Topic: The Reason Proof of Stake is Inherently Centralized (Read 273 times)

So in others words.. the Proof of Stake portion is indeed useless and what matters more is the Proof of Majority (or what we are calling Proof of Person) is the more important part of the algorithm? I agree!!


Oh and Zin-Zhang, I just tried to message you but apparently you don't accept messages from Newbies, perhaps you can message me an email address and we can further discuss Proof of Person? Clearly you know crypto and I'd love to further discuss it, maybe pay you some Frinks for your analysis?

With Proof of Stake , you can look back and prove a Large # of coins went into creating every single block.

A programmer can look at a chain PoS or PoW and verify which is currently longer and has a higher difficulty.

There is no verification he is on the correct chain except for which blocks the majority agreed is the right chain.
IE:
BTC/BCH/BSV all started with the exact same genesis block and have a few years of the exact same hashrate until recently.
They will uses checkpoints to determine which is the correct chain for each of the 3 forks.
And the argument the higher hash rate determines the chain is nonsense, otherwise their would not be 3 forks. (Actually much higher.)
If BCH or BSV reached higher hashrate than BTC in the next 3 years, by your imagination it is now the correct chain,
however the BTC users will never agree to losing years worth of transactions so they will issue checkpoints to prevent it.
The Majority using checkpoints makes a conscience decision which chain is the correct chain, hashrate is irrelevant to their decision,
the only thing they consider relevant is the effect to their own wealth. (Therefore your correct chain is always slanted to Majority Control of it's full nodes software.)

You want the falsehood that PoW grants some true chain that can't be denied , but you underestimate that fact all chains are subservient to the shared Program code, which is why even the minority can determine a weaker hashrate be the so-called correct chain for their coin.

The Majority will always choose the chain that holds their best interest no matter the hashrate.



You Do realize your Proof of Person InDirectly is really a Proof of Majority.  

Please explain, why is the genesis block more secure than a program encoded checkpoint? What's the difference?

All I'm saying is that with Proof of Work you can prove that large amounts of work went into creating every single block given the large proof of work. A programmer or someone who knows what they are doing can verify that you are on the correct Proof of Work blockchain. That is impossible with Proof of Stake any more than it is possible with program encoded checkpoints.


Agreed. And no, I'm not suggesting that Proof of Work is the answer. I don't believe it is. I believe the true answer is Proof of Person where everyone links together forming a social network, people vouch for each other, as well as the current blockchain. And everyone starts equal, heavily incentivizing people to switch and everyone earns their sharing of the money made via mining. While I'm at it, Proof of Person should also stabilize in price long before it reaches the current number of users as Bitcoin. Let me know if you are interested in learning more.

The 1st block is a Genesis Block.

You want to attribute some false religious nonsense to a PoW chain to give it some mystical superiority.
Sorry your faith is misplaced, PoW is a dead end.

But if you want to be foolish, feel free and enjoy a unicorn ride across a chocolate river.


Your so called correct chain is a false belief,
disconnect your PC from the network , if your false belief was real, then the true chain would magically appear on your PoW client.
Now if you mine your PoW coin without syncing with the majority 1st, then you will end up with a different chain as long as you don't connect to the Majority chain. Although the checkpoints in the PoW source code will stop your PoW chain mining unless you remove them.  

Enjoy your fairy-tale , but in the end that is all it is, and the Majority could care less.

The fact PoW is consuming an insane amount of the world's resources without any increase in it performance is more important than your fantasy.


 
 

Think you are still missing my point, yet you actually made my point perfectly... in pure Proof of Stake the first block is a Program Coded Checkpoint.. right? Which makes Proof of Stake a waste of time.

Sorry , you drank the kool-aid, that is utterly irrelevant and makes no difference.

The Comparison in PoS, is you can verify the amount of coins and their target difficulty that goes into creating a block.

Hashrate can vary so can # of coins in different sequences, but the one the majority of people support will always be chosen.
Program coded checkpoints make the whole argument a waste of time.

