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>Aside from the troublesome regulatory issues, pure scams and lacking capabilities to counter financial crimes, the environmental impact is catastrophic. And I

by Tenoke 4y ago

>Aside from the troublesome regulatory issues, pure scams and lacking capabilities to counter financial crimes, the environmental impact is catastrophic. And I don't see Proof of Stake really changing that. The environmental impact of Proof of Stake is pretty small, the chain in question here is probably less wasteful electricity-wise than many of the companies people on HN work at.

kravvall 4y ago
Please show me at least one project that utilizes proof of stakes, works and has a decent user base.
- cliftonk 4y ago
  ethereum is changing its consensus mechanism to PoS later this year. when it does that, the only major PoW chain left will be bitcoin. all other smart contract chains with large userbases are PoS already.
  - kravvall 4y ago
    I heard that for quite some time now, but Ethereum keeps pushing it back. That's why I was wondering if there is something working out there.
- Tenoke 4y ago
  The projects mentioned in the article we are commenting on (or more accurately the chain they run on - Luna) are Proof of Stake. PoW is completely irrelevant here.
  - kravvall 4y ago
    Yes, and it can't hold it's peg, that's why we are here. So apparently this is not a functioning project that is working (as in "can solve its proposed use-case")
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      Total non-sequetor PoS and stablecoins are two orthogonal arguments, one has no effect on the other. This is like arguing that electric cars are better than diesel, and you retorting: but this tesla crashed into a wall, see electric cars suck!
      - couchand 4y ago
        As a disinterested bystander, it sure seems like, "this coin failed" is a reasonable rebuttal to the argument that this coin is an example of success.
        ambrozk 4y ago
        You may be disinterested, but you're not informed. The people above you are not arguing about whether LUNA is a successful coin in general, but over how it reflects on "proof of stake" vs. "proof of work" protocols. If you think LUNA losing their peg is a good argument against PoS, you don't know enough about cryptocurrency to judge these arguments. LUNA's peg to the dollar is ensured with a scheme that has zero to do with either proof of stake or proof of work. Saying Luna's failure redounds on proof of stake protocols is like saying that AOL's failure redounds on the HTTP protocol.
    - bavell 4y ago
      I think stablecoins are more or less a scam, but that has absolutely nothing to do with PoW vs PoS.
      - eru 4y ago
        Do you think real existing stablecoins are a scam, or do you think stablecoins by their very nature will be scams?
      - landemva 4y ago
        The USD stablecoin, backed by proof of army, is a fiat fraud propped up by gov't contractor known as "Federal Reserve".
- 0xRolex 4y ago
  Heard about Avalanche ecosystem ?
- xorcist 4y ago
  There are plenty, but none that are decentralized. They all use checkpoints or a trusted signer. Proof of work is a way to bootstrap consensus without a trusted party.
formerkrogemp 4y ago
Carbon footprints rivaling countries are not small when we're already at 1.2C of warming and barreling toward 1.5C within the next 5 years. Tell yourself it's not small when the equator becomes too hot for the majority of humanity living at those latitudes and the migrant levels increase significantly, among all of the other problems. The blaise approach people take to climate change just boggles my mind.
spinny 4y ago
PoS is a pipe dream for people that don't understand how PoW works. There is no cost to rewriting a PoS chain.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  Please expand. Frankly if POS isn't viable I don't see a future for POW either; especially when carbon costs are priced in. As things stand POW chains have traded massive inefficiency for decentralization. I doubt this can stand long term if we wish to address climate change. Crypto already has a higher energy use than many countries.
  - eru 4y ago
    I agree with most of what you say. However: > [...] especially when carbon costs are priced in. You misunderstand the economics of proof-of-work. Perhaps we should call it 'proof-of-waste'. Basically, in something like bitcoin proof-of-work functions a bit like an auction: the total amount of resources wasted on mining tends to equal the total amount of mining rewards. For simplicity, assume mining rewards are fixed. If hashing becomes cheaper, (eg first because of GPU miners, later because of ASICs), the hash rate will go up, but the total amount of resources wasted on mining will stay the same. If hashing becomes more expensive (eg because of a universal carbon tax), the hash rate will go down, but the total amount miners spend on mining stays the same. Arguably, that's exactly how a carbon tax is supposed to work in the best case. Of course, there will be plenty of incentives to avoid the carbon tax. Both by mining with clean power (good!) and by mining in places that don't implement the carbon tax (less good!).
    - spinny 4y ago
      > proof-of-waste half agree with that. PoW is the most efficient method of converting raw energy into a digitally secure token. It would be much better if the work done was actually useful beyond that. Some attempts have been done in the past, but with low success (Riecoin IIRC uses cpus to find sequences of primes, GridCoin used BOINC for the PoW, proof-of-boinc in that case). There is still work to be done on EVM chains. Contract calls need to be processed and verified by every (full) node

by Tenoke 4y ago

kravvall 4y ago

Please show me at least one project that utilizes proof of stakes, works and has a decent user base.

