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Long term hodlers who haven't locked their coins into staking can respond quickly to network events such as Bitcoin-cash. People who are running mining business
by Taek 9y ago
Long term hodlers who haven't locked their coins into staking can respond quickly to network events such as Bitcoin-cash. People who are running mining businesses can at least sell the business if they suddenly need access to a lot of capital. With proof of stake, it really is locked up for whatever period of time.
If your staking period is just a couple of weeks, this is probably less significant than owning a mining farm. But if your staking period is several months, the opportunity cost probably is greater than mining or hodling, because you sacrifice a lot in terms of flexibility.
- wmf 9y agoWhen you put it that way, I expect to see a secondary market for stake. This could be implemented by selling the private key or by delegation similar to a mining pool.
- DennisP 9y agoSelling the private key would be a bad idea since you can't guarantee the seller destroys it. But you could have the staker address be a contract, with an ownership that can be transfered.
- Taek 9y agoYou could use an HSM to hold the private key and then sell the HSM. Overall it's still a bad idea to buy an HSM because you don't know what other transactions have been signed, but maybe the HSM keeps a history of everything it has signed as well. Which, if you can still sell your staked coins, what is the point of locking them up in the first place?
- DennisP 9y agoGood point. Maybe they'll only allow deposits from non-contract addresses.