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Let's try to define power here. * There is the power for some central entity to control the levers on the money supply: determine how much money gets printed,
by abdullahkhalids 4y ago
Let's try to define power here.
* There is the power for some central entity to control the levers on the money supply: determine how much money gets printed, what the interest rate is, what sort of inflation rate is acceptable etc.
* There is the oligoplic power of banks which determine who gets to have a bank account, how much and at what rate credit is available to which people, what sort of money transfers are acceptable.
* There is the political power that people with lots of money command. They determine who gets elected, which laws are passed, whether they can be prosecuted or not, whose life they can destroy on whim etc.
I think Satoshi's original conception might have been to democratize the first two kinds of power. Early cryptocurrency idealist probably dreamed of getting rid of all three types of power.
I think right now, only the first one is indeed getting democratized in the sense that people can choose to "support" the cryptocurrency which they like. This is true for both PoS and PoW.
With the rise of regulated cryptoexchanges owned by rich people, the second type of power continues to be centralized in both PoS and PoW. And of course, there was very little threat of the third type of power ever being challenged by cryptocurrency - that's a property of our political systems, not of the type of money we use.
- fezfight 4y agoBitcoin doesn't require centralised exchanges to function, though. It's not fundamental to the coin. Is the etherium PoS centralisation required?
- idiotsecant 4y agoNeither Bitcoin or Ethereum require a centralized exchange. What are you trying to ask her?
- fezfight 4y agoFor them to elaborate on their claim of equivalency between PoS and PoW centralisation, given the exchange centralisation isn't actually an issue. To me, it would seem that the ETH PoS centralisation of power (to the already wealthy) makes it less free than, for example, BTC. But I don't know, and I'd like to hear what they think. You too, if you'd like to offer your thoughts.
- Kbelicius 4y ago> To me, it would seem that the ETH PoS centralisation of power (to the already wealthy) makes it less free than, for example, BTC. BTC also suffers from centralization of power to the already wealthy so the claim that that there is equivalency between PoS and PoW centralization sound about right.
- fezfight 4y agoHow so? I legitimately don't understand. With BTC, it's the same for everyone. Everyone can run a node. No ones node is special. Best wealth can do is buy miners to mine more coins. But that doesnt grant you more power, just more wealth. In PoS ETH, you need 32 Eth to participate. Thats 50k USD just to participate in validation. BTC is free and you don't need any money to run a node. For ETH, you need 50k USD to do the same thing, no? Genuinely curious here.
- htkibar 4y agoIf you don’t run an ASIC, your hash rate is so minuscule that it won’t matter (in the case of BTC). Cost of an ASIC is around the same ballpark if not more.
- fezfight 4y agoThat's just for mining, though. I can be part of the validation/consensus process for the BTC blockchain by running a node which you can run on anything with a 500gb hard drive. People use Pi's to do it. You need zero bitcoin to run a node. This is the difference.
- zaarn 4y agoYou can still run a node on ethereum for free? You aren't required to be a validator to run a node?
- 4y ago
- imtringued 4y agoBitcoin as we know it exclusively relies on centralised exchanges.
- fezfight 4y agoIt doesn't in any way rely on exchanges.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- imtringued 4y ago>that's a property of our political systems, not of the type of money we use. That actually is a property of the money we use because the wealthy can always refuse to spend or invest which forces the government to borrow more money.