4 ms·

There seems to be a cult of proof of stake haters with basically no deep knowledge of the consensus mechanism who bash it with increasingly inane arguments. Thi

There seems to be a cult of proof of stake haters with basically no deep knowledge of the consensus mechanism who bash it with increasingly inane arguments. This is one of the worst I've seen. Basically: 1. Create bad metaphor 2. Relate it to your target 3. Claim the target of your criticism has no additional nuances than your bad metaphor. Perpetual motion machines, for example, have absolutely nothing to do with cryptocurrencies or proof of stake. Perpetual motion machines are impossible because of conservation of energy. There is no equivalent physical law that prevents proof of stake from being secure. What the author of this poorly conceived rant doesn't seem to understand is the concept of bootstrapping and incremental validation. Computers for example bootstrap every time they.. well.. boot, which is why they call it that. The program basically asks "what program should the computer run" and the program then tells it. No one would take a perpetual motion machine argument seriously if used to argue that computers can't work because they're self referential. But maybe the article is satire and I just missed the joke?

aeternum 5y ago
Computers bootstrap every time they boot, but few do it securely every time. The more complexity, in that incremental validation, the more likelihood there's a flaw. Take iphone for example, it's bootstrapped by keys within the tamper-proof hardware tpm, then all software is incrementally validated from there. Yet jailbreaks still frequently appear.
- billytetrud 5y ago
  There's a difference between saying "its impossible to do it securely" and "few currently do it securely". Also, I'm not trying to make the same mistake as the OP and claim that bootstrapping computers is at all relevant to analyzing whether PoS is secure. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of the OP's argument by showing that his metaphor trivially breaks down: reductio ad absurdum.
tarsinge 5y ago
> There seems to be a cult of proof of stake haters with basically no deep knowledge of the consensus mechanism who bash it with increasingly inane arguments. It’s not hard to see why: it’s an existential treat to Bitcoin that’s becoming more plausible every day. If PoS is proven to work at scale (e.g. with Eth2), it’s over, the energy usage of PoW will be unjustifiable. Disclaimer: I own a bit of BTC and ETH (50/50).
- phil-m 5y ago
  It already works, as seen in many other blockchains. The most popular are Cardano and Polkadot.
- meowface 5y ago
  This seems inevitable, at this point. Barring a major transition failure, the fact that the Bitcoin devs and community seem to have no intention to even consider PoS (or anything else besides PoW) will likely ramp up narratives about Bitcoin's electricity usage and how Ethereum is a green, sustainable alternative, potentially causing the prices to get closer and generating a lot of very angry flamewars between both communities. These all already exist, but I think the dial's going to turn to 11.
lixtra 5y ago
The perpetual motion machines are indeed a bad metaphor. But the question which fork will prevail a valid one. If you had stake in ETH and ETC, why would abandon one over the other? How many forks till trust evaporates?
- billytetrud 5y ago
  Hmm, I'm not sure there is a limit. I mean, if each fork gathers a significant fraction of support for a long period of time, it would reduce the effectiveness of every related chain. But that's unlikely I think. There tends to be one (or maybe two) chains that get the vast majority of support. So I'm not sure forks like that are that much of a concern. What's more of a concern would be if the majority follow a chain that has unfixable design issues.
- meowface 5y ago
  This is known as the "nothing at stake" problem. This 2014 blog post by Vitalik Buterin discusses it: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-love-weak-subjectivity/ https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-lov...

aeternum 5y ago

Computers bootstrap every time they boot, but few do it securely every time. The more complexity, in that incremental validation, the more likelihood there's a flaw. Take iphone for example, it's bootstrapped by keys within the tamper-proof hardware tpm, then all software is incrementally validated from there. Yet jailbreaks still frequently appear.

billytetrud 5y ago
There's a difference between saying "its impossible to do it securely" and "few currently do it securely". Also, I'm not trying to make the same mistake as the OP and claim that bootstrapping computers is at all relevant to analyzing whether PoS is secure. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of the OP's argument by showing that his metaphor trivially breaks down: reductio ad absurdum.

tarsinge 5y ago

> There seems to be a cult of proof of stake haters with basically no deep knowledge of the consensus mechanism who bash it with increasingly inane arguments. It’s not hard to see why: it’s an existential treat to Bitcoin that’s becoming more plausible every day. If PoS is proven to work at scale (e.g. with Eth2), it’s over, the energy usage of PoW will be unjustifiable. Disclaimer: I own a bit of BTC and ETH (50/50).

phil-m 5y ago
It already works, as seen in many other blockchains. The most popular are Cardano and Polkadot.
meowface 5y ago
This seems inevitable, at this point. Barring a major transition failure, the fact that the Bitcoin devs and community seem to have no intention to even consider PoS (or anything else besides PoW) will likely ramp up narratives about Bitcoin's electricity usage and how Ethereum is a green, sustainable alternative, potentially causing the prices to get closer and generating a lot of very angry flamewars between both communities. These all already exist, but I think the dial's going to turn to 11.

lixtra 5y ago

The perpetual motion machines are indeed a bad metaphor. But the question which fork will prevail a valid one. If you had stake in ETH and ETC, why would abandon one over the other? How many forks till trust evaporates?

billytetrud 5y ago
Hmm, I'm not sure there is a limit. I mean, if each fork gathers a significant fraction of support for a long period of time, it would reduce the effectiveness of every related chain. But that's unlikely I think. There tends to be one (or maybe two) chains that get the vast majority of support. So I'm not sure forks like that are that much of a concern. What's more of a concern would be if the majority follow a chain that has unfixable design issues.
meowface 5y ago
This is known as the "nothing at stake" problem. This 2014 blog post by Vitalik Buterin discusses it: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-love-weak-subjectivity/ https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-lov...