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I am still waiting to hear how the developers intend to solve the problem of scalability with regard to the energy use for any proof of work network. I have asked that question a couple of times on this message board, and I have also asked it in private correspondence with the team, and have yet to hear any answer.
That's because there is no answer: the dramatic increase in network hashrate strongly suggests, if not outright proves, the theory that miners will deploy hashrate up to the limit of their available power, so "more efficient" miners like ASICs don't lower energy use, they just increase the network hashrate (and therefore the difficulty). It's a situation where nobody but the ASIC miner manufacturers win.
I see your point and I agree if you are talking about 100% proof of work coins like Dero is now. But I think there are other possibilities you are not considering. One, for example, is that the team implements some sort of hybridised proof of work and proof of stake in some future update (beyond Atlantis). I am just shooting off the top of my head here because I don't have any technical expertise in this field. But how about a system where each wallet is staked as in a PoS system but instead of a single coin, a group from different stakers is chosen at random and then they then have to mine in order to determine who among that subgroup will find the next block. This could see a dramatic decrease in energy usage without (with the right implementation) sacrificing the cryptographic security that is inherent to PoW. I am not actually suggesting this is a good solution; my point is that the innovation space of this field is still wide open, and there might be as-yet undiscovered technical solutions waiting to be developed. If this is the case, it would be nice to know from the Dero team that they are exploring leads, even if they don't want to reveal what these are yet.
PS. I'd also like to see the elimination of mining pools by incorporating 'virtual pooling' directly on the blockchain. Seems to me like you could implement a system where solo miners mining directly from their wallet get rewards that are proportional to their hashrate with every new block. See no reason why this can't be implemented (in combination with PoS, too). With native SSL any miners not wallet based could be locked out, and with certification only certified wallets could be mining, eliminating the possibility that one person distributes mining across a bunch of hardware. I'm just brainstorming here but seems to me the possibilities are wide open with the features Dero has on the roadmap.
PPS. With only certified wallets mining and certification through tax authorities, mining profits could be automatically taxed - see what I mean about being regulatory-friendly. Obviously we are looking far ahead here, but the Dero team IS looking far ahead. Short block times of a couple of seconds are also nicely compatible with hybrid PoS it seems to me, too.
