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And by far the most significant hindrance to moving away from proof of work is that there a number of significant players who have a large economic interest in

And by far the most significant hindrance to moving away from proof of work is that there a number of significant players who have a large economic interest in PoW. Ethereum was promising this move many years ago, but it always was an extraordinarily low priority. There are a lot of people with perverse biases. Many of the comments enthusiastically defending Bitcoin are people who are sitting on BTC and have watched it get pummelled due to its ludicrous enormous-energy-for-something-that-does-nothing-for-humanity reality (seriously -- if I see one more chart comparing the entirety of the financial industry with Bitcoin. The former powers the entire world. The latter powers some speculators, criminals, and a minuscule number of legitimate transactions).

vmception 5y ago
I disagree about the priority, they literally didn't know what they were doing or how to do it just yet. The security demands this community wants are and were completely science fiction as there is no proof of stake network that has met the goals they are aiming for, and they are simply much closer to reality now. There was poor governance and management that debilitated their ability to function during the 3 year bear market. And they got their act together. In the mean time, more product market fit was made apparent and upgrades to the instruction set for arbitrary execution was done to the network and continues to this day. The Ethereum network consists of many-to-many relationships for approval transactions for ERC20 tokens to interact with other smart contracts. This wasn't even foreseeable 18 months ago, and 18 months before that the ERC20 protocol wasn't even ratified.
webXL 5y ago
> Does nothing for humanity Really? If that energy consumption problem wasn't there, what advantages does Ethereum have over Bitcoin? Would it even exist, since it offers many of the same features?
- meowface 5y ago
  Ethereum natively supports smart contracts. Bitcoin doesn't support them natively; any attempt to add them has to be a separate layer on top. That's why the past few years have seen a rise in fungible and non-fungible tokens (average merit of those aside for the sake of argument, since this is just answering the question "it offers many of the same features"), pretty much all of which are hosted on Ethereum or Ethereum code forks like Binance Smart Chain.
  - webXL 5y ago
    So back to the OP's point, Ethereum minus smart contracts and efficient energy use is "nothing for humanity", as if the basic features of money haven't improved our standard of living and there's nothing wrong with central banks and the powerful that benefit from them. The energy used provides immense value today. The costs need to be internalized though.
    - sobani 5y ago
      > Ethereum minus smart contracts [...] is "nothing for humanity" No shit, if you take away the defining feature of something, you will be left with very of value indeed. That's like saying the web without HTTP is nothing for humanity.
      - webXL 5y ago
        The “as if” part means it can only be true if the regular money aspect of these two cryptos has no value, which is laughable.
  - miohtama 5y ago
    For more details on advantages of Ethereum over Bitcoin, and advantages other new blockchains have over Ethereum, please see my recent presentation: https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/ https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/
    - RhodoGSA 5y ago
      Interested to hear your thoughts on Polkadot. At the end of the first section, you stop the 'innovation train' at NPOS. Polkadot takes all the ideas presented in your article, combines them and adds a couple unique ideas such as parachains.
      - meowface 5y ago
        (Not the parent poster.) I've looked at it and think it looks interesting, but I think Ethereum may be approaching something like JavaScript's status, now. It's not necessarily technically ideal, but it has first-mover advantage, tons of network effects, and an entrenched position, so it might have already won. I think there's a decent chance they may eventually pivot a bit and rebrand Polkadot or Substrate as an Ethereum layer 2 platform. They already seem to be leaning in that direction a bit.

vmception 5y ago

I disagree about the priority, they literally didn't know what they were doing or how to do it just yet. The security demands this community wants are and were completely science fiction as there is no proof of stake network that has met the goals they are aiming for, and they are simply much closer to reality now. There was poor governance and management that debilitated their ability to function during the 3 year bear market. And they got their act together. In the mean time, more product market fit was made apparent and upgrades to the instruction set for arbitrary execution was done to the network and continues to this day. The Ethereum network consists of many-to-many relationships for approval transactions for ERC20 tokens to interact with other smart contracts. This wasn't even foreseeable 18 months ago, and 18 months before that the ERC20 protocol wasn't even ratified.

webXL 5y ago

> Does nothing for humanity Really? If that energy consumption problem wasn't there, what advantages does Ethereum have over Bitcoin? Would it even exist, since it offers many of the same features?

meowface 5y ago
Ethereum natively supports smart contracts. Bitcoin doesn't support them natively; any attempt to add them has to be a separate layer on top. That's why the past few years have seen a rise in fungible and non-fungible tokens (average merit of those aside for the sake of argument, since this is just answering the question "it offers many of the same features"), pretty much all of which are hosted on Ethereum or Ethereum code forks like Binance Smart Chain.
- webXL 5y ago
  So back to the OP's point, Ethereum minus smart contracts and efficient energy use is "nothing for humanity", as if the basic features of money haven't improved our standard of living and there's nothing wrong with central banks and the powerful that benefit from them. The energy used provides immense value today. The costs need to be internalized though.
  - sobani 5y ago
    > Ethereum minus smart contracts [...] is "nothing for humanity" No shit, if you take away the defining feature of something, you will be left with very of value indeed. That's like saying the web without HTTP is nothing for humanity.
    - webXL 5y ago
      The “as if” part means it can only be true if the regular money aspect of these two cryptos has no value, which is laughable.
- miohtama 5y ago
  For more details on advantages of Ethereum over Bitcoin, and advantages other new blockchains have over Ethereum, please see my recent presentation: https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/ https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/
  - RhodoGSA 5y ago
    Interested to hear your thoughts on Polkadot. At the end of the first section, you stop the 'innovation train' at NPOS. Polkadot takes all the ideas presented in your article, combines them and adds a couple unique ideas such as parachains.
    - meowface 5y ago
      (Not the parent poster.) I've looked at it and think it looks interesting, but I think Ethereum may be approaching something like JavaScript's status, now. It's not necessarily technically ideal, but it has first-mover advantage, tons of network effects, and an entrenched position, so it might have already won. I think there's a decent chance they may eventually pivot a bit and rebrand Polkadot or Substrate as an Ethereum layer 2 platform. They already seem to be leaning in that direction a bit.