost keys replaced, among other things. Here’s a small reminder that if you have not already applied ProveAccount to your Telos accounts, that it’s a really good idea that will give you more ways to prove ownership, should your account ever be compromised or lost.
About the author: Douglas Horn is the Telos architect and whitepaper author, and the founder of GoodBlock, a block producer and app developer for the Telos Blockchain Network.
More about GoodBlock can be found at: www.goodblock.io
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