> [Infura is] just a rpc Infura is not 'just an rpc.' It takes real economic output to do what Infura does and its necessary for Ethereum to operate as well as

> [Infura is] just a rpc Infura is not 'just an rpc.' It takes real economic output to do what Infura does and its necessary for Ethereum to operate as well as it does today. If you force users to run their own lite nodes in their browsers they will simply leave, the alternative is that chain data interfaces centralize exactly as they have. > Infura is completely irrelevant as far as security goes, they have zero power to do anything related to consensus. Not directly, but the majority of data which ends up in block chains runs through Infura which accounts for transaction fees and affects the profits of miners. There are certainly levers to be pulled there. At the end of the day networking operations are important to security and therefore should be directly tied into consensus and the incentive system. That's why I bring up Saito, its work function is the quality of open networking provided. As far as staking goes. Stake isn't protected from custodial pools, its already condensing in pools since people want to stake and can't afford 32 Eth. Not only does that defeat the purpose of having an arbitrary requirement, it incentivizes users to give up control of their keys. Your failure condition for PoW is that someone eventually accumulates 51%, and you simply assume that it will happen. Convenient you get to ignore one of the best arguments for PoW, which is that sustainably mining, monopolizing mining, and centralizing the resources for profitable mining are all made extremely difficult by the distributed and remote nature of cheap energy. Scaling up with thin margins is not as simple as just buying another ASIC. But just like in Ethereum's proposed PoS system, controlling a PoW network to the point of disaster does nothing but damage the attacker's own investment. The incentives are basically the same: extract as much value without going noticed. Its not great in either case. Appreciate the enlightened discussion. It's in the spirit of crypto these systems are highly debated and it helps everyone get ahead and learn to participate in them.