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The more people mining in proof of work, the more random hashes needed to secure a block. This is what makes it demand so much energy. This isn’t the case with

The more people mining in proof of work, the more random hashes needed to secure a block. This is what makes it demand so much energy. This isn’t the case with ZK provers. Each computation yields a solution, like regular fixed arithmetic math. Using more powerful FPGAs and adding more parallel provers, you can prove the same circuits in less time and less energy.

latchkey 4y ago
The more people using ETH, the more computation that will need to be done. The more hardware that will be needed to support everything. The end goal is scalability, right?
- whatisweb3 4y ago
  Yes, like computers, the internet, electric trains. Computers used to take up a room and compute a few thousand cycles per second. Now they can fit in our pockets and compute billions of cycles per second. As hardware accelerated and parallel ZK proving technology increases, the amount of users and applications built on this technology can also increase. This is the opposite of Proof of Work, where more efficient mining rigs and higher hash rates will not lead to more network throughput or activity.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    I'm not arguing for (or against) PoW. I'm saying that zk is being targeted for ASICs (Vitalik said it himself) and that zk will require some very specific compute needs that not everyone is going to be able to provide.
    - whatisweb3 4y ago
      Sure, we are in agreement then. It is a great thing as it will enable the blockchain to continue to scale for more users and more applications, and it is the opposite of the energy inefficiencies of the current PoW system.
      - latchkey 4y ago
        Well... I do think that the power usage overall isn't going to go down. Certainly ETH switching off PoW will be a great reset, but over time... people will find ways to continue to use more power when it comes to compute. Put it another way, the datacenter market isn't getting smaller any time soon.

latchkey 4y ago

The more people using ETH, the more computation that will need to be done. The more hardware that will be needed to support everything. The end goal is scalability, right?

whatisweb3 4y ago
Yes, like computers, the internet, electric trains. Computers used to take up a room and compute a few thousand cycles per second. Now they can fit in our pockets and compute billions of cycles per second. As hardware accelerated and parallel ZK proving technology increases, the amount of users and applications built on this technology can also increase. This is the opposite of Proof of Work, where more efficient mining rigs and higher hash rates will not lead to more network throughput or activity.
- latchkey 4y ago
  I'm not arguing for (or against) PoW. I'm saying that zk is being targeted for ASICs (Vitalik said it himself) and that zk will require some very specific compute needs that not everyone is going to be able to provide.
  - whatisweb3 4y ago
    Sure, we are in agreement then. It is a great thing as it will enable the blockchain to continue to scale for more users and more applications, and it is the opposite of the energy inefficiencies of the current PoW system.
    - latchkey 4y ago
      Well... I do think that the power usage overall isn't going to go down. Certainly ETH switching off PoW will be a great reset, but over time... people will find ways to continue to use more power when it comes to compute. Put it another way, the datacenter market isn't getting smaller any time soon.