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Topic: How do Proof of Work (Pow) and Proof of Stake (Pos) work? (Read 152 times)

jr. member
Activity: 95
Merit: 4
PoW makes it possible to independently verify the correct version of history without trusting anyone. you just need to follow one rule: most proof of work = correct chain

PoS relies on social consensus to determine the correct version of history. it's therefore less secure and requires constant patching (i.e. protocol changes) to keep up with the ever-expanding attackspace.

for a global trustless monetary system built to last 1000+ years which one do you think should be used?
legendary
Activity: 2212
Merit: 5622
Non-custodial BTC Wallet
Proof of Work requires investing in specialized mining hardware to secure the network and participate in the validation of transactions and generation of new blocks.

I agree with others that said you don't need specialized hardware to mine. But to make money out of mining, you certainly need some specific hardware.

Even a powerful GPU is an specific/specialized hardware.

Don't fool yourself thinking you can make money with a shitful old laptop like in 2012...
hero member
Activity: 789
Merit: 1909
Quote
Proof of Work requires investing in specialized mining hardware to secure the network and participate in the validation of transactions and generation of new blocks.
Not at all, many coins are CPU-mineable, for example here: https://pool.rplant.xyz/. It just depends on how complex is the mining algorithm. And even if some coin will be dominated by GPU's or ASIC's, then instantly someone will create another altcoin and people will switch to it. People just want to mine endlessly, mining is the sole purpose of existence for a lot of altcoins and I think it is not gonna change soon, unless people will be able to get for example single satoshis by mining BTC on their CPU's.
legendary
Activity: 1568
Merit: 6660
bitcoincleanup.com / bitmixlist.org
Proof of Work requires investing in specialized mining hardware to secure the network and participate in the validation of transactions and generation of new blocks.

Well, not exactly specialized hardware. The algorithm that is being used might be resistant (does some kind of arithmetic that can't be sped up) to vector optimizations and loop unrolling that are present in GPUs and ASICs and this have the same speed on all kinds of compute devices.
legendary
Activity: 2730
Merit: 7065
Farewell, Leo. You will be missed!
Proof of Work requires investing in specialized mining hardware to secure the network and participate in the validation of transactions and generation of new blocks.
Proof of Stake doesn't require investing in mining hardware. But you need to own the coin you wish to stake. The bigger your stake is, the greater your chances of being selected a validator and earn your share of the rewards.

If you are just starting out and own neither PoW or PoS coins, you proably understood by now that you have to invest in either mining hardware or purchase some coins to stake. Either way, you need money.
member
Activity: 490
Merit: 31
There is gold in volatility..
you may not want to overwhelm yourself when googling but there aren't just two algorithms. there are a lot more, some are very similar even though they use different names, and some of them remain theoretical but most are used among altcoins:
combination of 2, ie hybrid (pow + pos)
delegated proof of stake: EOS, Steemit, Bitshares
proof of burn:
proof of space: Chia network
proof of weight: Filecoin
proof of activity: PoA network
proof of asset
proof of transaction
proof of sign(DAG): Nano, IOTA
proof of fault tolerance: Stellar, ripple

since the altcoin mining/staking is easier and cheaper to do some people are more willing to use them. but they are also a lot riskier because the altcoin gets dumped and the miner/staker will lose a lot of money. not to mention the altcoin may have bugs or even die!
the bitcoin mining needs more capital but is a lot more reliable and the profit is better.

Thanks for this explanation. I'll do more research on the web to find out details. Garcia
legendary
Activity: 3612
Merit: 2506
Evil beware: We have waffles!
As a side note, whoever decided on calling it PoS no doubt knew that with very few exceptions, most of the altcoins developed for using it would be Pieces of Shi* destined to fail & fall by the wayside.

Kudos to them for having a good sense of irony and humor  Wink
legendary
Activity: 1568
Merit: 6660
bitcoincleanup.com / bitmixlist.org
Proof of Work just means that nodes must race to find a block by "solving" (actually just running a hash function until its output is sufficiently small) a math problem using their own computational power. This uses energy and that's where the "work" part of the word comes from.

While Proof of Stake is simply this: The more coins a node has, the higher he probability they will receive a block reward. It is similar to holding stocks - larger investments return bigger money (subject to market conditions).

2. How can one make money from them?

...you either buy a mining farm or a bunch of tokens to mine/stake on the network.
legendary
Activity: 2114
Merit: 1292
There is trouble abrewing
you may not want to overwhelm yourself when googling but there aren't just two algorithms. there are a lot more, some are very similar even though they use different names, and some of them remain theoretical but most are used among altcoins:
combination of 2, ie hybrid (pow + pos)
delegated proof of stake: EOS, Steemit, Bitshares
proof of burn:
proof of space: Chia network
proof of weight: Filecoin
proof of activity: PoA network
proof of asset
proof of transaction
proof of sign(DAG): Nano, IOTA
proof of fault tolerance: Stellar, ripple

since the altcoin mining/staking is easier and cheaper to do some people are more willing to use them. but they are also a lot riskier because the altcoin gets dumped and the miner/staker will lose a lot of money. not to mention the altcoin may have bugs or even die!
the bitcoin mining needs more capital but is a lot more reliable and the profit is better.
hero member
Activity: 2800
Merit: 595
https://www.betcoin.ag
Someone lacking in google-fu?
Just do a search using  'Bitcoin Proof of Work' or 'Bitcoin PoW' and you will get a ton of answers...

As for making money, mining and trading.
Mining is only if you have good rates for electricity and a place to house the very loud and hot miners. Trading is if you do not have that.


Also with Proof of Stake (Pos), staking is where you can make money out of it. Trading as well.

Obviously this isn't like mining where you need a device to stake, all you need is the wallet to stake. Users are even staking on exchanges like binance since they also offer to stake inside the exchanges. There are cons to staking on exchanges so you might just wanna check what are those try the google-fu.
legendary
Activity: 3612
Merit: 2506
Evil beware: We have waffles!
Someone lacking in google-fu?
Just do a search using  'Bitcoin Proof of Work' or 'Bitcoin PoW' and you will get a ton of answers...

As for making money, mining and trading.
Mining is only if you have good rates for electricity and a place to house the very loud and hot miners. Trading is if you do not have that.
member
Activity: 490
Merit: 31
There is gold in volatility..
From my research and discussions with friends, I know we have two forms of consensus in the crypto space.

1. PoW
2. PoS

While the latter is for Altcoins consensus the former is for Bitcoin Mining.

My question are these:..

1. How do these two consensus work

2. How can one make money from them?
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