Topic: [Megathread] The long-known PoW vs. PoS debate - page 9. (Read 3812 times)

It is worth mentioning that PoS existed nearly as long as bitcoin since it was proposed in early years, and the first implementation of it is a coin called Peercoin (created in 2012) which is considered a dead coin today.
It was only recently that people on the internet started praising this weak and flawed algorithm! It was also recently that a rich centralized foundation started advertising a change from PoW to PoS just because they owned 72 million premined coins. Coincidence?

LegendaryK is the same guy who considered that checking 3 block explorers is more secure than running your own full node. I'm just leaving this here, no pun intended. Judge accordingly.

---

Just for you to know, you can question me whenever you want for the downsides of PoS that I've mentioned.

This isn't true. Technology efficiency, energy costs and state intervention can also affect the final outcome. There's, indeed, a weak correlation between the price and the difficulty over the long term, but the price, alone, does not determine difficulty.

For example, during the bear market of 2018, the price went from $13k to $3k, but the difficulty was tripled.

No it doesn't.
The only reason for Bitcoin to increase its energy use is for Bitcoin to increase in price,
on top of roughly doubling every 4 years for the next few decades to compensate halving block subsidies.

This is not a requirement. It's merely what seems to have happened in the past.
But as we know, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

It's more likely that any further price increases fail to compensate for dwindling block rewards, and energy usage will
stop rising as fast as it has in the past, or even decline.

The Governments are worried more.
My concern is the people that suffer because of power grid blackouts, and worst case a cascade failure that destroys the power grid transformers.
Which when that happens , they are looking at 3-5 years without power to restart a grid.
Texas energy regulars are at high odds of a cascade failure within 3 years because of bitcoin PoW miners.



Now at least you are trying.
PoW has a technical flaw of requiring geometrically increasing amounts of energy, which is why current energy resources can't continue it.
But you want to build something to handle geometric energy growth,
ok get started building a  Dyson sphere (is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its solar power output)ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
It should only take humans another 10000 years to reach the level of development to build a Dyson sphere.
Oh wait, BTC only has ~5 years from the ban, ok that only leaves regulation, meaning that only a select few btc miners are allowed to mine.
But the problem with that is so much for freedom, so much for the last pretense of decentralization, not only will btc PoW miners be government licensed and regulated, but they will also  now censor transactions to keep their license.
Now you see why PoW is a technical dead end, the energy resources needed are inaccessible for thousands of years and government control is the only way for it to survive and stay PoW.

Just so you know, I did research on any possible ways for PoW to survive , and their were none.
Because the end result of a conflict designed system such as PoW, is not PoW verses PoS
it is PoW verses the Human race. Odds are Humans are going to play dirty and win that fight.

PoS is a cooperative design which is why it can coexist with humans without making their lives harder by using up all of the energy resources.



Nope, underground PoS economy could easily survive,
the one time in US history where they banned alcohol was a total failure.
Why because people made alcohol and sold it in secret.
PoS can operate in secret just as the bootleggers did,
PoW power use put a glowing red target on their back, which means they can't hide,
(if bootleggers could be found as easy as bitcoin miners, prohibition would still be active)
and can be shut down from the electric utility with the flip of a switch.  
(They don't even have to waste gas to go to the location, because of smart meters.)
* As far as them not knowing you are running a ASIC.*
https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/researchers-find-smart-meters-could-reveal-favorite-tv-shows/
They can detect an ASIC, where as a PoS staker can do things to mask their staking. Stealth it makes a difference.

So you're worried about power grids then?



Let's assume Bitcoin does 'threaten the grid' (I'm not sure it does, but let's say so). Why should we give up Bitcoin for something else^{read: worse}, just because the current infrastructure can't handle it? Did we not build cars because roads did not exist? Did we not use BBSes, because we needed to use the telephone connection?

Listen: if a city's or country's demand for electricity rises, they shall improve their network. Companies building these networks will have more business and make more money, what's not to like? Keep the money circulating!

By staking every last penny (guaranteed returns - why wouldn't someone stake their crypto), electricians won't get paid, chip fabs that build ASICs don't get paid, gear manufacturers don't get paid, electricity companies don't get paid (or get paid a lot less), and the list goes on. This is one of the biggest issues with PoS (that you don't spend anything in the real world to accumulate in the crypto world).

