36 ms·

Regarding point 2, not all blockchains use the useless calculation of hashes as a method to establish trust.

planb 4y ago
This comes up everytime someone mentions the energy waste, so please answer one simple question: Which web3 services that are CURRENTLY online are not based on proof of work?
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  It's not like they don't exist, they just have a lot of problems scaling to capacities that are in any way meaningful.
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    Might you or someone else say what or where the bottlenecks are that prevent these from scaling?
    - redox99 4y ago
      The biggest challenge in general is that the approach of storing every transaction forever leads to petabytes of storage. And you can't expect a decentralized system to require petabytes of storage.
      - bogomipz 4y ago
        I apologize if this a naive question but Proof of work is also decentralized no? Why does Proof of Stake incur these scaling limitations but Proof of work does not?
        coffeeblack 4y ago
        Both do.
        bogomipz 4y ago
        Can you elaborate? The person I was replying to indicated that the problem was one of storage however the only scalability problems I have seen written about have been around transaction processing.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem
      - MacroChip 4y ago
        Not every node has to store every transaction ever. Nodes can prune old state
- 4pkjai 4y ago
  https://www.projectserum.com/ https://www.projectserum.com/ I'm not pro web3, but it didn't take much effort for me to find an example.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
- 0x64 4y ago
  Any Ethereum L2 that commits transaction bundles to the mainnet, plus anything on Binance's EVM chain, Cardano, Solana, Polkadot, Avalanche... They're all proof-of-stake or not based on PoW. And, Ethereum will transition to PoS by this year, ideally in August. All of the popular nine Ethereum execution/consensus clients should be ready for the merge, and mainnet has already been test-merged five times successfully. The first existing PoW testnet will be merged on the first week of June. After that, there's two testnets remaining that will be upgraded (Ropsten -> Goerli -> Sepolia), and then it's time for mainnet.
  - coffeeblack 4y ago
    Interesting. Never thought that Eth will actually transition it’s consensus method. So that means there’s hope for Bitcoin to do the same some day.
    - DonHopkins 4y ago
  - skocznymroczny 4y ago
    > Ethereum will transition to PoS by this year, ideally in August. I feel like every year is the year when Ethereum will finally transition to PoS, but it never happens.
    - 0x64 4y ago
      Name another year that has had feature-ready clients across the board, with a working merge transition mechanism implemented across all of them. The proof-of-stake chain we're merging to was launched in December of 2020, and has been running since, with almost 400'000 validators currently.
    - rekoil 4y ago
      The difference is that this time we actually have testnets already running the full Proof-of-Stake code, most recent news on this front is that the Ropsten testnet will merge on June 8th, that's a huge milestone considering Ropsten is like _the_ testnet if you're developing for the EVM, and is only slightly younger than the ETH mainnet itself.
- coffeeblack 4y ago
  Not an expert, but as far as I know IOTA and NANO as two examples.
- ddjsn111 4y ago
  Algorand, Cardano
hnbad 4y ago
Yeah, the alternative is called proof of stake. Now please explain to me how "having a lot of money means you get more control and more money in the future" as a system is in any way adhering to the promise that crypto will disrupt the existing oligopolies and bring power back to the people (unless you define "the people" as "other billionaires who missed out on being part of the current tech oligopolies and want to be Caliph in the place of the Caliph).
- Kbelicius 4y ago
  Now please explain to me how what you wrote doesn't apply to PoW.
  - hnbad 4y ago
    It does. What's your point? The only difference is proof-of-work measures it more indirectly by letting rich people compete in how fast they can burn cash rather than just flaunting what they have. Both are bad.
    - Kbelicius 4y ago
      My point is.. it does. I can now see that I've misinterpreted your post, apologies.

This comes up everytime someone mentions the energy waste, so please answer one simple question: Which web3 services that are CURRENTLY online are not based on proof of work?

sascha_sl 4y ago
It's not like they don't exist, they just have a lot of problems scaling to capacities that are in any way meaningful.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  Might you or someone else say what or where the bottlenecks are that prevent these from scaling?
  - redox99 4y ago
    The biggest challenge in general is that the approach of storing every transaction forever leads to petabytes of storage. And you can't expect a decentralized system to require petabytes of storage.
    - bogomipz 4y ago
      I apologize if this a naive question but Proof of work is also decentralized no? Why does Proof of Stake incur these scaling limitations but Proof of work does not?
      - coffeeblack 4y ago
        Both do.
        bogomipz 4y ago
        Can you elaborate? The person I was replying to indicated that the problem was one of storage however the only scalability problems I have seen written about have been around transaction processing.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem
    - MacroChip 4y ago
      Not every node has to store every transaction ever. Nodes can prune old state
4pkjai 4y ago
https://www.projectserum.com/ https://www.projectserum.com/ I'm not pro web3, but it didn't take much effort for me to find an example.
- LegitShady 4y ago
0x64 4y ago
Any Ethereum L2 that commits transaction bundles to the mainnet, plus anything on Binance's EVM chain, Cardano, Solana, Polkadot, Avalanche... They're all proof-of-stake or not based on PoW. And, Ethereum will transition to PoS by this year, ideally in August. All of the popular nine Ethereum execution/consensus clients should be ready for the merge, and mainnet has already been test-merged five times successfully. The first existing PoW testnet will be merged on the first week of June. After that, there's two testnets remaining that will be upgraded (Ropsten -> Goerli -> Sepolia), and then it's time for mainnet.
- coffeeblack 4y ago
  Interesting. Never thought that Eth will actually transition it’s consensus method. So that means there’s hope for Bitcoin to do the same some day.
  - DonHopkins 4y ago
- skocznymroczny 4y ago
  > Ethereum will transition to PoS by this year, ideally in August. I feel like every year is the year when Ethereum will finally transition to PoS, but it never happens.
  - 0x64 4y ago
    Name another year that has had feature-ready clients across the board, with a working merge transition mechanism implemented across all of them. The proof-of-stake chain we're merging to was launched in December of 2020, and has been running since, with almost 400'000 validators currently.
  - rekoil 4y ago
    The difference is that this time we actually have testnets already running the full Proof-of-Stake code, most recent news on this front is that the Ropsten testnet will merge on June 8th, that's a huge milestone considering Ropsten is like _the_ testnet if you're developing for the EVM, and is only slightly younger than the ETH mainnet itself.
coffeeblack 4y ago
Not an expert, but as far as I know IOTA and NANO as two examples.
ddjsn111 4y ago
Algorand, Cardano

hnbad 4y ago

Yeah, the alternative is called proof of stake. Now please explain to me how "having a lot of money means you get more control and more money in the future" as a system is in any way adhering to the promise that crypto will disrupt the existing oligopolies and bring power back to the people (unless you define "the people" as "other billionaires who missed out on being part of the current tech oligopolies and want to be Caliph in the place of the Caliph).

Kbelicius 4y ago
Now please explain to me how what you wrote doesn't apply to PoW.
- hnbad 4y ago
  It does. What's your point? The only difference is proof-of-work measures it more indirectly by letting rich people compete in how fast they can burn cash rather than just flaunting what they have. Both are bad.
  - Kbelicius 4y ago
    My point is.. it does. I can now see that I've misinterpreted your post, apologies.