4 ms·

I’m not arguing that both systems (PoW and PoS) don’t have their issues with some measure of aggregated power, but it’s just a false narrative to say that stak

I’m not arguing that both systems (PoW and PoS) don’t have their issues with some measure of aggregated power, but it’s just a false narrative to say that staking and mining aren’t equally decentralized. The migration to PoS isn’t some rug-pull on miners, they’ve known about it for years. If there was legitimate protest, they’d refuse to adopt new versions that incorporated the ETH kill switch. The reason they haven’t? They have no skin in the game - most are mercenaries for hire, operating through centralized pools, cashing out whatever they mine. PoS is a superior system - more flexibility for decentralized participation (only benefit to pooling is convenience), and dramatically better for the environment at scale. Everyone who holds the asset (I.e. the people who should have the most say in platform operations) have invested in PoS, and want it. It’s widely supported. Unwillingness to accept anything other than “bitcoin is the way” is just baseless faith in modern garb.

littlestymaar 5y ago
> Unwillingness to accept anything other than “bitcoin is the way” is just baseless faith in modern garb. I've never said “bitcoin is the way”. Let me be clear, bitcoin is a giant CO2-emmiting turd invented by a libertarian who wanted to bring the gold standard back. But, if you're doing PoS you're not in a permissionless blockchain anymore (since you need to buy staking power), that's it. (And, BTW, if you don't need the sybil-resistance that permissionlessness implies, then you are in the realm of traditional distributed systems and using a blockchain is just path dependency at this point …)
- DennisP 5y ago
  You need to buy mining equipment too. To get the best returns on Bitcoin, you need the connections and scale to buy the latest ASIC hardware from the few manufacturers that make it.
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    Just because bitcoin is bad doesn't mean Ethereum isn't too.
    - DennisP 5y ago
      You said: "if you're doing PoS you're not in a permissionless blockchain anymore (since you need to buy staking power)." So my point was that having to buy stake doesn't make Ethereum's proof-of-stake any more permissioned than proof-of-work, where you have to buy mining equipment.

littlestymaar 5y ago

> Unwillingness to accept anything other than “bitcoin is the way” is just baseless faith in modern garb. I've never said “bitcoin is the way”. Let me be clear, bitcoin is a giant CO2-emmiting turd invented by a libertarian who wanted to bring the gold standard back. But, if you're doing PoS you're not in a permissionless blockchain anymore (since you need to buy staking power), that's it. (And, BTW, if you don't need the sybil-resistance that permissionlessness implies, then you are in the realm of traditional distributed systems and using a blockchain is just path dependency at this point …)

DennisP 5y ago
You need to buy mining equipment too. To get the best returns on Bitcoin, you need the connections and scale to buy the latest ASIC hardware from the few manufacturers that make it.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  Just because bitcoin is bad doesn't mean Ethereum isn't too.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    You said: "if you're doing PoS you're not in a permissionless blockchain anymore (since you need to buy staking power)." So my point was that having to buy stake doesn't make Ethereum's proof-of-stake any more permissioned than proof-of-work, where you have to buy mining equipment.