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Migrating from PoW took about 2-3 years for Ethereum, required massive changes to economic model, and developing all new clients. Ethereum leadership is still s

by flixic 6y ago

Migrating from PoW took about 2-3 years for Ethereum, required massive changes to economic model, and developing all new clients. Ethereum leadership is still somewhat centralized, so this did not lead to multiple competing forks. Doing the same for Bitcoin would be very hard, and if it simply follows Ethereum's footsteps, then it is unclear why even use Bitcoin. But -- I hope we see this fork sooner rather than later. Bitcoin miners will have no economic incentive to capture back the CO2 produced.

bhaak 6y ago
I disagree that it would be (technologically) hard for Bitcoin to transition to a PoS (disregarding that we don't have yet conclusive proof if any PoS model actually works long time). Ethereum is built to a spec. That's why the different client developers had to coordinate their work. This is not the case with Bitcoin. There, the official client is the de-facto spec you have to comply with if you develop another client. The bigger problem is that the current narrative of Bitcoin heavily discourage hard forks. Transitioning to PoS would be a social task with Bitcoin, not a technical one. Also note that Ethereum was promised from the beginning to transition to PoS, they just didn't expect to take this long.
- TearsInTheRain 6y ago
  Its a social task they already failed with the segwit fiasco. PoS would probably be worse
  - bhaak 6y ago
    What do you mean "failed"? Segwit was activated. After lots of infighting and after a hard fork for a new chain occurred but it activated on the chain that has the bigger hashrate as of today. If the Bitcoin developers would push for a POS hard fork I would expect the chain to split into a POS and POW version but which version would become the canonical Bitcoin would be up for debate.
latchkey 6y ago
ETH2 has been in discussions and development for more than 3 years. ETH is still on PoW and will continue to be on PoW for many more years.

by flixic 6y ago

bhaak 6y ago

I disagree that it would be (technologically) hard for Bitcoin to transition to a PoS (disregarding that we don't have yet conclusive proof if any PoS model actually works long time). Ethereum is built to a spec. That's why the different client developers had to coordinate their work. This is not the case with Bitcoin. There, the official client is the de-facto spec you have to comply with if you develop another client. The bigger problem is that the current narrative of Bitcoin heavily discourage hard forks. Transitioning to PoS would be a social task with Bitcoin, not a technical one. Also note that Ethereum was promised from the beginning to transition to PoS, they just didn't expect to take this long.

TearsInTheRain 6y ago
Its a social task they already failed with the segwit fiasco. PoS would probably be worse
- bhaak 6y ago
  What do you mean "failed"? Segwit was activated. After lots of infighting and after a hard fork for a new chain occurred but it activated on the chain that has the bigger hashrate as of today. If the Bitcoin developers would push for a POS hard fork I would expect the chain to split into a POS and POW version but which version would become the canonical Bitcoin would be up for debate.

latchkey 6y ago

ETH2 has been in discussions and development for more than 3 years. ETH is still on PoW and will continue to be on PoW for many more years.