3 ms·

Lol. Ethereum is far from the first cryptocurrency to use proof of stake. Even before modern top 10s like Cardana and Solana, there was Peercoin as the original

Lol. Ethereum is far from the first cryptocurrency to use proof of stake. Even before modern top 10s like Cardana and Solana, there was Peercoin as the original PoS coin, which at one point was a top 3 coin by market cap. If anything, Ethereum has been dragging it's feet on this. They originally planned to roll out PoS within a couple years after launch, and we're still here 7 years later. That's years of "wasted" proof of work when plenty of other coins rolled out PoS day one. This isn't actually about choosing the most impressive technological innovation. This just a cheap political attack on bitcoin's PoW, in some kind of attempt to shame it into transitioning to PoS too, which is never going to happen. The bitcoin mindshare is completely locked in to PoW as a mission critical feature of the system, which would destroy the entire endeavor if transitioned away from.

capableweb 5y ago
The title is "MIT Chose Ethereum’s PoS As Top Technological Breakthrough", not "MIT declares Ethereum’s PoS As First PoS". Implementation matters more than "first!!11!". Obviously, starting with PoS is gonna be easier than creating a network and currency on PoW and then enabling the transition from PoW to PoS. "Dragging their feet" is a funny way of saying "taking their time to implement it correctly". None of this stuff is easy and since most of the work is novel, it makes it extra hard to make sure everything is ok implemented. If you take a closer look at Ethereums implementation of PoS, you'll notice there are a couple of novel ideas, which I'm guessing is why they got mentioned here. Another user in this submission already expanded on it too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30515423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30515423
- anonporridge 5y ago
  I think the real problem is that PoS tokens have a huge legitimacy problem. Even Ethereum continues to be plagued with their 60% premine and presale to early investors, of which we have little visibility into who those investors were. There is some evidence floating around of Vitalik and company working with very wealthy clients to obscure the size of Ethereum presale purchases. Years of PoW mining helps a bit to legitimize things, because it potentially diluted initial investors. Legacy PoS tokens, like the USD, achieved legitimacy initially by backing with real money (gold) before eventually cutting ties and trying to stand without hard backing, but instead stand on trust in the institution that controls the consensus mechanism. Ethereum seems to be attempting a similar transition now, cutting itself from a hard energy backing that keeps large stakeholders in check. At the end of the day, it's all about trust. Ethereum has their work cut out for them to establish large scale trust both in their transition to PoS as well as trust as a free floating currency, backed only by the Ethereum consensus makers, which could secretly be a small cabal of large stakeholders with majority control.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    I would argue they already did achieve large scale trust, based on how many billions of assets are traded on the network.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      For sure. I certainly have trusted a significant single digit percentage of my wealth in Ethereum. But that's only predicated on them using PoW. I own no PoS tokens. I will likely dump my Eth once they lock in PoS and it becomes clear that they can't back peddle.
      - michaelsbradley 5y ago
        Are you aware of how proof-of-stake works in the Ethereum Beacon Chain? To activate one validator node you stake 32 ETH (just ETH, no special token), no more and no less, i.e. your node can't be activated with less than 32 ETH staked and depositing more than 32 ETH is pointless (makes no difference). There are queues for activation and exit, so a node can't just jump in or out of that role on a moment's notice, needs to be anticipated over days and if it does immediately "drop off" then there will be penalties. All validators have equal weight and are randomly selected over time, for limited amounts of time, to carry out various responsibilities: attestations, block proposals, sync committees, slashing. In the big scheme of things, the main reason to run a validator node is the opportunity cost re: the estimated APR on the 32 ETH per rewards accumulated for correctly carrying out the various responsibilities mentioned above, versus doing something else in that time period with resources equivalent to 32 ETH + hardware/resource costs of running the node.
    - rvz 5y ago
      The whole point of a public blockchain is for it to be trustless. Why do you even need to factor in achieving 'Large scale trust' with the largest Ethereum stakeholders to not say, attempt to revert a massive hack in 2016 to save the investors lost money? Why should I have to trust them to not do that again if another hack happened, even if they migrate to PoS and it causes a giant fork once again?
- rvz 5y ago
  A long way of saying: 'Until then, it's not ready yet and we'll see when they actually move to PoS'* (Which at this current time, is more centralized than mining and makes the largest holders even richer). I don't think I am going to tell someone to wait for 7+ years for something that doesn't exist yet in order to actually 'use it', unless I'm speculating on the price of the cryptocurrency.