If a government can control PoW, it can also control PoS. Because this control would be by legally banning the currency, not by banning the usage of a specific electronic device. In theory, I could use an ASIC to crack password hashes for example; nothing to do with Bitcoin, right? So a real crackdown would manifest in a legal ban to hold and transact with cryptocurrency X.
This can be done to PoS coins just as well as to PoW coins.

That's not true; you don't understand how a power grid works and neither do you have your numbers right. A classic Antminer S9 in undervolt configuration is most profitable at around 800W. Modern gaming PCs run 850W PSUs, microwaves 1-2kW, vaccum cleaners also in the 1kW range, not to mention an oven - the list goes on. You could argue that these appliances don't run 24/7, but most people don't have 'smart monitoring' of their power usage anyway, so it's not possible to tell if you've got a constant 800W load on or not. Sure, you might have a higher annual power draw than your neighbour, but it could be an electric heater for your pets, simply cooking more or whatever.

To 'pinpoint and punish' home miners, you would have to physically go into households and check every nook & cranny for a running miner.
Let's play devil's advocate and assume (all) governments are going to do this.
What stops them from looking into your computer and phone to see if you're staking some PoS coin? ^{(because as I've said, if they gain any relevance, govt's will go for those, too)}

Yeah , I guess when all of those news articles talk about the blackouts , the temporary & permanent PoW bans by governments,
the threat to the power grids, they are making all of that stuff up just to stop your deity bitcoin from saving the world.  
All Hail Bitcoin PoW mining, PoW does not waste electricity, it runs off an endless supply of methane from unicorn farts.
*More sarcasm*  

No worries, because unlike PoW miners, PoS miners don't need to beg power utilities for an industrial power feed.
Which is why governments can't control a PoS network like they can a PoW network.
The public electric utilities can't tell if someone is staking , or playing on their xbox, but they can pinpoint a PoW miner location in 30 seconds by a quick look at where the most electricity is going.



Do you see your arrogance, any coin not bitcoin is a shitcoin.
Have you been on planet earth this past 2 years, did you see the pandemic.
Where the world governments in unison bent the fearful, those with hero complex, and threaten career loss on supposed free people to use an untested vaccine in the blood streams of billions.  Where was your so-call deity: bitcoin during that protecting people from the government control, probably hiding in a cave carving tablets saying everything not bitcoin is fud.

Reread what I told blackhatcoiner above, PoS network can't be shut off , by a guy flipping a breaker switch, your precious bitcoin PoW miners can.
While you want to ignore all of the actual power outages caused by the miners, and want to pretend it is pure conspiracy.
Even playing the conspiracy game, Bitcoin PoW mining is the weak leak, and going after bitcoin 1st is taking out the easy prey (that can't hide), not the stronger harder to find more evasion and adaptable PoS networks, that can hide from Excessive Government Control.
But in reality , maybe the problem is PoW just wastes too much power, and that is really the only bone Governments have to pick with it.



Anything not PoW is fud, right.
More sacrasm

You can tell you did not research the author of that ridiculous blog link.
Yanmaani is a know namecoin supporter, if btc PoW mining fails so too will namecoin, which for the most part namecoin has been DOA for years.
You also failed to understand his analogy of how PoS works is totally wrong, you're a PoW supporter why should you know anything.  
Number of coins and time since last stake influence the next stake, your friend missed all of that, and that was really a bad attempt at explaining PoS,
but again what can we expect from PoW supporters, definitely not accuracy.
Did you like his other article where he claimed bitcoin would never be a stable currency?  




So by your thought process, the fact their are so few 8 tracks tapes in use, means that 8 tracks tapes are superior to MP3 players.  
Like I said earlier, it is apparent there is a problem with your ability to reason.

Yeah looking from that perspective, I guess my own subjective view was a bit too pessimistic. In fact, the fact that they would ban and dissolve large mining operations would quite literally be better for Bitcoin. We do need to shake off the centralised parts of the whole. And in the face of pushback from the government there would come more innovation and new technologies. Although if you look at China, can Bitcoin be called a door to freedom when your entire internet is monitored and controlled by the government and even VPNs become almost impossible? Is mining even feasible in China? 20% of the Bitcoin Network remains in China under so-called undergroup miners. So I am guessing, yes.