Good Day.
 

Yes, if you know the block you are building off of, then yes, you can verify you are building off of the same block. But what if you are downloading the blockchain for the 1st time, how do you know which block is the correct 1st block in a purely decentralized and algorithmic way that is hard to 51% attack?



The difference is with Proof of Work, you can verify that a large amount of work went into creating the block. Until you choose which initial block to trust in a centralized manner, you cannot verify this in a Proof of Stake system.

The point here is that if staking is done by a lot of people than it won't be centralized, as long as there are a lot of wallets with a lot of stakes than the issue is nothing and not to be worried. However if people start to buy a lot and whales get as much as they can than there will be a little amount of people who end up with most of the money and than they can do what you are basically saying.

Hence, all of this depends on how many people will be staking and how much the wealth will be distributed, if its at the hands of few rich people, you are right with your worrying but if its distributed equally than there is no problem. Obviously, human nature is greedy and this could end up being a problem later on but at the same time if someone wants to buy a lot of eth to do this than you will sell your eth for a lot higher in the future which allows us to get out with profits at least.

Define Correct Blockchain

If by Correct ,
you mean the one that the Majority supports, it is as easy as comparing your last block with 1 or 2 block explorers.

And that goes for PoW or PoS, especially if you are syncing your client for the 1st time.

The fact is since you receive blocks from multiple 3rd parties in PoW & PoS, other clients, and if they are running a Sybil attack on you,
your client won't know the difference (unless their is a checkpoint in the source code), or unless you verify thru another party.  ie:blockexplorer




Your confusion is this, PoW also receives block info from 3rd party clients, if I isolate your system from the others, I can make it see anything I want , as long as it meets the specs in the source code.

PoW or PoS can only determine the chain that matches it specs, as long as that requirement is met, anything else can be manipulated depending on your ability to isolate that node, and only by verifying thru a 3rd party can you be certain you are on the majority supported chain.

Put Simply , there is no correct chain in PoW or PoS, there is only the Majority Supported Chain.
People seem to forget in 2013 , the miners overwrote Bitcoin chain and basically used the collusion of the majority to determine a new majority chain.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-network-shaken-by-blockchain-fork-1363144448/
In the above you see the majority deciding which chain lived and which died, so in BTC itself their is no correct chain, only a Majority Supported Chain.  

Yes but I think you guys are missing the point I'm trying to make which is how do you get onto the correct blockchain and make sure you are starting from the right starting point in a decentralized way?

I don't believe that is possible. Updated the first post to try to make it more clear what I'm trying to say.

Hardly PoW 51% attack is happening to multiple PoW coins all of the time.
https://www.coindesk.com/blockchains-feared-51-attack-now-becoming-regular

A College Student released a page showing how little it could cost to 51% attack PoW coins for 1 hour using nothing more than rented hashrate.
https://www.crypto51.app/
Price to 51% attack bitcoin was only $303,029 .

* The only reason BTC has not been 51% so far , is Bitmain that has a hidden combined over 51% of the mining has not been interested in hurting their ASICS sales.*

Proof of Stake requires a party purchase all of the required coins to pull off an attack.
In doing so it drives up the price of the coin and increases the stakers, which causes them to have to buy more coins.    





You have to purchase alot more than 51% to control a Proof of Stake coin.
Proof of Stake coins go dormant after staking lowering their staking % .
So they can not maintain indefinite control over a blockchain like a PoW miner with only 51% can.  
(If you need proof , create your own PoS coin from one of the standard source codes and keep 70% in 1 address and place 30% in another and stake them directly against each other, and you will see for yourself that the 70% can not maintain indefinite control of the blockchain like a PoW miner with only 51% can.)  

If a Majority PoW miner or a Majority PoS Staker dumped coins and then restarted from the earlier block.
All Users of either would lose faith and it's price would plumment.
PoW miners can do this on multiple coins that their ASICS can be used for, PoS Stakers can only do this for the coin they purchased.
In other words, if two PoW coins use the same algo , I can destroy one and maintain the other , really losing nothing.
But destroying a PoS coin, is the same as getting money from the bank and then setting it on fire.

