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Only PoW cryptos need extensive electricity and hardware. Dont make crypto just bitcoins. If you really want to help make a dent in the energy consumption then

by noxer 5y ago

Only PoW cryptos need extensive electricity and hardware. Dont make crypto just bitcoins. If you really want to help make a dent in the energy consumption then people need to move away from PoW coins not from crypto in general.

floatboth 5y ago
How exactly do you incentivize anyone ever to abandon PoW coins rather than just adding non-PoW on the side? How exactly do you think you could dethrone Bitcoin, overcoming its gigantic first-mover advantage? I believe BTC could only come down with the rest of that "economy".
- spottybanana 5y ago
  If you believe in free market capitalism, people should migrate from PoW to PoS coins, because PoS coins provide the same features with less expenses. In practice this won't happen, because PoS coins don't deliver the same features (security, decentralization, permissionless) or the market doesn't believe they do. Also the savings with PoS are not passed to the users of the cryptocurrency, but to the stakers, or big holders of the cryptocurrency. How do we even know, that these people will spend the money they make using some more enviromentally friendly way? Maybe they just buy lambos with the money and fly around with private jets. Mining is quite small amount of the total transacted amount of BTC daily, and people are willing to pay the cost. If you want to replace Bitcoin with some more enviromentally friendly thing, you have to offer the same capabilities (or better). PoS coins fail to deliver this.
  - New_California 5y ago
    I believe in free market capitalism and you are incorrect. Please see my recent comments history for the "why PoW".
  - noxer 5y ago
    PoS is not the successor of PoW. FBA consensus is. PoS is and always was just a adjusted new version of same idea that only removed the energy problem. The comparison between PoW and PoS is a useless distraction. Its like comparing diesel ICEs with gas ICEs ignoring EVs completely. >and people are willing to pay the cost. No they are not. BTC runs on the block reward not on the fees. Without block reward the average Tx fee would be like 150 USD. (Not accounting for the fact that this would significantly drop the number of Tx which would then raise the cost for the rest of the transaction even higher.)
  - everfree 5y ago
    > In practice this won't happen, because PoS coins don't deliver the same features (security, decentralization, permissionless) or the market doesn't believe they do. It's been what, 2 or 3 years since decent PoS designs were introduced to the market? The crypto market is still trying to tell the difference between their right foot and a private key. Give it a few more years and eventually the market will settle convincingly on a design it values the most, be it PoW, PoS, or something else. In the mean time, it's silly imo to say that the market has decided. The crypto space is still a volatile bloodbath of old chains dying and new competitors rising.
- noxer 5y ago
  Education and time. There is a limited number of people who can not see that PoW does not work long term and more importantly that we have working alternatives like FBA consensus. Once all (most) of these people bough BTC it can only go down hill long term because people who actually want to use it will move away as its simply to expensive. Side-chains dont solve the problem no matter how many and how performant they are. On the main-chain the fees need to eventually cover the cost of running the network i.e. the whole energy, hardware and human labor. Currently this is still mostly paid by the block reward (aka paid by inflation). This pays about a quarter million USD every 10 minutes. It doesn't need much common sense to figure out that if the combined fees of all peoples transaction need to result in a quarter million USD every 10 minute then transaction can not be cheap. Bitcoin is currently running on subsidy by its own block reward that pays about as much as google pays for operation. The average Tx fee is currently a few dollar but a subsidy of about 140 dollar is added form the block reward. Non-PoW based systems have outperformed bitcoin in terms of transaction for years with average Tx fees of less than a cent. Shouldn't this be enough incentivize? Surely it is for thous who actuality want to use the system. The gamblers and maxis will probably hodl their bag forever but once it loses market relevant it will sharply become insecure as well and the whole thing should collapse. Might take another 10 years, who knows but it eventually has to fail. Its like ICE cars vs. EVs it was always just a matter of time but it felt like it took forever. >How exactly do you think you could dethrone Bitcoin, overcoming its gigantic first-mover advantage? If you look at the bigger picture BTC loses market share and there is no sign that this will change. The gains are below average so people who only gamble have an incentive to gamble with something else.
  - floatboth 5y ago
    Looks like FBA is not "trustless", which is actually excellent, but I'm not sure how that would fly in the current (criminal and fraudulent) cryptocurrency economy.
tromp 5y ago
Only PoW cryptocurrencies can be fairly distributed and avoid wealth concentration (although many fail to do so by concentrating most of emission in just the first few years).
- tuesdayrain 5y ago
  Fair distribution is not only completely subjective, but also meaningless. Given enough time, any valuable asset's distribution will be heavily concentrated in the hands of the rich.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    > Given enough time, any valuable asset's distribution will be heavily concentrated in the hands of the rich. That reads like a tautology—they're called "the rich" because they have wealth, so naturally if you look at the distribution of assets most will be in the hands of the rich. One doesn't accumulate assets purely by being rich, however, as many a lottery winner can attest. Barring the occasional (and usually short-lived) windfall, for the most part those who attain wealth do so because they possess certain habits and preferences related to saving and investing. Even if you reset the distribution of wealth those tendencies would remain and bring about a gradual return to the original economic structure.
- pskiba 5y ago
  This is not true, saturation points on staking pools exist to encourage people moving to other pools, this causes more decentralization not less. Additionally, from a hardware perspective setting up a pool takes significantly less capital compared to PoW mining.
- konschubert 5y ago
  Not true, you need capital to mine. Capital begets capital even on pow.
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    Pretty much that's why they say you need to let money work for you.