I would be more impressed if Bitcoin turned out to be untouchable in North Korea. I think that would be the ultimate testimony for the impossible regulation of blockchain.

I guess we just need to see what the future of blockchain will be. Regulators will not give up, thats for sure.

Please seriously consider: what is the value of a cryptocurrency if its whole existence depends on it being supported / allowed by nation states?
In my opinion, one of the main motivations for all this is free money. Free in the sense of freedom. If the ability of a blockchain to continue operation completely depends on regulators, your blockchain is doing something wrong.

Hobby miners rejoice! Cheap gear and higher payouts, plus more decentralization - what's not to like!

Still so fixated on us wanting to become rich through Bitcoin. Maybe someone's projecting here?

Is it hard for you to envision that the motivation for governments going against Bitcoin is fear of losing control over people?
Is it hard to understand that the same motivation can and will be used against other cryptocurrencies if they gain any relevance?
Bitcoin being targeted while your favourite shitcoins aren't, are clear evidence that they're not afraid of said coins, while they are of Bitcoin. By not going against those, they are in a way dismissing them as irrelevant.

Even if all that were true (it's not), what does it help if the whole thing is a scam?

You're looking at it the wrong way. Few PoW coins left isn't a result of PoS winning against PoW, it's a result of Bitcoin beating any other PoW coin.
Its biggest contender, Ethereum is essentially admitting defeat by going PoS and competing for #1 in the 'PoS coins' since it can't get #1 in 'all cryptocurrencies' against Bitcoin.

Regarding 'high IQs switching', I noticed that real cypherpunks are in large part substituted by greedy (you like this word, I know ) companies / start-ups trying to make some good ol' cash. That's capitalism in a way, and as described in the article linked before, can be called a scam. You could also call it genius. I'm pretty sure PoS creators believe they're geniuses, for getting people to buy their 1000th token / coin / NFT.
If someone's a real cypherpunk but sees some flaws in Bitcoin, they would start working on it with BIPs and code instead of forking some coin and slapping a new logo onto it (I know some have new algos like Chia but for the most part... not), premining (or just assigning) a ton of coins to their account and then hyping the shit out of it. I know, it's more profitable to do this..

You're foolish. And you're foolish not because you support PoS. You're foolish because you don't zoom out.

You're crazy enough to believe that a worldwise PoW ban is likely to be enacted, but not a worldwide crypto-ban, which would make more sense from a government's point of view. You're foolish, because you're not afraid of the scenario that PoS comes next, with your privacy and freedom of choice followed. You hope, cravingly, that the governments will take care of it. A hope for your own pit.
 
Haven't you yet understood that Bitcoin is more than just a currency? It's also a movement.

I only buy Proof of Stake coins.
I don't care if bitcoin PoW is banned.
I don't care if bitcoin PoW suporters refuses to switch to PoS.

I just want to point out the PoW zealots have no plan to deal with the impending doom of their deadend PoW tech.
They stick their collective heads in the sand and cry fud denying every bit of reality that shows them to be fools.
Notice they have no idea what to do when a worldwide PoW ban is enacted.  
PoW miners can't hide their energy waste, so they are a easy target for the government,
and they have no way to improve PoW to protect it, which is why it is a deadend tech.

PoS is energy efficient, higher onchain transaction capacity, more decentralized, greater adaptability, and able to achieve transaction finality.
All of the above is fact , not conjecture , which is why there are so few PoW coins left and getting less by the day, because even the developers who look at the code more than everyone else and the ones with high IQs are switching.

The Marketplace has already chosen PoS as the superior technology , PoW has been a dead man walking for years.
Which I pointed out here : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.59381537

I guess stwenhao.

Even if they are wrong, if you really believe in Proof of Stake and you really want to do it on Bitcoin, then go on, use some existing proposals, even that "Merged Signing". If you are wrong, you will see it clearly by putting your own coins at stake. And if you are right, then it will be beneficial to have some working and well-tested transition plan (also in case of a success you will gain more by being involved from the very beginning; not to mention that such system would work even if miners will disagree, because the only way to stop that is censoring transactions, including those that are not staking anything).

