EOS freezes seven accounts as a counter to potential theft, but the action causes some to question the decentralization of the EOS network.
EOS Freezes Seven Accounts
The accounts were frozen after a unanimous vote was held by the 21 elected block producers. The block producers suspected that these accounts may have been holding stolen funds and so decided to take action before anything else could be stolen. However, the decision was met with heavy criticism.
The decision violated the EOS constitution[1], which requires decisions such as this to be made by arbitration bodies, not by the block producers. The block producers are only supposed to execute a decision after the arbitration bodies have given the go ahead.
In this case, the arbitrary body was the EOS Core Arbitration Forum (ECAF).
Criticism comes because the block producers, instead of waiting to be told anything by ECAF, went ahead and decided amongst themselves to freeze the accounts. This begs the question – can something really be decentralized when run this way?
What Led to the Freezing?
When the seven frozen accounts were suspected of holding stolen funds, the elected block producers held a conference. They decided to move forward with the freezing, despite receiving no go-ahead by ECAF (ECAF, in fact, refused to freeze the accounts, because there was no proper authority in place to issue this kind of order).
The block producers enacted the EOS911 initiative, which is a safety protocol designed by the block producer EOS42. EOS911 makes it possible to recover funds when a theft has occurred.
When ECAF did nothing, the block producers took it upon themselves to review the evidence[2] of the potential theft, and they decided
