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Why can't Bitcoin simply transition to proof of stake after mining dries up? Once there are few or no bitcoins left to mine then PoW is a lot of ceremony for ve

Why can't Bitcoin simply transition to proof of stake after mining dries up? Once there are few or no bitcoins left to mine then PoW is a lot of ceremony for very little security gain at that point (and perhaps opens up risks that this paper points out).

xiphias2 6y ago
It's because just because you write ,,simply'', it's not a simple thing. Just as an example Ethereum was trying hard to do it for many years now without any success. But the real reason is that there is no real solid formally written and proven ,,proof of stake'' algorithm so far.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  ETH2 proof of stake beacon chain shipped in December. There's tens of thousands of ETH2 validators live today. Proof of work is still in place for base chain, so ETH is a hybrid currently. But they'll be off proof of work within a year to year and a half. For blockchains as big and old as Bitcoin and Ethereum I understand migrating to a new consensus algorithm is no easy task and comes with risks. But it is doable. And they could even prove it out on one of the many BTC forks or dupes such as BCH or Doge or Litecoin if need be. My question isn't about the technical feasibility, but I'm more interested in the game theory mechanics. The arguments against proof of stake from that point of view seem to dry up as mining rewards dry up, no?
  - 0x64 6y ago
    >There's tens of thousands of ETH2 validators live today. Over 100,000 as of a few days ago!
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    If ETH is hybrid now, how much it helped the energy usage? Did it go down significantly compared to a year ago (even if measured in ETH)? Bitcoin had a halving, which was very sifnificant energy usage decrease measured in BTC (which caused the significant price increase).
    - melolife 6y ago
      ETH cannot be described as a hybrid. The 2.0 chain is currently independent of the existing chain. The plan is to dock the existing chain as a shard of the new one, at which point it immediately becomes 100% proof of stake.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      Calling the halving a significant energy usage decrease is the opposite of what happens after a halving. A halving means miners are paid half as many BTC for discovering new blocks, then prices increase, which means that miners can afford (and typically must to stay competitive) to pay more for mining equipment and electricity to mine blocks profitably.
tromp 6y ago
> simply transition to proof As opposed to Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake is not as simple as it sounds. Any implementation faces a myriad of design challenges and potential attacks. Things like "nothing-at-stake", "costless simulation", "stake grinding", and "long-range attacks" [1]. And in the end, there is no objective truth about the state of the chain, as there is with PoW's simple longest chain rule. There is nothing simple about a Bitcoin "transition" either, as should be evident from the endless blocksize debates, and resulting Bitcoin Cash chain splits. That was only about changing a single parameter. Now you're talking about changing the very essence of Bitcoin, with dozens if not hundreds more dimensions of choices and opportunities for disagreements. [1] https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Oh I know the political implications of changing BTC are high, but the main arguments against changing anything to do with Bitcoin are its security profile. I agree that BTC is the most secure chain. But, if the mining reward dries up to the extent that it is less secure as transaction fees take dominance, then the community will have to sacrifice one of their sacred cows: 21 million supply or proof-of-work. Neither one of those are easy to change, but if necessary, it will have to.
- DennisP 6y ago
  Proof-of-stake has progressed quite a bit since that document was published in 2016. For example, nothing-at-stake is fixed by slashing stake when anyone submits a proof that the staker signed competing branches. (But I agree that Bitcoin is unlikely to change.)
cyphertruck 6y ago
There is no such thing as “Proof of stake” to replace proof of work. Proof if work is a solution where you do not have to trust anyone, as the block is won by the person who finds the right math result, essentially a lottery. Proof if stake is either really proof of work that is less secure and obscured, or more often dimply giving the creators of the coin the power and your trust.... which reverses the entire point of the creation of bitcoin. PoW’s purpose isn't to distribute coins (though rewarding whales is the purpose of PoS). PoW’s purpose is to decentralize control so nobody can control and make the system trustless.
- antocv 6y ago
  The way to understand this, ask if PoS would have been bitgold released in 2009. As bitcoin wasnt valued in 2009-2011, its value in USD was basically zero. Yet the cost of attacking the PoW even during that time was the cost of electricity which was higher than zero. PoS, if it was released in 2009 instead of PoW, the cost to attack it would have been zero, as the price of bitcoin was. There is a solution to this but none of the shitcoins have it implemented, instead chosing to give the creators all the power and majority stake.
  - Kbelicius 6y ago
    > There is a solution to this but none of the shitcoins have it implemented, instead chosing to give the creators all the power and majority stake. What is the solution you are thinking about? Interestingly enough, IIRC, the very first PoS coin did not give the creators all the power and majority stake.
    - antocv 6y ago
      I hate the entire cryptospace and all the damn shilling of every shitcoin in every corner of the internet. I hate it with a burning passion, I hate all the shitcoins which overpromise and deliver shitty SQL servers. If it is good enough you and others will be able to find it, without anyone needing to name-drop or shill it. If it isint easy to find, well it isnt and deserves to die. But please if/when you find it, dont shill it, dont mention it.
toomim 6y ago
It's difficult for the Bitcoin community to find consensus on changes to the consensus rules. We couldn't change a constant from 1MB to 2MB. I think changing PoW entirely is extremely unlikely to happen. It's much easier for the people who believe in PoS to sell their Bitcoin and buy Ethereum instead.
- xorcist 6y ago
  Or any of the other PoS coins. If you want to invest (which is a word I hesitate to use in the context of any cryptocurrency) in a PoS coin there are more mature ones. It would be interesting if someone would research why this hasn't already happened? It's not like that alternative hasn't been available for a long time now.
  - intotheabyss 6y ago
    Casper and LMD GHOST (which is what Eth2 uses) is one of the most mature proof of stake consensus algorithms out there. The other is Tendermint, but that's a practical BFT algorithm, so limited to 100-300 validating nodes, whereas ETH2 has hundreds of thousands of validators.
  - mminer237 6y ago
    Bitcoin's value is not based on its technical ability or its usefulness. No one understands or care about PoW vs PoS. Its only practical worth is its name recognition driving more people to buy it as an investment. Bitcoin beat Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash and Ripple and Monero and every other coin because it was first, and people know the name "Bitcoin", and they've never heard of any altcoin.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      At some point it will fail because of its technical failures though. The people buying it assume that Bitcoin as it is, is already perfect and never has to change when that is far from the truth.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
ajkdhcb2 6y ago
The bitcoin community is at a general consensus that PoS is inherently insecure
- intotheabyss 6y ago
  The bitcoin community would be wrong.
  - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
    It seems very simple to me. The network would be controlled by custodians including exchanges and banks. And under an attack the network would be over: the malicious stakers can basically pay themselves and suffer no cost to continue the attack. Conversely with PoW there is a sustained huge expense to continue to perform an attack, and the PoW can be changed by a fork. I would never consider this to be acceptable. Not that ASICs run by China aren't currently an abysmal situation either, but that is only a problem because bitcoin has no privacy
    - DennisP 6y ago
      Malicious stakers could not reverse transactions without losing their stake. It's as if a 51% attacker in PoW got their mining rig burned down. Malicious stakers could indefinitely conduct a censorship attack. To address this, the PoS equivalent of changing the hash function would be to fork the chain and leave out the attackers' stake.
- uncletammy 6y ago
  It is without a doubt the only thing they can agree on. ... well except for these guys https://www.bitcoinpos.net/ https://www.bitcoinpos.net/
hfsp 6y ago
Btc is what it it is because it is NOT centralized. pos = centralization risk. pos = shitcoin. If you want to read in depth: https://voskuil.org/cryptoeconomics/cryptoeconomics.pdf https://voskuil.org/cryptoeconomics/cryptoeconomics.pdf.

