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The exact opposite is true. It's always possible for a state to obtain enough mining hardware - PoW is hopelessly insecure. It also has infinite economies of sc

The exact opposite is true. It's always possible for a state to obtain enough mining hardware - PoW is hopelessly insecure. It also has infinite economies of scale inevitably leading to absolute centralization even absent state attack. Once majority of hashrate is achieved, profits nearly double as minority can be censored. That's the inevitable end state of PoW. PoS is resistant to state attacks because it would require buying up tokens on an impossible scale, and in the case an attack somehow succeeds a fork can be created that deletes the hostile stake. This can be repeated indefinitely. That's impossible in PoW more than once, once a gpu PoW gets attacked it's over. PoS has no economies of scale, so contrary to PoW it can stay decentralized forever. There's no way to make existing stakers unprofitable by adding more nodes, like it's possible with mining hardware in PoW. PoW is also vulnerable to takeover of existing miners because mining at scale requires big industrial warehouses with industrial power owned by registered companies. Impossible to hide. PoS can run on anonymous home nodes. In every single security and decentralization aspect PoW is hopelessly inferior to PoS.

fvdessen 5y ago
> PoS is resistant to state attacks because it would require buying up tokens on an impossible scale You don't need to buy the tokens. You make laws which the stakers have to follow, otherwise you seize their tokens for breaking the law. You can also use electronic warfare to steal the tokens of stakers outside your juridiction. If you are doing this as a big country such as USA/China, then other stakers might be tempted not to fork because a compromised system that works with those countries might still be more valuable than an uncompromised system that has not access to a large part of the world economy.
- nootropicat 5y ago
  This is only enforceable against miners, not stakers. Stakers can trivially hide, miners can't. >otherwise you seize their tokens for breaking the law. that's not possible, there's no mechanism to seize eth. What can be trivially seized, though, are physical miners.
swensel 5y ago
Are there any proven PoS coins out there yet that have demonstrated resiliency under an attack? Honest question.
- nootropicat 5y ago
  I don't know of any PoS coins that were attacked. Contrary to PoW, PoS is used for a very general category and differences between multiple versions are great. Many don't even have slashing making them a trust-based system (like Cardano) and I don't think they should be considered proof of stake - because without slashing nothing is actually at stake. Additionally except for eth all have the fundamental problem of extremely centralized distribution. This [1] extreme centralization is representative of new VC coins. That tiny sliver of 'Coinlist (unlocked auction) 4.3%' is the only part that was available to non-insiders. [1] https://icodrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Solano-token-distribution.png https://icodrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Solano-token...
  - swensel 5y ago
    Yes, I'd be curious what some PoS coin experts have to say about the centralization concern of PoS, and how network security and uptime is guaranteed in a PoS network that doesn't have slashing. I'm also wondering about the resiliency of PoS. The PoW used in Bitcoin has demonstrated resiliency against attacks, and none of the attacks have been successful so far, that I know of.
    - nootropicat 5y ago
      >The PoW used in Bitcoin has demonstrated resiliency against attacks Multiple PoW coins have been successfully attacked, like ETC. Because they are already on GPUs there's no fix - just hope it doesn't repeat. Those successful attacks prove that any attack on PoW is only a question of external resources (sha256 ASICs for btc). It's also surprisingly hard to profit from a 51% attack on pure speculation coins like btc or etc because next to zero actual economic activity is happening on them, which is why such attacks were rare and small in scope. The best you can actually do is to try to double spend an exchange. If they were actually used for real commerce profit becomes much easier. It could also become a military goal - if Iran relied on a PoW-coin for its economy, blocking their coins would destroy their economy. This is one of the reasons why ethereum absolutely must switch to PoS - PoW is extremely insecure for smart contracts because there are many more ways to profit from an attack, like censoring price updates for defi.
danlugo92 5y ago
PoW can also fork. It's not just miners, it's also full nodes that validate. Full nodes can disagree with miners: instant fork. If say Putin would acquire 51% of mining hash rate people would realize (before he gets there) and would fork. My comment is not in support or against PoW, I'm just stating the fact that PoW isn't inherently unsafer than PoS.
- nootropicat 5y ago
  That's only possible once - from asic PoW to a gpu/cpu PoW. After that, if the fork becomes popular, the attacker moves and attacks it again. Are people supposed to fork once per week? At that point it's not PoW consensus anymore, because the interventions move from emergency to normal, and you're under something else.

fvdessen 5y ago

> PoS is resistant to state attacks because it would require buying up tokens on an impossible scale You don't need to buy the tokens. You make laws which the stakers have to follow, otherwise you seize their tokens for breaking the law. You can also use electronic warfare to steal the tokens of stakers outside your juridiction. If you are doing this as a big country such as USA/China, then other stakers might be tempted not to fork because a compromised system that works with those countries might still be more valuable than an uncompromised system that has not access to a large part of the world economy.

nootropicat 5y ago
This is only enforceable against miners, not stakers. Stakers can trivially hide, miners can't. >otherwise you seize their tokens for breaking the law. that's not possible, there's no mechanism to seize eth. What can be trivially seized, though, are physical miners.

swensel 5y ago

Are there any proven PoS coins out there yet that have demonstrated resiliency under an attack? Honest question.

nootropicat 5y ago
I don't know of any PoS coins that were attacked. Contrary to PoW, PoS is used for a very general category and differences between multiple versions are great. Many don't even have slashing making them a trust-based system (like Cardano) and I don't think they should be considered proof of stake - because without slashing nothing is actually at stake. Additionally except for eth all have the fundamental problem of extremely centralized distribution. This [1] extreme centralization is representative of new VC coins. That tiny sliver of 'Coinlist (unlocked auction) 4.3%' is the only part that was available to non-insiders. [1] https://icodrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Solano-token-distribution.png https://icodrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Solano-token...
- swensel 5y ago
  Yes, I'd be curious what some PoS coin experts have to say about the centralization concern of PoS, and how network security and uptime is guaranteed in a PoS network that doesn't have slashing. I'm also wondering about the resiliency of PoS. The PoW used in Bitcoin has demonstrated resiliency against attacks, and none of the attacks have been successful so far, that I know of.
  - nootropicat 5y ago
    >The PoW used in Bitcoin has demonstrated resiliency against attacks Multiple PoW coins have been successfully attacked, like ETC. Because they are already on GPUs there's no fix - just hope it doesn't repeat. Those successful attacks prove that any attack on PoW is only a question of external resources (sha256 ASICs for btc). It's also surprisingly hard to profit from a 51% attack on pure speculation coins like btc or etc because next to zero actual economic activity is happening on them, which is why such attacks were rare and small in scope. The best you can actually do is to try to double spend an exchange. If they were actually used for real commerce profit becomes much easier. It could also become a military goal - if Iran relied on a PoW-coin for its economy, blocking their coins would destroy their economy. This is one of the reasons why ethereum absolutely must switch to PoS - PoW is extremely insecure for smart contracts because there are many more ways to profit from an attack, like censoring price updates for defi.

danlugo92 5y ago

PoW can also fork. It's not just miners, it's also full nodes that validate. Full nodes can disagree with miners: instant fork. If say Putin would acquire 51% of mining hash rate people would realize (before he gets there) and would fork. My comment is not in support or against PoW, I'm just stating the fact that PoW isn't inherently unsafer than PoS.

nootropicat 5y ago
That's only possible once - from asic PoW to a gpu/cpu PoW. After that, if the fork becomes popular, the attacker moves and attacks it again. Are people supposed to fork once per week? At that point it's not PoW consensus anymore, because the interventions move from emergency to normal, and you're under something else.