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Proof of Stake has some difficult problems to overcome, and it's not clear if they are solvable or not, see the paper https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/po
by joosters 9y ago
Proof of Stake has some difficult problems to overcome, and it's not clear if they are solvable or not, see the paper https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf for some background.
It's likely that PoS really just degrades into PoW, with stake holders needing to perform calculations as fast as possible to prevent attackers from out-competing them and generating alternate versions of the blockchain. Adding complicated fines and 'punishments' to deter PoS cheaters just increases the amount of work that they need to do, but cannot stop the problem.
- drdeca 9y agoDoes it seem reasonably likely to you that PoS could increase the proportion of computational resources that attackers would need, provided that the attackers control a low enough proportion of the tokens?
- joosters 9y agoIntuitively, I'd say no. I can't see how you can ever prevent a '51%' attack (that is, 51% of compute power). No matter how many coins you own, the attackers can validate their own holdings and disavow the honest stakeholders. At first glance, it seems to be a solvable problem because you can try to put obstacles in place that punish attackers (e.g. fining PoS attackers who generate 'false' results). But you cannot make these inducements to honesty bite, the attackers can happily keep churning out false results until they take over. The problem is worsened because PoS is meant to save wasteful power usage. Honest participants are not likely to dedicate vast computational resources to it, while the attackers will be strongly motivated to do so. The end result seems likely to be an arms race, leading to an effective slide back to PoW, just with added complexity.