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The catch is: Even with proof of stake, you need to prime the pump with proof of work. Otherwise, you have nothing to stake! Hopefully we’ve proven enough work

The catch is: Even with proof of stake, you need to prime the pump with proof of work. Otherwise, you have nothing to stake! Hopefully we’ve proven enough work already to serve as a foundation and from here on we can scaffold up with staking.

anonym29 3y ago
There's another catch as well, PoS allows and encourages control to be centralized by financially incentivizing financial hoarding behavior. Knowing what we know about wealth distribution in FIAT monetary systems, this will eventually result in people's real wealth¹ falling under the control of a single entity, which appears no different than FIAT on the surface, until you remember that said entity does not have even the limited accountability that our central banks do. ¹ even if you take for granted that whatevercoin itself isn't actually "worth" anything, the products of labor (FIAT currency) that working people exchanged for those whatevercoins absolutely are a real form of wealth, in as much as they were originally worth in FIAT form.
oh_sigh 3y ago
Why couldn't you just sell tokens 1 for $1 and have their price pegged to USD? No PoW priming required. If stakers required rewards, you could just redeem 1 token for 99c and use the excess for rewards.
- mindcandy 3y ago
  How can anyone and everyone prove that the tokens were actually properly paid for? Prove there were no secret smokey-room collusion deals. Prove there were no unpaid tokens minted. Prove that international government/criminal organizations didn’t blackmail a few extra tokens into existence. You aren’t actually wrong. Tether operates the way you describe: Based on proof of Trust Me Bro :P You can build derivative products backed by Tether. But, that’s a shaky foundation on which to build a new world financial system. You’d have to hope to spin up products that earn enough trust on their own to detach their valuation from Tether before Tether collapses.

anonym29 3y ago

There's another catch as well, PoS allows and encourages control to be centralized by financially incentivizing financial hoarding behavior. Knowing what we know about wealth distribution in FIAT monetary systems, this will eventually result in people's real wealth¹ falling under the control of a single entity, which appears no different than FIAT on the surface, until you remember that said entity does not have even the limited accountability that our central banks do. ¹ even if you take for granted that whatevercoin itself isn't actually "worth" anything, the products of labor (FIAT currency) that working people exchanged for those whatevercoins absolutely are a real form of wealth, in as much as they were originally worth in FIAT form.

oh_sigh 3y ago

Why couldn't you just sell tokens 1 for $1 and have their price pegged to USD? No PoW priming required. If stakers required rewards, you could just redeem 1 token for 99c and use the excess for rewards.

mindcandy 3y ago
How can anyone and everyone prove that the tokens were actually properly paid for? Prove there were no secret smokey-room collusion deals. Prove there were no unpaid tokens minted. Prove that international government/criminal organizations didn’t blackmail a few extra tokens into existence. You aren’t actually wrong. Tether operates the way you describe: Based on proof of Trust Me Bro :P You can build derivative products backed by Tether. But, that’s a shaky foundation on which to build a new world financial system. You’d have to hope to spin up products that earn enough trust on their own to detach their valuation from Tether before Tether collapses.