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Comment by feedjoelpie | Hacker News Reader

Because it's insanely expensive to operate a PoW blockchain. We literally set things on fire to generate electricity for these global brute force algorithms. Proof of Stake uses game theory (you will avoid cheating if cheating costs you money) to replace expensive raw computing power.

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It seems likely that it is exactly that expense which make bitcoin and other PoW blockchains successful.

The proof-of-stake algorithms can disincentivize cheating within the blockchain, but I haven't seen any that have the type of external cost that PoW blockchains have. The fact that so many people are investing so much power in bitcoin vs. other currencies is likely much of what gives it so much value.

PoW coins have a multi-year headstart, and Bitcoin didn't have any truly interesting decentralized competition until Ethereum. Ethereum is moving to PoS, I presume because being able to more cheaply and quickly execute smart contracts is deemed more valuable than artificial scarcity. A sentiment with which I could not agree more.

The problem then becomes how do you determine the 'real' Ethereum. For Bitcoin, it is generally understood as the blockchain with the most proof of work.

With proof of stake, what's the disincentive to participate in all forks, or even a large number of alternate histories. If there are multiple Ethereum blockchains using PoS, how can I as a new user determine which one is 'the' Ethereum?

The one with the most utility (connected services, ability to spend, and other infrastructure).

Ethereum is going to PoS as a mechanism to reduce liquidity and increase the coins price. Nothing more. The entire history of ethereum is full of a lot of... less than ideal decisions like this.

Whether or not that's true, I literally have code sitting on the shelf waiting for it be cheap enough to run on ETH, and I think PoS will make it cheap enough.

Ethereum is moving to PoS because it would greatly help with scaling. Once Ethereum has Casper, they can start thinking about implementing sharding allowing on-chain scaling.

it's insanely expensive to mine gold, but we do that too. there are shared delusions about what we are willing to trade our labor for. it doesn't have to make sense.

Yes, and we'll also eradicate the rainforest for profit even though that might spell doom for the ecosystem of the planet. Only because everyone does something doesn't mean it's a good thing to do.

You know how much energy goes into TV? Video games? Driving on vacations? Flights to Thailand? Concrete for skate parks? I don't understand the obsession about blockchain energy use when a significant amount of energy is used on other more frivolous pursuits without question.

Every single thing you mentioned benefits from increases in efficiency that drive down the cost of these pursuits, making them accessible to more people.

Sure, but that's side-stepping my point.

IF it were insanely expensive, nobody would mine. That you don't value the results, doesn't change the economic value of the activity you don't like.

A few years back anybody with a decent home PC could mine BTC, nowadays the barrier for entry pretty much requires a truckload of Nvidia products (or customized ASICs) and subsidized electricity.

Fast forward a few years ahead. Do you see more or fewer miners participating in such ecosystem?

PoW as it’s currently implemented encourages centralization.

> We literally set things on fire to generate electricity for these global brute force algorithms.

Who's "we"? Because I don't. People who mine do. They do it by their own free will. It's their resources they spend.

If you want to talk about setting things on fire for no reason, let's talk about smoking. Google tells me more than a billion people smoke. I'll argue that the maintenance of a decentralized, publicly accounted money system is more useful than people inhaling tobacco smoke.

If you want to compare Bitcoin deflation to substance addiction, I'll agree with you all day long.

Worth noting that the vast majority of bitcoin is mined from hydroelectric power.

Ironically for the ether pumpers on this thread, the primary crypto currency that is powered by burning coal and oil is ethereum.

Do you have numbers to support this. Because, as they say in the industry: if all we have is opinions, let's go with mine.

It has to be, otherwise there is an arbitrage opportunity : hydroelectric power is the cheapest there is.

Well, I hadn't really looked in to it before, but a bit of a search proves your both right.

Forbes says "The largest share of the miners are located in China, close to the border with Tibet where cheap hydropower is relatively abundant."[1]

1.https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2016/07/21/mining...

> It's their resources they spend.

It's the global commons: carbon and other pollution from electricity generation, fossil fuel extraction. Manufacturing and building wind farms and solar arrays also have an environmental impact.

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