Proof of Stake Is a Precondition to Blockchain Adoption | Hacker News Reader

Proof of Stake Is a Precondition to Blockchain Adoption

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This is completely wrong in premise and conclusions. We should be avoiding Proof Of Stake cryptocurrencies because they are building an oligarchical nightmare. Of course the author does not understand this, because they are obsessed with magnitudes of energy, and consider this bad. Energy usage is a good thing actually, and secures the network. You cannot throw out the energy without throwing out censorship resistance, security, decentralization, etc.

PoW is the most fair, egalitarian distribution strategy that has been invented. It requires ongoing capital maintenance to prevent rentseeking from existing wealthy holders. Just say no to PoS.

The things you've mentioned can be applied to PoW blockchains as well. Having control over big mining pools at the end of the day is a question of money too. This creates the same oligarchy. In Bitcoin, there are 3 pools that control more than 50% of the mining.

I don't think you understand how 'pools' work. Pools are by definition collections of miners who are affiliated by the same aggregator. They are not monolithic bodies, nor do they speak for Bitcoin. They only power they have is providing a canonical representation of a block to miners. The network consensus (the node users) must validate the results.

The pools themselves do not represent an oligarchy, more a federation of miners. Miners are not sticky, and can switch to another pool after a single block is mined.

Miners themselves COULD form oligarchies, however the low margin and continuous ongoing capital expenditure through energy usage prevents this.

Contrast with staking, which will end up being large existing tradfi ('legacy bank') stakeholders, and they will control, censor and centralize the beast.

>Contrast with staking, which will end up being large existing tradfi ('legacy bank') stakeholders, and they will control, censor and centralize the beast.

Banks can already use their capital to fund mines right now. Also they wouldnt be able to censor it due to how easy it is to punish bad actors in PoS vs PoW

What's the difference between buying gpus and storage to control the crypto and locking money in that crypto? I personally fail to see it since both lock your money and generate interest. Its just a different way to lock it. Plus PoS scheme have better control over that locked money, and can more easily punish bad actors.

I think PoW is kind of 'the easy way' to do it right, but it is bad for thge environment.

Very insightful, thank you for posting this! Who's in charge of making a decision to move from POW to POS?

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