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> Will it happen some day? It doesn't happen all at once, it's a transition. There are billions staked in ETH2 already. > But we don't know how PoS will go fo

> Will it happen some day? It doesn't happen all at once, it's a transition. There are billions staked in ETH2 already. > But we don't know how PoS will go for ETH once it has moved. There's quite a few PoS coins that are working well, Algorand comes to mind. > Besides, there are many other negative exernalities that the move to PoS won't get rid of. Such as?

shafyy 5y ago
> Such as? Enabling fraud, enabling ransomware, enabling authoritarian dictators to enrich themselves. Furthermore there's still Bitcoin that will never move to PoS, and the popularity of ETH also swaps over to Bitcoin and other cryptos. Yes, yes, there are also scams in fiat money blabla. The problem here is, that cryptos are a strictly zero-sum game and don't add any value to anybody except people who are able to dump their coins to the next greater fool. So why should we accept all these disproportionate externalities?
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Stolen credit cards and chargebacks are a big problem. Fiat currency has a whole slew of problems. Mastercard, Visa, Stripe and PayPal don't allow at risk products like in-game currencies, porn, etc. They frequently use their powers to cut off funding for certain political targets. I don't think simply yelling "fraud" and "scams" is enough to dissuade people anymore. New talking point please. Honestly the anti-crypto sentiment here is ridiculous. I hope people know that the same people preaching against it here are gobbling up crypto as fast as they can while trying to dissuade others.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    Why would anyone “gobbling up crypto as fast as they can” hurt the value of their investment by trying to dissuade others?
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      Dissuading only hurts in the short run, it's good to keep the prices down if you want to long. If you think it will be more lucrative in the future it helps to extend the current prices by investing while dissuading others to invest. They'd have to get in at a later, much higher price in that scenario.
  - shafyy 5y ago
    > I hope people know that the same people preaching against it here are gobbling up crypto as fast as they can while trying to dissuade others. Only a person who extends their crypto-scam thinking to others would think this way. I can assure you that I don't hold any crypto, and that I'm pretty certain that the majority of outspoken crypto sceptics don't hold any crypto.
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
  > Enabling fraud, enabling ransomware, enabling authoritarian dictators to enrich themselves. iTunes gift cards, iTunes gift cards, oil. Can we ban those too?
  - otterley 5y ago
    Ahh, whataboutism, the gas fee equivalent of HN.
  - Tretiotrr 5y ago
    Weird strawman argument. But yes. Let's ban it.
300bps 5y ago
I don't disagree that it's a transition but hash rate has only gone up: https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_network_hash_rate https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_network_hash_rate
- always2slow 5y ago
  Your own link disproves you, look at the 5 year chart.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    Just checked the five year chart. It proves GP correct. The hash rate has increased by two orders of magnitude since then.
  - 300bps 5y ago
    Took me a minute to understand what you were talking about. The context of my claim was, "Since transitioning to PoS, hash rate has only gone up". You seem to think it's disproved by the fact that hashrate has gone slightly down for brief periods in the past even before the transition to PoS. Hashrate has increased from 14.86 to 1001 Th/s in the past 5 years and is at an all-time high. Since "transitioning" to PoS, it has not gone down.
    - always2slow 5y ago
      So saying that "the hashrate has only gone up" implies the hashrate never goes down [between any comparison point], but you agree that over some comparison points as displayed by the five year graph the hashrate has gone down correct? Yes, the hashrate graph has a positive slope over large time series, but it does go down at various points along the time series so therefore saying "the hashrate has only gone up" is a false statement.
      - 300bps 5y ago
        Respectfully, you are reading English words like a robot and completely ignoring the context of the conversation. Similarly, if I were to say, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" it would not be helpful for you to whip up calculations thereby proving my stomach is not large enough to accommodate the volume of horse meat necessary to make this true. I have run into this in about 1 out of 50 interactions on HN over the years and I find it most helpful to point this out and mean no disrespect by it.
AlexandrB 5y ago
> Such as? This video[1] covers a bunch and doesn't even mention energy usage much. Off the top of my head: rampant fraud[2] (e.g. so-called rugs in the NFT space and stolen artwork being minted as NFTs), financialization of everything, strong incentives to build intrusive DRM to enable "true" NFT ownership, creating incentives to hoard vs. invest thanks to deflationary currency, and loss of privacy (everything on a public blockchain). [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g [2] Oh and thanks to how blockchain technologies work, fraudulent transactions are often irreversible.

