The Nyzo blockchain was started with 10 "official" Nyzo verifiers. To eliminate potential concerns about those verifiers influencing the direction of the blockchain, they were all deactivated and sentinel protection was eliminated so they would be removed from the cycle.
We initially planned to stop committing code to the nyzoVerifier repository on GitHub within 12 months of the Genesis block. However, as no alternative implementations of the core Nyzo verifier software are available, we feel that our continued development of the codebase is necessary. We hope that one or more alternative implementations arise soon.
The Nyzo protocol is so simple that we think there should be several implementations of Nyzo in common use. While the proof-of-diversity blockchain has some rules that must be followed, these rules are minimal, and all of the consensus rules can be modified or replaced without jeopardizing the proof of diversity. At any point in time, the decisions of the verifiers in the current verification cycle determine the direction of the blockchain.