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Comment by zedadex | Hacker News Reader

> I don't understand how the HN crowd that is usually so pro-environment, is also happy with the tons of wasted energy from crytptocurrency mining

Iirc that's one of the points of proof-of-stake. PoS is nearly analogous to PoW in its platform implications - potential for centralization due to resource costs and so on - but doesn't rely on burning through processing power to be secured.

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Paul Sztorc argues that PoS will burn as much electricity as PoW [1]. Buterin answers here [2].

[1] http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/

[2] https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ#doe...

That's not an accurate characterization of his argument (in [1]) about PoW vs. PoS. It's not about which one will burn more or less electricity - his point is that each burns an equivalent amount of economic value, be that electricity, capitaltime, liquidity, etc. PoS tends to burn less energy but compensates this by burning exactly as many dollars worth of capitaltime and liquidity.

My disagreement with this analysis is twofold:

- The capital that PoS burns has been created by switching to PoS. It's measured in ETH, and it's that extra value that hn commentors are referring to when they snidely remark that PoS is a good way to deflate your currency.

- The negative externalities of power consumption for PoW are both murderous and civilization-threatening. PoS has basically zero negative externalities.

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