5 ms·

Thankfully most cryptos are moving to proof-of-stake.

by xvector 5y ago

arcticbull 5y ago
Agreed, but there are real questions about proof-of-stake, such as the "nothing at stake" problem.
colordrops 5y ago
Is proof-of-stake a proven technology yet though? Has it been shown to function without loopholes or exploits?
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  The first iteration of Ethereum's Proof of Stake protocol, the standalone Beacon Chain, has been working since December 1st 2020: https://beaconcha.in/ https://beaconcha.in/ So while not there yet, it's on its way to becoming proven technology. A big test will be how it handles general transaction processing. The Beacon Chain is limited to finalizing Ethereum PoW chain blocks at the moment.
  - dustymcp 5y ago
    Other chains are figuring this out now and i havrnt heard of any majot hacks so seems to work out
- Paradigma11 5y ago
  Yes it is. There are PoS chains running for years without problems (Tezos..). https://viktorbunin.medium.com/proof-of-stakes-security-model-is-being-dramatically-misunderstood-4ed7b19ca419 https://viktorbunin.medium.com/proof-of-stakes-security-mode...
  - bhawks 5y ago
    Tezos is amazing, it has upgraded itself entirely through on chain voting governance 6 times. No drama, no crazy rollouts. Tezos smart contract ecosystem has grown to 10% of Ethereum and it's gas prices are pennies (and will continue to be). Ah if the market was logical.
    - xtracto 5y ago
      Commodore and Macintosh were superior to the IBM PC. still, the PC was the leader tech of the 80s and 90s.
      - Paradigma11 5y ago
        True, but the difference here is that the crypto market is purely speculation driven at the moment. tezos is doing fine adoption wise: https://better-call.dev/stats/mainnet/general https://better-call.dev/stats/mainnet/general As long as adoption increases it will be fine in the end since all that money that PoW chains spend on those power plants and GPUs goes straight into the pockets of Tezos holders. And the foundation has enough money to support the development for a decade or two.
- haasted 5y ago
  It's in production on several chains now. A few examples are Cosmos hub (cosmos.network), Avalanche (www.avax.network), Tezos (tezos.com) and Solana (solana.com).
WalterSear 5y ago
They ones that count, are not. Bitcoin has no plans to, and Ethereum is delaying PoS for political reasons.
gregopet 5y ago
Proof-of-stake is basically an oligarchy though, those with funds call the shots, similar to the current mainstream system but without any of the checks and balances (they will be developed for crypto, too, in time, but at a high price for the early small adopters). Another example of crypto not really being that special in the end, if it wants mass adoption - you can ignore the boring realities as long as it's just used by a relatively small club.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rglullis 5y ago
  > those with funds call the shots Look at the distribution curve of people and their funds that can be put at stake and compare with the people with access to cheap energy and capital to operate a mining rig, then come back to tell me which one is the real oligarchy.
- wraptile 5y ago
  > Proof-of-stake is basically an oligarchy though, those with funds call the shots How is it different from proof of work? People with access to ASIC miners and cheap electricity call the shots, guess who those people are? Proof is stake actually more fair since you cannot move your investment in the network - you are locked-in and need the network to succeed to not lose your position. With proof of work you can switch all of your investments to a different network at the snap of your fingers. Proof of stake is naturally designed to produce benevolent leaders since their success is directly tied to the success of the network.
runeks 5y ago
The threat model of proof-of-stake (PoS) is weaker than that of proof-of-work (PoW). For example, "initial sync" (a new node joining the network, needing to find the sequence of blocks that everyone agrees is the right sequence of blocks) is much simpler with PoW compared to PoS. And, furthermore, with PoS it's possible to compromise this process by stealing private keys from a group that comprises a majority. An attacker can do this silently, and at some later date start publishing alternative chains, thus breaking initial sync by offering multiple, valid chains to new nodes, thus making them unable to decide. In contrast, it's not possible to steal a majority of PoW mining power, and sit on it for an extended period, without (a) foregoing a large profit, and (b) risking that others acquire more mining power than you have. One of the Cardano whitepapers [1] contains a good summary of the advantages of PoW over PoS in Section 5.1.1 under "Consequences of PoS vs PoW": A crucial difference exists between PoS and PoW at the network layer, with significant design consequences: in PoW-based systems, proof-of-work itself gives honest nodes an advantage over adversarial nodes (as listed below), and this enables system designs that are simpler and more modular. There is no such advantage for honest nodes in PoS-based systems such as Ouroboros. In PoW systems: • The number of different block headers with a valid PoW that can be constructed (over any given period of time) is bounded by the total available hashing power in the world. In Bitcoin for example this is one header every ten minutes on average. • The header PoW can be checked with little computational cost. This does not require any significant or recent state, only a vaguely-recent lower bound on the hashing difficulty value is needed. • Such a cheap and simple test can be easily integrated into existing distributed algorithms such as broadcast algorithms. By contrast, with PoS in Ouroboros: • There is no equivalent of the PoW check that is expensive for the adversaries and cheap for the honest nodes: adversaries can create many apparently valid or actually valid candidate headers or whole chains. • Block headers can only be fully validated with access to a very recent copy of the full ledger state, and the other preceding headers – which is not a simple stateless check. • Having the full ledger state relies on the other two pieces of Ouroboros functionality: chain validation and chain selection [1] https://hydra.iohk.io/build/6684352/download/1/network-design.pdf https://hydra.iohk.io/build/6684352/download/1/network-desig...