capableweb 5y ago

The title is "MIT Chose Ethereum’s PoS As Top Technological Breakthrough", not "MIT declares Ethereum’s PoS As First PoS". Implementation matters more than "first!!11!". Obviously, starting with PoS is gonna be easier than creating a network and currency on PoW and then enabling the transition from PoW to PoS. "Dragging their feet" is a funny way of saying "taking their time to implement it correctly". None of this stuff is easy and since most of the work is novel, it makes it extra hard to make sure everything is ok implemented. If you take a closer look at Ethereums implementation of PoS, you'll notice there are a couple of novel ideas, which I'm guessing is why they got mentioned here. Another user in this submission already expanded on it too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30515423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30515423

anonporridge 5y ago
I think the real problem is that PoS tokens have a huge legitimacy problem. Even Ethereum continues to be plagued with their 60% premine and presale to early investors, of which we have little visibility into who those investors were. There is some evidence floating around of Vitalik and company working with very wealthy clients to obscure the size of Ethereum presale purchases. Years of PoW mining helps a bit to legitimize things, because it potentially diluted initial investors. Legacy PoS tokens, like the USD, achieved legitimacy initially by backing with real money (gold) before eventually cutting ties and trying to stand without hard backing, but instead stand on trust in the institution that controls the consensus mechanism. Ethereum seems to be attempting a similar transition now, cutting itself from a hard energy backing that keeps large stakeholders in check. At the end of the day, it's all about trust. Ethereum has their work cut out for them to establish large scale trust both in their transition to PoS as well as trust as a free floating currency, backed only by the Ethereum consensus makers, which could secretly be a small cabal of large stakeholders with majority control.
- thebean11 5y ago
  I would argue they already did achieve large scale trust, based on how many billions of assets are traded on the network.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    For sure. I certainly have trusted a significant single digit percentage of my wealth in Ethereum. But that's only predicated on them using PoW. I own no PoS tokens. I will likely dump my Eth once they lock in PoS and it becomes clear that they can't back peddle.
    - michaelsbradley 5y ago
      Are you aware of how proof-of-stake works in the Ethereum Beacon Chain? To activate one validator node you stake 32 ETH (just ETH, no special token), no more and no less, i.e. your node can't be activated with less than 32 ETH staked and depositing more than 32 ETH is pointless (makes no difference). There are queues for activation and exit, so a node can't just jump in or out of that role on a moment's notice, needs to be anticipated over days and if it does immediately "drop off" then there will be penalties. All validators have equal weight and are randomly selected over time, for limited amounts of time, to carry out various responsibilities: attestations, block proposals, sync committees, slashing. In the big scheme of things, the main reason to run a validator node is the opportunity cost re: the estimated APR on the 32 ETH per rewards accumulated for correctly carrying out the various responsibilities mentioned above, versus doing something else in that time period with resources equivalent to 32 ETH + hardware/resource costs of running the node.
  - rvz 5y ago
    The whole point of a public blockchain is for it to be trustless. Why do you even need to factor in achieving 'Large scale trust' with the largest Ethereum stakeholders to not say, attempt to revert a massive hack in 2016 to save the investors lost money? Why should I have to trust them to not do that again if another hack happened, even if they migrate to PoS and it causes a giant fork once again?
rvz 5y ago
A long way of saying: 'Until then, it's not ready yet and we'll see when they actually move to PoS'* (Which at this current time, is more centralized than mining and makes the largest holders even richer). I don't think I am going to tell someone to wait for 7+ years for something that doesn't exist yet in order to actually 'use it', unless I'm speculating on the price of the cryptocurrency.