by noxer 5y ago

floatboth 5y ago

How exactly do you incentivize anyone ever to abandon PoW coins rather than just adding non-PoW on the side? How exactly do you think you could dethrone Bitcoin, overcoming its gigantic first-mover advantage? I believe BTC could only come down with the rest of that "economy".

spottybanana 5y ago
If you believe in free market capitalism, people should migrate from PoW to PoS coins, because PoS coins provide the same features with less expenses. In practice this won't happen, because PoS coins don't deliver the same features (security, decentralization, permissionless) or the market doesn't believe they do. Also the savings with PoS are not passed to the users of the cryptocurrency, but to the stakers, or big holders of the cryptocurrency. How do we even know, that these people will spend the money they make using some more enviromentally friendly way? Maybe they just buy lambos with the money and fly around with private jets. Mining is quite small amount of the total transacted amount of BTC daily, and people are willing to pay the cost. If you want to replace Bitcoin with some more enviromentally friendly thing, you have to offer the same capabilities (or better). PoS coins fail to deliver this.
- New_California 5y ago
  I believe in free market capitalism and you are incorrect. Please see my recent comments history for the "why PoW".
- noxer 5y ago
  PoS is not the successor of PoW. FBA consensus is. PoS is and always was just a adjusted new version of same idea that only removed the energy problem. The comparison between PoW and PoS is a useless distraction. Its like comparing diesel ICEs with gas ICEs ignoring EVs completely. >and people are willing to pay the cost. No they are not. BTC runs on the block reward not on the fees. Without block reward the average Tx fee would be like 150 USD. (Not accounting for the fact that this would significantly drop the number of Tx which would then raise the cost for the rest of the transaction even higher.)
- everfree 5y ago
  > In practice this won't happen, because PoS coins don't deliver the same features (security, decentralization, permissionless) or the market doesn't believe they do. It's been what, 2 or 3 years since decent PoS designs were introduced to the market? The crypto market is still trying to tell the difference between their right foot and a private key. Give it a few more years and eventually the market will settle convincingly on a design it values the most, be it PoW, PoS, or something else. In the mean time, it's silly imo to say that the market has decided. The crypto space is still a volatile bloodbath of old chains dying and new competitors rising.
noxer 5y ago
Education and time. There is a limited number of people who can not see that PoW does not work long term and more importantly that we have working alternatives like FBA consensus. Once all (most) of these people bough BTC it can only go down hill long term because people who actually want to use it will move away as its simply to expensive. Side-chains dont solve the problem no matter how many and how performant they are. On the main-chain the fees need to eventually cover the cost of running the network i.e. the whole energy, hardware and human labor. Currently this is still mostly paid by the block reward (aka paid by inflation). This pays about a quarter million USD every 10 minutes. It doesn't need much common sense to figure out that if the combined fees of all peoples transaction need to result in a quarter million USD every 10 minute then transaction can not be cheap. Bitcoin is currently running on subsidy by its own block reward that pays about as much as google pays for operation. The average Tx fee is currently a few dollar but a subsidy of about 140 dollar is added form the block reward. Non-PoW based systems have outperformed bitcoin in terms of transaction for years with average Tx fees of less than a cent. Shouldn't this be enough incentivize? Surely it is for thous who actuality want to use the system. The gamblers and maxis will probably hodl their bag forever but once it loses market relevant it will sharply become insecure as well and the whole thing should collapse. Might take another 10 years, who knows but it eventually has to fail. Its like ICE cars vs. EVs it was always just a matter of time but it felt like it took forever. >How exactly do you think you could dethrone Bitcoin, overcoming its gigantic first-mover advantage? If you look at the bigger picture BTC loses market share and there is no sign that this will change. The gains are below average so people who only gamble have an incentive to gamble with something else.
- floatboth 5y ago
  Looks like FBA is not "trustless", which is actually excellent, but I'm not sure how that would fly in the current (criminal and fraudulent) cryptocurrency economy.

tromp 5y ago

Only PoW cryptocurrencies can be fairly distributed and avoid wealth concentration (although many fail to do so by concentrating most of emission in just the first few years).

tuesdayrain 5y ago
Fair distribution is not only completely subjective, but also meaningless. Given enough time, any valuable asset's distribution will be heavily concentrated in the hands of the rich.
- nybble41 5y ago
  > Given enough time, any valuable asset's distribution will be heavily concentrated in the hands of the rich. That reads like a tautology—they're called "the rich" because they have wealth, so naturally if you look at the distribution of assets most will be in the hands of the rich. One doesn't accumulate assets purely by being rich, however, as many a lottery winner can attest. Barring the occasional (and usually short-lived) windfall, for the most part those who attain wealth do so because they possess certain habits and preferences related to saving and investing. Even if you reset the distribution of wealth those tendencies would remain and bring about a gradual return to the original economic structure.
pskiba 5y ago
This is not true, saturation points on staking pools exist to encourage people moving to other pools, this causes more decentralization not less. Additionally, from a hardware perspective setting up a pool takes significantly less capital compared to PoW mining.
konschubert 5y ago
Not true, you need capital to mine. Capital begets capital even on pow.
- dragonelite 5y ago
  Pretty much that's why they say you need to let money work for you.