Delegated proof of stake (DPoS)

Delegated proof of stake (DPoS) is a variant of proof of stake in which token holders vote for a limited number of delegates, also called block producers or witnesses, who validate transactions and produce blocks on their behalf. Voting power is proportional to the tokens held, and delegates usually share part of their rewards with voters.

The approach was designed by Daniel Larimer and first used in BitShares in 2014. Networks such as EOS (now Vaulta) and Tron use DPoS-style designs, with a small set of block producers; Tron, for example, elects 27 "Super Representatives".

Because only a few producers are needed, DPoS chains can be fast and cheap. The trade-off is decentralisation: a small group of producers, often backed by large holders or exchanges, controls block production, and voter participation tends to be low. Many other proof-of-stake chains also let holders delegate stake to validators but with much larger validator sets.