I don’t get it - it’s promoted as environmentally friendly, but it doesn’t seem that 1EB is being used for any actual useful storage purpose. It’s locked up as part of the running of the Chia system isn’t it?
It just seems so monumentally wasteful. At least with the liked of Filecoin the disks can be used for actual storage.
Does this Proof of Space approach have any real benefits over PoS (Proof of Stake)?
They also argue it's more green because if you don't want to store the plots, you delete them and the storage is still available as normal storage for other purposes. With PoW, you have specialized hardware that isn't useful for other purposes and you burn a lot of electricity all the time securing the network.