cliftonk 4y ago
ethereum is changing its consensus mechanism to PoS later this year. when it does that, the only major PoW chain left will be bitcoin. all other smart contract chains with large userbases are PoS already.
- kravvall 4y ago
  I heard that for quite some time now, but Ethereum keeps pushing it back. That's why I was wondering if there is something working out there.
Tenoke 4y ago
The projects mentioned in the article we are commenting on (or more accurately the chain they run on - Luna) are Proof of Stake. PoW is completely irrelevant here.
- kravvall 4y ago
  Yes, and it can't hold it's peg, that's why we are here. So apparently this is not a functioning project that is working (as in "can solve its proposed use-case")
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Total non-sequetor PoS and stablecoins are two orthogonal arguments, one has no effect on the other. This is like arguing that electric cars are better than diesel, and you retorting: but this tesla crashed into a wall, see electric cars suck!
    - couchand 4y ago
      As a disinterested bystander, it sure seems like, "this coin failed" is a reasonable rebuttal to the argument that this coin is an example of success.
      - ambrozk 4y ago
        You may be disinterested, but you're not informed. The people above you are not arguing about whether LUNA is a successful coin in general, but over how it reflects on "proof of stake" vs. "proof of work" protocols. If you think LUNA losing their peg is a good argument against PoS, you don't know enough about cryptocurrency to judge these arguments. LUNA's peg to the dollar is ensured with a scheme that has zero to do with either proof of stake or proof of work. Saying Luna's failure redounds on proof of stake protocols is like saying that AOL's failure redounds on the HTTP protocol.
  - bavell 4y ago
    I think stablecoins are more or less a scam, but that has absolutely nothing to do with PoW vs PoS.
    - eru 4y ago
      Do you think real existing stablecoins are a scam, or do you think stablecoins by their very nature will be scams?
    - landemva 4y ago
      The USD stablecoin, backed by proof of army, is a fiat fraud propped up by gov't contractor known as "Federal Reserve".
0xRolex 4y ago
Heard about Avalanche ecosystem ?
xorcist 4y ago
There are plenty, but none that are decentralized. They all use checkpoints or a trusted signer. Proof of work is a way to bootstrap consensus without a trusted party.

formerkrogemp 4y ago

Carbon footprints rivaling countries are not small when we're already at 1.2C of warming and barreling toward 1.5C within the next 5 years. Tell yourself it's not small when the equator becomes too hot for the majority of humanity living at those latitudes and the migrant levels increase significantly, among all of the other problems. The blaise approach people take to climate change just boggles my mind.

spinny 4y ago

PoS is a pipe dream for people that don't understand how PoW works. There is no cost to rewriting a PoS chain.

wing-_-nuts 4y ago
Please expand. Frankly if POS isn't viable I don't see a future for POW either; especially when carbon costs are priced in. As things stand POW chains have traded massive inefficiency for decentralization. I doubt this can stand long term if we wish to address climate change. Crypto already has a higher energy use than many countries.
- eru 4y ago
  I agree with most of what you say. However: > [...] especially when carbon costs are priced in. You misunderstand the economics of proof-of-work. Perhaps we should call it 'proof-of-waste'. Basically, in something like bitcoin proof-of-work functions a bit like an auction: the total amount of resources wasted on mining tends to equal the total amount of mining rewards. For simplicity, assume mining rewards are fixed. If hashing becomes cheaper, (eg first because of GPU miners, later because of ASICs), the hash rate will go up, but the total amount of resources wasted on mining will stay the same. If hashing becomes more expensive (eg because of a universal carbon tax), the hash rate will go down, but the total amount miners spend on mining stays the same. Arguably, that's exactly how a carbon tax is supposed to work in the best case. Of course, there will be plenty of incentives to avoid the carbon tax. Both by mining with clean power (good!) and by mining in places that don't implement the carbon tax (less good!).
  - spinny 4y ago
    > proof-of-waste half agree with that. PoW is the most efficient method of converting raw energy into a digitally secure token. It would be much better if the work done was actually useful beyond that. Some attempts have been done in the past, but with low success (Riecoin IIRC uses cpus to find sequences of primes, GridCoin used BOINC for the PoW, proof-of-boinc in that case). There is still work to be done on EVM chains. Contract calls need to be processed and verified by every (full) node