As far as legitimate, whichever fork has the majority support, as a simple checkpoint can redirect the destiny of a PoW or PoS chain.




In PoW, If I convince everyone to let me hold control of their coins, I can sell their coins and crash the price and just live off fiat
* Because PoW Flaw of requiring million$ per month to maintain it's network, the miners go broke and the network dies. *

In PoS, If I convince everyone to let me hold control of their coins, I can sell their coins and crash the price and just live off fiat.
* However, since someone else just purchased the coins for cheap , they can keep the network running and potentially allow the price to skyrocket. *
PoS network is under no threat of network death, because the costs to maintains its network is only a few thousand$ verses a PoW needing million$.

FYI:
In both cases the person stealing said coins would be prosecuted.  

 

they dont even need to buy coin
they just need to syndicate(pool) funds of many people into stakes of higher amounts combined. and then make blocks the way they want as they will get seen as higher staking authorities to solve more blocks.

syndicating funds is easier than pooling asics. and much easier than buying asics or buying stake.
a stake manager doesnt need a penny to his name and can start convincing people to pool their funds into his addresses

And I'm saying you have this backward, Proof of Stake has an inherent single party attack vector, Proof of Work only has a 51% attack vector, which is much stronger.

Still, neither are as strong as Frink's upcoming Proof of Person




The other problem is they can dump their coins, then go back in time and start mining from a block previous to when they dumped their coins and good luck proving which fork is legitimate.

Hybrids do not combine the strengths of the algorithms, they combine the weakness.

Most hybrid coins eventually drop the wasteful PoW as it only leaves a 51% attack vector.

PoW is a dead end due to their ever increasing input costs.

PoS is the Future for any coins wanting to survive.

 

 
FYI:
Vitalik would not know a True Proof of Stake Design even if it bit him on the ass.

no i don't think it is "inherently" centralized but it can become centralized a lot easier than PoW because it is a lot easier for a whale to buy a large portion of a specific coin (to have a large stake in it) and control the coin that way and then get out in a very fast way if he chooses to. but you can't get out of PoW because you need to sell equipment which is not as easy as dumping coins!

as for the hybrid, i have not yet seen anything that can stand out and be considered "better" in my opinion. they all have their own weaknesses, sometimes serious ones too.


Vitalik doesn't agree with anything, he doesn't even care. all the is trying to do is to earn more free money by advertising his upcoming enforced fork as a good thing and then sit around and earn profit on his huge stash of premined coins...

Not true, they make the same assumption. They assume that the initial stake of the stake holders is correct. Once everyone agrees on this, then from there on out it's secure. But Proof of Stake doesn't help you come to this agreement initially.

Even Vitalik agrees with me on this one. His so called "weak subjectivity".

Check out Cardano's work (their Ouroborous papers). I believe the answer is no. Ironically, they're currently centralized, but not in the sense you're asking about.

I think you are misunderstanding my point, I'm referring to what Vitalik Buterin refers to as "weak subjectivity". I'm referring to the idea that you need to trust someone to determine whether or not you are actually mining the correct blockchain.

Well, as fore I think they both depends of the market sentiments as everything is. For instance, if market is good, many people mine and hence PoW becomes less decentralized unlike at this time.
Also for PoS, if market is good few people don't hold much of the tokens which can lead to price manipulation but staking is done by majority but different and by holding small quantities. So I think in a market like this, they're both almost the same.
That's my opinion anyways

No matter which algorithm, in order to determine which blockchain is the correct blockchain, Proof of Stake blockchain users need to trust that they have been told the correct initial account balances. How can you prove in a decentralized manner whether you are mining the correct blockchain? You can't without outside help. This makes Proof of Stake practically useless.

And along the same lines, POW-POS hybrids are only as strong/decentralized as their Proof of Work component.

Agreed?