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Ethereum is planning a switch from Proof of Work (burning CPU/GPU/ASIC cycles to secure the chain), to Delegated (?) Proof of Stake - people lock away some of t
by moreati 9y ago
Ethereum is planning a switch from Proof of Work (burning CPU/GPU/ASIC cycles to secure the chain), to Delegated (?) Proof of Stake - people lock away some of their ETH holdings, some of those people are random selected to validate a block. They attest which transactions are valid, and put them in a block. If they're judged to be honest/correct they're rewarded with ETH in proportion to their stake. If they're found to have broken the rules their stake is not returned, or only partially returned.
PoS has detractors/claimed flaws, but it is definitely much less energy intensive than PoW.
- johnrichardson 9y agoEthereum's moving to PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerant) Proof of Stake. See this FAQ for more details, it has the most up to date details on Ethereum's PoS progress: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ
- narush 9y agoEthereum's planned PoS is not delegated PoS. Instead, it is actually byzantine fault tolerant (and validators/stakers get punished for acting badly). For example, if a current validator signs two blocks that conflict in any way (aka, creating two conflicting forks), they lose their deposit. Also, many of the issues with PoS have effectively been addressed at this point (nothing at stake, stake grinding, etc). This comes with a compromise of weak subjectivity - namely, that when a user syncs a client for the first time, they have to start with a valid hash from w/in the past couple months that they trust. After this initial starting point, as long as they sync their client every-so-often, no further trust is required.