xiphias2 6y ago

It's because just because you write ,,simply'', it's not a simple thing. Just as an example Ethereum was trying hard to do it for many years now without any success. But the real reason is that there is no real solid formally written and proven ,,proof of stake'' algorithm so far.

chrisco255 6y ago
ETH2 proof of stake beacon chain shipped in December. There's tens of thousands of ETH2 validators live today. Proof of work is still in place for base chain, so ETH is a hybrid currently. But they'll be off proof of work within a year to year and a half. For blockchains as big and old as Bitcoin and Ethereum I understand migrating to a new consensus algorithm is no easy task and comes with risks. But it is doable. And they could even prove it out on one of the many BTC forks or dupes such as BCH or Doge or Litecoin if need be. My question isn't about the technical feasibility, but I'm more interested in the game theory mechanics. The arguments against proof of stake from that point of view seem to dry up as mining rewards dry up, no?
- 0x64 6y ago
  >There's tens of thousands of ETH2 validators live today. Over 100,000 as of a few days ago!
- xiphias2 6y ago
  If ETH is hybrid now, how much it helped the energy usage? Did it go down significantly compared to a year ago (even if measured in ETH)? Bitcoin had a halving, which was very sifnificant energy usage decrease measured in BTC (which caused the significant price increase).
  - melolife 6y ago
    ETH cannot be described as a hybrid. The 2.0 chain is currently independent of the existing chain. The plan is to dock the existing chain as a shard of the new one, at which point it immediately becomes 100% proof of stake.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Calling the halving a significant energy usage decrease is the opposite of what happens after a halving. A halving means miners are paid half as many BTC for discovering new blocks, then prices increase, which means that miners can afford (and typically must to stay competitive) to pay more for mining equipment and electricity to mine blocks profitably.