Thankfully most cryptos are moving to proof-of-stake.

arcticbull 5y ago

Agreed, but there are real questions about proof-of-stake, such as the "nothing at stake" problem.

colordrops 5y ago

Is proof-of-stake a proven technology yet though? Has it been shown to function without loopholes or exploits?

CryptoPunk 5y ago
The first iteration of Ethereum's Proof of Stake protocol, the standalone Beacon Chain, has been working since December 1st 2020: https://beaconcha.in/ https://beaconcha.in/ So while not there yet, it's on its way to becoming proven technology. A big test will be how it handles general transaction processing. The Beacon Chain is limited to finalizing Ethereum PoW chain blocks at the moment.
- dustymcp 5y ago
  Other chains are figuring this out now and i havrnt heard of any majot hacks so seems to work out
Paradigma11 5y ago
Yes it is. There are PoS chains running for years without problems (Tezos..). https://viktorbunin.medium.com/proof-of-stakes-security-model-is-being-dramatically-misunderstood-4ed7b19ca419 https://viktorbunin.medium.com/proof-of-stakes-security-mode...
- bhawks 5y ago
  Tezos is amazing, it has upgraded itself entirely through on chain voting governance 6 times. No drama, no crazy rollouts. Tezos smart contract ecosystem has grown to 10% of Ethereum and it's gas prices are pennies (and will continue to be). Ah if the market was logical.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    Commodore and Macintosh were superior to the IBM PC. still, the PC was the leader tech of the 80s and 90s.
    - Paradigma11 5y ago
      True, but the difference here is that the crypto market is purely speculation driven at the moment. tezos is doing fine adoption wise: https://better-call.dev/stats/mainnet/general https://better-call.dev/stats/mainnet/general As long as adoption increases it will be fine in the end since all that money that PoW chains spend on those power plants and GPUs goes straight into the pockets of Tezos holders. And the foundation has enough money to support the development for a decade or two.
haasted 5y ago
It's in production on several chains now. A few examples are Cosmos hub (cosmos.network), Avalanche (www.avax.network), Tezos (tezos.com) and Solana (solana.com).

WalterSear 5y ago

They ones that count, are not. Bitcoin has no plans to, and Ethereum is delaying PoS for political reasons.

gregopet 5y ago

Proof-of-stake is basically an oligarchy though, those with funds call the shots, similar to the current mainstream system but without any of the checks and balances (they will be developed for crypto, too, in time, but at a high price for the early small adopters). Another example of crypto not really being that special in the end, if it wants mass adoption - you can ignore the boring realities as long as it's just used by a relatively small club.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rglullis 5y ago
> those with funds call the shots Look at the distribution curve of people and their funds that can be put at stake and compare with the people with access to cheap energy and capital to operate a mining rig, then come back to tell me which one is the real oligarchy.
wraptile 5y ago
> Proof-of-stake is basically an oligarchy though, those with funds call the shots How is it different from proof of work? People with access to ASIC miners and cheap electricity call the shots, guess who those people are? Proof is stake actually more fair since you cannot move your investment in the network - you are locked-in and need the network to succeed to not lose your position. With proof of work you can switch all of your investments to a different network at the snap of your fingers. Proof of stake is naturally designed to produce benevolent leaders since their success is directly tied to the success of the network.

runeks 5y ago

The threat model of proof-of-stake (PoS) is weaker than that of proof-of-work (PoW). For example, "initial sync" (a new node joining the network, needing to find the sequence of blocks that everyone agrees is the right sequence of blocks) is much simpler with PoW compared to PoS. And, furthermore, with PoS it's possible to compromise this process by stealing private keys from a group that comprises a majority. An attacker can do this silently, and at some later date start publishing alternative chains, thus breaking initial sync by offering multiple, valid chains to new nodes, thus making them unable to decide. In contrast, it's not possible to steal a majority of PoW mining power, and sit on it for an extended period, without (a) foregoing a large profit, and (b) risking that others acquire more mining power than you have. One of the Cardano whitepapers [1] contains a good summary of the advantages of PoW over PoS in Section 5.1.1 under "Consequences of PoS vs PoW": A crucial difference exists between PoS and PoW at the network layer, with significant design consequences: in PoW-based systems, proof-of-work itself gives honest nodes an advantage over adversarial nodes (as listed below), and this enables system designs that are simpler and more modular. There is no such advantage for honest nodes in PoS-based systems such as Ouroboros. In PoW systems: • The number of different block headers with a valid PoW that can be constructed (over any given period of time) is bounded by the total available hashing power in the world. In Bitcoin for example this is one header every ten minutes on average. • The header PoW can be checked with little computational cost. This does not require any significant or recent state, only a vaguely-recent lower bound on the hashing difficulty value is needed. • Such a cheap and simple test can be easily integrated into existing distributed algorithms such as broadcast algorithms. By contrast, with PoS in Ouroboros: • There is no equivalent of the PoW check that is expensive for the adversaries and cheap for the honest nodes: adversaries can create many apparently valid or actually valid candidate headers or whole chains. • Block headers can only be fully validated with access to a very recent copy of the full ledger state, and the other preceding headers – which is not a simple stateless check. • Having the full ledger state relies on the other two pieces of Ouroboros functionality: chain validation and chain selection [1] https://hydra.iohk.io/build/6684352/download/1/network-design.pdf https://hydra.iohk.io/build/6684352/download/1/network-desig...