If you don't care, then why do you want to implement Proof of Stake on Bitcoin? And if you do, then you should start making transition, before it will be harder (because if Proof of Work will be more decentralized, it will be harder to move to Proof of Stake, because it may be easier to convince few mining pool operators than thousands of individual miners; the smaller ones are more resistant to changes, as you can see during soft-fork signalling).

It is apparent , you and blackhatcoiner have drank the bitcoin kool-aid
and are just waiting for the untold riches, that your deity Bitcoin will deliver to you as you spread the word of it's mystical supernatural powers.

That was sarcasm since your reasoning skills seem compromised.

PoW supporters see Fud , everywhere.
Their was no need to reply to your earlier posts because,
1. You are wrong, and your myths of bitcoin greatness, waste everyone time, since you are unable to tell the different between a product and a deity.

2. More Government PoW Ban are coming, they are inevitable, ignore them at your peril.

3. PoS supporters don't really care what PoW supporters do, we moved on and outperform PoW on everything that matters.
    Plus the future worldwide PoW bans have no effect on PoS coins.  
    Which is why ethereum and doge are jumping on the PoS train, to avoid the crash of PoW deadend tech.

Well lets not argue semantics, but yes I meant the European Union, not all of Europe it itself. I am well aware of their BS excuses and political emotional propaganda that they use to get what they want. Its poltiics, baby.

I completely agree with what you are saying, especially about KYC, which is the enemy of decentralisation and goes against the very idea behind Bitcoin itself. And we should fight it. But that does not mean they are not going to manipulate the masses until they get what they want. And history has taught us they probably will get what they want.

The reason why? Because (large) mining efforts are a centralised effort which can be attacked by the government, and easily so...

From my perspective its only a matter of time.

Europe is not the European Union. Furthermore, they've also tried to ban Bitcoin with the alibi that it helps criminals. They'll always step on a supposedly validly-sounded argument to control you!

They don't care about the environment; their harmful activities can prove it. They don't care if 1% of the users use it for illicit activity; they want to control that 99%. It's the same reason why Binance, Coinbase etc., require KYC. They don't care for those few who'll avoid taxes; there are no studies that reveal tax avoidance reduce due to KYC requirements. They do it to control you.

Also, that EU bill was rejected few days ago.

One's LegendaryK. Who's the other?

Well no, he is quite accurate. Aside from the Proof of Work and Proof of Stake technical pro and contra arguments we need to keep an eye on the regulatory side as well. Europe is going against PoW and just because they failed to have it banned this time does not mean they will not succeed in the coming years. I find the entire green argument to be bull because from a starting point, because the way we produce energy is the problem, not PoW miners using that energy.

But politics follows mostly emotional arguments instead of logical ones. So we should really be prepared to see a PoW ban in the future.

Also, China does not give a damn about the environment. The ban I suspect was more poltical.

My point is that if you want to compute cost you should do it based on hashrate. Basically the method is to take the total hashrate and then come up with an estimation of the hardware that is used to produce that hashrate (GPUs and ASICs in case of ETH for example) then try to come up with an estimation of electricity cost and other possible costs and finally compute the total cost based on previous values.

Ethash uses SHA3 or Keccak256 under the hood!

Only updated every 125 hours!

It is not embarrassing when English is my second language.

---

I have to benchmark the algorithm to know more, which I won't waste time on; but the code[1] only shows 2 SHA3 computations on random chunks with additional steps that don't look computationally expensive (only expensive memory-wise). However expensive it is, I don't get how you come up with 10k Considering as I said, SHA3 has an almost same computational cost as SHA2.

[1] https://eth.wiki/en/concepts/ethash/ethash

Our two PoS proponents here weren't able to reply to my last post, apparently. However, I found them (and everybody else reading) another great article about this exact topic. 'Anti Bitcoin environmentalists' are literally scamming you guys, actually directly making money off of spreading this FUD.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/questionable-ethics-of-bitcoin-esg

You REALLY have no idea what you're talking about, do you?
ETH's PoW is not SHA3, it's ethash.
Computing a single ethash hash involves two SHA3 hashes, along with many other MUCH more expensive computations (computing the DAG whose values are sampled during an ethash hash involves tons of SHA3 itself, but that is done offline once every 30000 blocks).
An ethash hash takes at least 4 orders of magnitude more energy to compute than a SHA3 hash.

Scrypt has higher cost than SHA2/SHA3 (4 times according to you)