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Probably too late to keep this discussion going, but... I understand Proof of Stake vs. Proof of Work. But what Ben says about only "publishing the current sta

Probably too late to keep this discussion going, but... I understand Proof of Stake vs. Proof of Work. But what Ben says about only "publishing the current state of the ledger" doesn't seem to relate to whether PoS is used. It's certainly not inherent to PoS that the entire blockchain isn't published. Maybe he's just confused about how PoS works (but I somehow doubt that). I understand how PoS makes things more efficient by entrusting a single validator (or any small subset of validators) rather than having essentially a contest, and I understand why this is also inherently less trustworthy than PoW. But Ben never mentions Proof of Stake anywhere in his explanation, just that the blockchain's "current state" is the only thing "exposed". I'm juse trying to understand what he's getting at there.

snarf21 7y ago
Gotcha, I assumed that it was a little handwavy on the details to be more accessible to a wider audience. It is very possible that they don't let others download the complete ledger and only let you ask for a certain private key's current balance. I agree that this is even more concerning (if true) than regular PoS. I also didn't read the proposal deep enough to know if you can register to be a node that sees all proposed transactions even though you can't actually validate them. If there is on way for external monitoring or audit, this truly is not blockchain even in name only. Then it is simply a replicated database with restricted access.