I would argue that auctions (ICOs) are fairer than mining. Devs can give themselves coins directly or they can have a dev tax (e.g. Zcash) or they can fail; I don't think it makes sense to hold crypto devs to a higher standard than, say, startups.
No, an ICO + POS is not fair at all. It might make sense for a crypto startup but not for a layer 1 blockchain currency. The base layer has to be plausibly neutral, or it defeats the purpose and you might as well open a Robinhood account.
Censorship resistance, plausible neutrality, decentralization, antifragility, uptime, and security are features of layer 1 blockchain systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
If a dev team starts off with 80% of supply they aren't going to ever achieve any of the above.
> Censorship resistance, plausible neutrality, decentralization, antifragility, uptime, and security are features of layer 1 blockchain systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
I completely agree, all the the above must come before throughput in an L1 blockchain. So many of the so called ETH killers sacrifice on some or all of the items you listed. Do you think anything else ticks all the boxes and can stand alongside BTC and ETH as a legitimate L1?
They're both unique because they're both the first of their kind. And they were doubted for years before they were shown to have value and staying power. The copycats have a problem especially when they hype themselves to $40B market caps before they have even grown a sustainable ecosystem or fair distribution.
The file storage chains like Filecoin, Sia, Chia, etc. may tick this box, but they aren't competing with Bitcoin or Ethereum. Any other unique proof of work algos that can't be easily hashed by ASICs or GPUs might qualify but I don't know. I don't see any others with a real grassroots ecosystem of activity.