shafyy 5y ago

> Such as? Enabling fraud, enabling ransomware, enabling authoritarian dictators to enrich themselves. Furthermore there's still Bitcoin that will never move to PoS, and the popularity of ETH also swaps over to Bitcoin and other cryptos. Yes, yes, there are also scams in fiat money blabla. The problem here is, that cryptos are a strictly zero-sum game and don't add any value to anybody except people who are able to dump their coins to the next greater fool. So why should we accept all these disproportionate externalities?

hunterb123 5y ago
Stolen credit cards and chargebacks are a big problem. Fiat currency has a whole slew of problems. Mastercard, Visa, Stripe and PayPal don't allow at risk products like in-game currencies, porn, etc. They frequently use their powers to cut off funding for certain political targets. I don't think simply yelling "fraud" and "scams" is enough to dissuade people anymore. New talking point please. Honestly the anti-crypto sentiment here is ridiculous. I hope people know that the same people preaching against it here are gobbling up crypto as fast as they can while trying to dissuade others.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Why would anyone “gobbling up crypto as fast as they can” hurt the value of their investment by trying to dissuade others?
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    Dissuading only hurts in the short run, it's good to keep the prices down if you want to long. If you think it will be more lucrative in the future it helps to extend the current prices by investing while dissuading others to invest. They'd have to get in at a later, much higher price in that scenario.
- shafyy 5y ago
  > I hope people know that the same people preaching against it here are gobbling up crypto as fast as they can while trying to dissuade others. Only a person who extends their crypto-scam thinking to others would think this way. I can assure you that I don't hold any crypto, and that I'm pretty certain that the majority of outspoken crypto sceptics don't hold any crypto.
WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
> Enabling fraud, enabling ransomware, enabling authoritarian dictators to enrich themselves. iTunes gift cards, iTunes gift cards, oil. Can we ban those too?
- otterley 5y ago
  Ahh, whataboutism, the gas fee equivalent of HN.
- Tretiotrr 5y ago
  Weird strawman argument. But yes. Let's ban it.

300bps 5y ago

I don't disagree that it's a transition but hash rate has only gone up: https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_network_hash_rate https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_network_hash_rate

always2slow 5y ago
Your own link disproves you, look at the 5 year chart.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Just checked the five year chart. It proves GP correct. The hash rate has increased by two orders of magnitude since then.
- 300bps 5y ago
  Took me a minute to understand what you were talking about. The context of my claim was, "Since transitioning to PoS, hash rate has only gone up". You seem to think it's disproved by the fact that hashrate has gone slightly down for brief periods in the past even before the transition to PoS. Hashrate has increased from 14.86 to 1001 Th/s in the past 5 years and is at an all-time high. Since "transitioning" to PoS, it has not gone down.
  - always2slow 5y ago
    So saying that "the hashrate has only gone up" implies the hashrate never goes down [between any comparison point], but you agree that over some comparison points as displayed by the five year graph the hashrate has gone down correct? Yes, the hashrate graph has a positive slope over large time series, but it does go down at various points along the time series so therefore saying "the hashrate has only gone up" is a false statement.
    - 300bps 5y ago
      Respectfully, you are reading English words like a robot and completely ignoring the context of the conversation. Similarly, if I were to say, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" it would not be helpful for you to whip up calculations thereby proving my stomach is not large enough to accommodate the volume of horse meat necessary to make this true. I have run into this in about 1 out of 50 interactions on HN over the years and I find it most helpful to point this out and mean no disrespect by it.

AlexandrB 5y ago

> Such as? This video[1] covers a bunch and doesn't even mention energy usage much. Off the top of my head: rampant fraud[2] (e.g. so-called rugs in the NFT space and stolen artwork being minted as NFTs), financialization of everything, strong incentives to build intrusive DRM to enable "true" NFT ownership, creating incentives to hoard vs. invest thanks to deflationary currency, and loss of privacy (everything on a public blockchain). [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g [2] Oh and thanks to how blockchain technologies work, fraudulent transactions are often irreversible.