tromp 6y ago

> simply transition to proof As opposed to Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake is not as simple as it sounds. Any implementation faces a myriad of design challenges and potential attacks. Things like "nothing-at-stake", "costless simulation", "stake grinding", and "long-range attacks" [1]. And in the end, there is no objective truth about the state of the chain, as there is with PoW's simple longest chain rule. There is nothing simple about a Bitcoin "transition" either, as should be evident from the endless blocksize debates, and resulting Bitcoin Cash chain splits. That was only about changing a single parameter. Now you're talking about changing the very essence of Bitcoin, with dozens if not hundreds more dimensions of choices and opportunities for disagreements. [1] https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chrisco255 6y ago
Oh I know the political implications of changing BTC are high, but the main arguments against changing anything to do with Bitcoin are its security profile. I agree that BTC is the most secure chain. But, if the mining reward dries up to the extent that it is less secure as transaction fees take dominance, then the community will have to sacrifice one of their sacred cows: 21 million supply or proof-of-work. Neither one of those are easy to change, but if necessary, it will have to.
DennisP 6y ago
Proof-of-stake has progressed quite a bit since that document was published in 2016. For example, nothing-at-stake is fixed by slashing stake when anyone submits a proof that the staker signed competing branches. (But I agree that Bitcoin is unlikely to change.)

cyphertruck 6y ago

There is no such thing as “Proof of stake” to replace proof of work. Proof if work is a solution where you do not have to trust anyone, as the block is won by the person who finds the right math result, essentially a lottery. Proof if stake is either really proof of work that is less secure and obscured, or more often dimply giving the creators of the coin the power and your trust.... which reverses the entire point of the creation of bitcoin. PoW’s purpose isn't to distribute coins (though rewarding whales is the purpose of PoS). PoW’s purpose is to decentralize control so nobody can control and make the system trustless.

antocv 6y ago
The way to understand this, ask if PoS would have been bitgold released in 2009. As bitcoin wasnt valued in 2009-2011, its value in USD was basically zero. Yet the cost of attacking the PoW even during that time was the cost of electricity which was higher than zero. PoS, if it was released in 2009 instead of PoW, the cost to attack it would have been zero, as the price of bitcoin was. There is a solution to this but none of the shitcoins have it implemented, instead chosing to give the creators all the power and majority stake.
- Kbelicius 6y ago
  > There is a solution to this but none of the shitcoins have it implemented, instead chosing to give the creators all the power and majority stake. What is the solution you are thinking about? Interestingly enough, IIRC, the very first PoS coin did not give the creators all the power and majority stake.
  - antocv 6y ago
    I hate the entire cryptospace and all the damn shilling of every shitcoin in every corner of the internet. I hate it with a burning passion, I hate all the shitcoins which overpromise and deliver shitty SQL servers. If it is good enough you and others will be able to find it, without anyone needing to name-drop or shill it. If it isint easy to find, well it isnt and deserves to die. But please if/when you find it, dont shill it, dont mention it.

toomim 6y ago

It's difficult for the Bitcoin community to find consensus on changes to the consensus rules. We couldn't change a constant from 1MB to 2MB. I think changing PoW entirely is extremely unlikely to happen. It's much easier for the people who believe in PoS to sell their Bitcoin and buy Ethereum instead.

xorcist 6y ago
Or any of the other PoS coins. If you want to invest (which is a word I hesitate to use in the context of any cryptocurrency) in a PoS coin there are more mature ones. It would be interesting if someone would research why this hasn't already happened? It's not like that alternative hasn't been available for a long time now.
- intotheabyss 6y ago
  Casper and LMD GHOST (which is what Eth2 uses) is one of the most mature proof of stake consensus algorithms out there. The other is Tendermint, but that's a practical BFT algorithm, so limited to 100-300 validating nodes, whereas ETH2 has hundreds of thousands of validators.
- mminer237 6y ago
  Bitcoin's value is not based on its technical ability or its usefulness. No one understands or care about PoW vs PoS. Its only practical worth is its name recognition driving more people to buy it as an investment. Bitcoin beat Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash and Ripple and Monero and every other coin because it was first, and people know the name "Bitcoin", and they've never heard of any altcoin.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    At some point it will fail because of its technical failures though. The people buying it assume that Bitcoin as it is, is already perfect and never has to change when that is far from the truth.
- chrisco255 6y ago

ajkdhcb2 6y ago

The bitcoin community is at a general consensus that PoS is inherently insecure

intotheabyss 6y ago
The bitcoin community would be wrong.
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  It seems very simple to me. The network would be controlled by custodians including exchanges and banks. And under an attack the network would be over: the malicious stakers can basically pay themselves and suffer no cost to continue the attack. Conversely with PoW there is a sustained huge expense to continue to perform an attack, and the PoW can be changed by a fork. I would never consider this to be acceptable. Not that ASICs run by China aren't currently an abysmal situation either, but that is only a problem because bitcoin has no privacy
  - DennisP 6y ago
    Malicious stakers could not reverse transactions without losing their stake. It's as if a 51% attacker in PoW got their mining rig burned down. Malicious stakers could indefinitely conduct a censorship attack. To address this, the PoS equivalent of changing the hash function would be to fork the chain and leave out the attackers' stake.
uncletammy 6y ago
It is without a doubt the only thing they can agree on. ... well except for these guys https://www.bitcoinpos.net/ https://www.bitcoinpos.net/

hfsp 6y ago

Btc is what it it is because it is NOT centralized. pos = centralization risk. pos = shitcoin. If you want to read in depth: https://voskuil.org/cryptoeconomics/cryptoeconomics.pdf https://voskuil.org/cryptoeconomics/cryptoeconomics.pdf.