4 ms·

While I have heard a myriad of arguments against PoS, my opinion is that the ecological benefits alone are worth switching as soon as possible. We can continue

by zionic 4y ago

While I have heard a myriad of arguments against PoS, my opinion is that the ecological benefits alone are worth switching as soon as possible. We can continue to iterate on it to improve the negative sides, but we can’t afford to wait for a “perfect” replacement forever while PoW does such extreme harm.

tylersmith 4y ago
The main feature of PoW over PoS is being completely objective and uncensorable. There will always be networks using it because of this even when most are using and better off with PoS.
- zionic 4y ago
  How is PoS easier to censor than PoW, specificity ETH 2.0’s implementation.
  - eldenwrong 4y ago
    Vitalik Buterin : stop all trading!! Reverse the chain! Its okay if we control all the supply because we have it in the premine to our friends and they have the best interest in keeping Ethereum safe.
  - yokem55 4y ago
    Yeah, the most obvious externality of an ethereum validator is a few megabits of sustained internet traffic that makes it difficult to run on capped internet services. Otherwise it is just a matter of being able to buy the eth, setting up the node (cheap commodity pc hardware) and putting it in a corner in your home. In contrast for POW you have to be able to source specialized hardware and an electricity supply cheap enough to make the hardware profitable, both of which are much more noticable to the outside world.
    - tylersmith 4y ago
      The censorship doesn't happen at the network level but at the protocol level, by removing a validators stake.
      - yokem55 4y ago
        Which would either require an in protocol slashing event or a hard fork. In which case the fork with the broadest legitamacy would prevail (see the events around the Steem/Hive hard fork). Blockchains cannot escape being fundamentally social creatures with values and priorities and the communities around those chains will ultimately have the last word about their operation.
        tylersmith 4y ago
        I'm not sure what your point is. Obviously it would require a protocol change, and such a change can't be done with fungible work.
  - tylersmith 4y ago
    The first way is that it's subjective; you have to trust the initial source of the data to give you the correct validator set to use layer. This is a vector for censoring some stake. The second, probably more important way, is that validators in PoS can decide to ignore or slash a particular validators stake. This can't be done in PoW because the hashes are fungible and stake is not.
    - rcxdude 4y ago
      AFAIK, the PoS in ethereum is structured that it is extremely hard to ignore a stake (you're vulnerable to slashing if you do), and that you are only vulnerable to slashing if you cheat (not if you are merely offline, at which point you just forego any rewards). Counteracting this requires a similar or greater amount than a PoW chain would require for similar effects (where a 51% attack can also simply refuse to build off of a particular miners blocks, thus effectively stopping their reward).
- redox99 4y ago
  How is PoW more objective or uncensorable than PoS? Both are vulnerable to 51% attacks. And in my opinion PoS is safer. If a malicious group gets 51% of PoS ETH you can fork the chain to a new one that removes the malicious actor stake. With PoW the most you can do is fork to something with a new mining algorithm. But that really only works against ASICs and to a certain extent. You're pretty much fucked in that scenario.
  - tylersmith 4y ago
    > How is PoW more objective PoS is inherently self referential. To know the state at time N you must agree to a subjective view of validators within at least some subjectivity period of N. PoW has no such requirement and a chain of headers needs no additional information to verify. > If a malicious group gets 51% of PoS ETH you can fork the chain to a new one that removes the malicious actor stake. This kind of censorship is exactly what I mean. You can't fork away a PoW miners hasherate without blowing up everyone's hashrate. The fact that this may be wanted in some form is one reason many protocols are better off with PoS, but it's still a censorship vector that isn't available in PoW. You're arguing reasons that PoS censorship points are ideal not that they don't exist.
    - redox99 4y ago
      > PoS is inherently self referential. To know the state at time N you must agree to a subjective view of validators within at least some subjectivity period of N. PoW has no such requirement and a chain of headers needs no additional information to verify. Considering that the weak subjectivity period is so long (months), having to sync "out of band" is not really a big deal. And unlike PoW, where you need to wait some confirmations to make up for network latency, with PoS you have actual finality assuming no 33% attack, which can be detected and punished. > This kind of censorship is exactly what I mean. You can't fork away a PoW miners hasherate without blowing up everyone's hashrate. The fact that this may be wanted in some form is one reason many protocols are better off with PoS, but it's still a censorship vector that isn't available in PoW. > You're arguing reasons that PoS censorship points are ideal not that they don't exist. PoS or PoW aren't any more or less hard forkable. Any network can be hard forked (ie people agreeing to run new software with new rules) if people agree so. This is basically the social consensus, which is always above any other kind of consensus. The "censorship" that you mention here is not a matter of a network currently being PoW or PoS. You could hard fork Bitcoin to PoS and take away some people's money (therefore they couldn't validate) if peopled agreed to do so. There are two types of censorship, which are being confused here A) Miners/validators censoring certain addresses (not allowing their TXs to go through) B) Not allowing certain people to become miners/validators A is the real problem. However B can lead to A so it's also important. In a PoW network where a malicious actor is doing A and has a lot of hardware and money to buy new hardware, you can't fix your network even with hardforks (outside of moving to PoS) In a PoS if people agree to do so, they can hard fork and keep everything the same but take away their stake. Now, your point is that people can do B via hardforks that take away people's stake. True but that is kind of irrelevant. With hardforks you can do whatever you want, steal anybodies money, switch the network to whatever validation system, etc. But why would people care about your hardfork? It's all about what hardfork people agree is the one that matters. Which is not something technical, is something social.
kayamon 4y ago
The electrical costs are not there to do harm. They are there to ground the economy in reality. Energy is expensive. That's the point. A functioning world economy can't just exist in magic-computer-land, where it's just made up numbers in some madman's COBOL database. It has to have a tie to reality to work properly, and achieve worldwide consensus on the true price of energy and thereby other assets.

