Polycentric is not automatically safe: centres can collude, share a blind spot or fragment, and whether they really act independently is an empirical question, not a property of the design. The last defence is counter-coordination: anyone can exit and fork the shared record, so a captured majority can be left behind.

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barriers are not nearly as strong as we thought

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Forking is a powerful form of counter-coordination precisely because it introduces skin in the game

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This architecture changes where power is exercised but does not abolish it

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Whether they actually function independently, or instead constitute an interdependent system of relations, is an empirical question in particular cases.