by zionic 4y ago

tylersmith 4y ago

The main feature of PoW over PoS is being completely objective and uncensorable. There will always be networks using it because of this even when most are using and better off with PoS.

zionic 4y ago
How is PoS easier to censor than PoW, specificity ETH 2.0’s implementation.
- eldenwrong 4y ago
  Vitalik Buterin : stop all trading!! Reverse the chain! Its okay if we control all the supply because we have it in the premine to our friends and they have the best interest in keeping Ethereum safe.
- yokem55 4y ago
  Yeah, the most obvious externality of an ethereum validator is a few megabits of sustained internet traffic that makes it difficult to run on capped internet services. Otherwise it is just a matter of being able to buy the eth, setting up the node (cheap commodity pc hardware) and putting it in a corner in your home. In contrast for POW you have to be able to source specialized hardware and an electricity supply cheap enough to make the hardware profitable, both of which are much more noticable to the outside world.
  - tylersmith 4y ago
    The censorship doesn't happen at the network level but at the protocol level, by removing a validators stake.
    - yokem55 4y ago
      Which would either require an in protocol slashing event or a hard fork. In which case the fork with the broadest legitamacy would prevail (see the events around the Steem/Hive hard fork). Blockchains cannot escape being fundamentally social creatures with values and priorities and the communities around those chains will ultimately have the last word about their operation.
      - tylersmith 4y ago
        I'm not sure what your point is. Obviously it would require a protocol change, and such a change can't be done with fungible work.
- tylersmith 4y ago
  The first way is that it's subjective; you have to trust the initial source of the data to give you the correct validator set to use layer. This is a vector for censoring some stake. The second, probably more important way, is that validators in PoS can decide to ignore or slash a particular validators stake. This can't be done in PoW because the hashes are fungible and stake is not.
  - rcxdude 4y ago
    AFAIK, the PoS in ethereum is structured that it is extremely hard to ignore a stake (you're vulnerable to slashing if you do), and that you are only vulnerable to slashing if you cheat (not if you are merely offline, at which point you just forego any rewards). Counteracting this requires a similar or greater amount than a PoW chain would require for similar effects (where a 51% attack can also simply refuse to build off of a particular miners blocks, thus effectively stopping their reward).
redox99 4y ago
How is PoW more objective or uncensorable than PoS? Both are vulnerable to 51% attacks. And in my opinion PoS is safer. If a malicious group gets 51% of PoS ETH you can fork the chain to a new one that removes the malicious actor stake. With PoW the most you can do is fork to something with a new mining algorithm. But that really only works against ASICs and to a certain extent. You're pretty much fucked in that scenario.
- tylersmith 4y ago
  > How is PoW more objective PoS is inherently self referential. To know the state at time N you must agree to a subjective view of validators within at least some subjectivity period of N. PoW has no such requirement and a chain of headers needs no additional information to verify. > If a malicious group gets 51% of PoS ETH you can fork the chain to a new one that removes the malicious actor stake. This kind of censorship is exactly what I mean. You can't fork away a PoW miners hasherate without blowing up everyone's hashrate. The fact that this may be wanted in some form is one reason many protocols are better off with PoS, but it's still a censorship vector that isn't available in PoW. You're arguing reasons that PoS censorship points are ideal not that they don't exist.
  - redox99 4y ago
    > PoS is inherently self referential. To know the state at time N you must agree to a subjective view of validators within at least some subjectivity period of N. PoW has no such requirement and a chain of headers needs no additional information to verify. Considering that the weak subjectivity period is so long (months), having to sync "out of band" is not really a big deal. And unlike PoW, where you need to wait some confirmations to make up for network latency, with PoS you have actual finality assuming no 33% attack, which can be detected and punished. > This kind of censorship is exactly what I mean. You can't fork away a PoW miners hasherate without blowing up everyone's hashrate. The fact that this may be wanted in some form is one reason many protocols are better off with PoS, but it's still a censorship vector that isn't available in PoW. > You're arguing reasons that PoS censorship points are ideal not that they don't exist. PoS or PoW aren't any more or less hard forkable. Any network can be hard forked (ie people agreeing to run new software with new rules) if people agree so. This is basically the social consensus, which is always above any other kind of consensus. The "censorship" that you mention here is not a matter of a network currently being PoW or PoS. You could hard fork Bitcoin to PoS and take away some people's money (therefore they couldn't validate) if peopled agreed to do so. There are two types of censorship, which are being confused here A) Miners/validators censoring certain addresses (not allowing their TXs to go through) B) Not allowing certain people to become miners/validators A is the real problem. However B can lead to A so it's also important. In a PoW network where a malicious actor is doing A and has a lot of hardware and money to buy new hardware, you can't fix your network even with hardforks (outside of moving to PoS) In a PoS if people agree to do so, they can hard fork and keep everything the same but take away their stake. Now, your point is that people can do B via hardforks that take away people's stake. True but that is kind of irrelevant. With hardforks you can do whatever you want, steal anybodies money, switch the network to whatever validation system, etc. But why would people care about your hardfork? It's all about what hardfork people agree is the one that matters. Which is not something technical, is something social.

kayamon 4y ago

The electrical costs are not there to do harm. They are there to ground the economy in reality. Energy is expensive. That's the point. A functioning world economy can't just exist in magic-computer-land, where it's just made up numbers in some madman's COBOL database. It has to have a tie to reality to work properly, and achieve worldwide consensus on the true price of energy and thereby other assets.