Halcyon , 5 months ago

Crypto is the digital coal of our times.

an0nym0us , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

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Halcyon , 5 months ago

With the disadvantage of large stakeholders dominating the network and undermining the decentralization.

parpol , 5 months ago

Which is just as true with mining, except money is staked into mining rigs.

FaceDeer , 5 months ago

It's actually more true for proof-of-work mining than it is for proof-of-stake. PoW mining has strong economies of scale, a professional miner with a warehouse full of mining rigs and a special deal with an industrial electricity supplier can churn out hashes more cheaply than a home miner can. Whereas the hardware needed for PoS is negligible so there's nowhere near that disparity between small and large miners.

Also, under Ethereum at least (the largest proof-of-stake chain and the one I'm most familiar with the workings of), stakers don't "dominate" the network. They have no decision-making power over what the consensus rules are. If the users decide to upgrade to a new version and the stakers refuse to go along with that or try to push an upgrade that the users don't want then those stakers lose their stake after the resulting fork.

an0nym0us , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

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FaceDeer , 5 months ago

I went Googling for sources, and what I found says the opposite. Ethereum was becoming increasingly centralized under PoW but after the switch to PoS it became significantly more decentralized.

in order to stake to a pool, you need to lock your tokens away, making them impossible to spend for a specified time period.

This is exactly the point of proof-of-stake. You can't prove you've staked some coins if you don't actually stake them. If you've retained control over your tokens then they're not staked. I'm not sure how you think it could work otherwise.

most of the criticisms I have of ETH are more damming of the way they went about the transition between two radically different consensus algorithms than about Proof of Stake itself.

The transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake has been on Ethereum's roadmap since the beginning. It was rolled out in stages over the course of years. What was "damning" about the transition?

an0nym0us , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

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FaceDeer , 5 months ago

I googled "zero lock staking" and I'm not finding anything that contradicts what I said. There are systems that allow for delegated staking, where you hold transferable tokens that represent a share in a staking pool - rETH, for example. But there's still locked stake in that case. And this Quora response lists various proof-of-stake systems where you can unstake immediately, including Cardano and Polkadot, but those don't give you rewards while your tokens aren't staked - the token still needs to be locked during the staking itself.

I asked for clarification on what you found "damning" about the transition to proof of stake, I don't see how asking for clarification is "misinformation."

I presented a source for Ethereum's centralization trends. Got any of your own?

an0nym0us , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

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FaceDeer , 5 months ago

Wow, you went from zero to furious at the drop of a hat. And I'm not a "bagholder", as I've said in other comments, I'm just interested in the tech.

I haven't argued any of these facts. "How TF else should they do it?!" could be my line here, except that I'm trying to remain civil so I wouldn't have worded it that way. This ultimately comes from your statement:

Another damning aspect of their staking tech is that, in order to stake to a pool, you need to lock your tokens away, making them impossible to spend for a specified time period.

Which I still don't see as "damning" because - as you just said - how else would they do it? Cardano and Polkadot do it the same way, they've just changed the value of what that "specified time period" is.

I specifically mentioned Rocket Pool's rETH as an example of delegated staking that would let you sell your staked tokens more quickly, that's on Ethereum so if the exit queue is too long for you there you can try that instead.

an0nym0us , 5 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

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FaceDeer , 5 months ago

And I'm not particularly pleased to be accused of lying when I'm willing to cite sources and the guy I'm debating with refuses to even address my responses. But you don't see me YELLING IN ALL CAPS about it.

demesisx , 5 months ago

This is exactly the point of proof-of-stake. You can't prove you've staked some coins if you don't actually stake them. If you've retained control over your tokens then they're not staked. I'm not sure how you think it could work otherwise.

WOW. Straight up wrong.

I'm guessing you have a YUGE bag of ETH staked. 🤣

Since you're so wrong, it's clear that you are absolutely guessing here while anon is spitting facts, being intellectually honest about which drawbacks actually exist in the world for proof of stake. Take the L, dude. haha

FaceDeer , 5 months ago

You're guessing wrong, I'm not a "bagholder." I'm just interested in the tech.

it’s clear that you are absolutely guessing here while anon is spitting facts

I've provided specific examples and links to references. Anon's not done any of that, he's just got mad. Like you, too. Calm down.

an0nym0us , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

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Halcyon , 5 months ago

I don't defend anything - I simply do not consider the existing crypto assets as an alternative to currencies at all. They are still so far from being reliable or stable to be a good means of general exchange. They have their place in the area of investment and speculation and that works fine for me.

FaceDeer , 5 months ago

How about stabletokens, many of which are pegged directly to the value of the USD?

zergtoshi , 5 months ago

Primecoin wants to have a word having done useful PoW for over a decade.

an0nym0us , 5 months ago

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zergtoshi , 5 months ago

Prime numbers are searched for doing the PoW. The blockchain essentially contains a data base with prime numbers.
As far as I can tell Primecoin never was popular,.but I like the novel approach of doing things, when most cryptocurrencies of that time were lame copies.
Btw. the Primecoin creator made Peercoin, which was afaik the first (and apparently still running) network being secured by Proof-of-Stake.

SpeakinTelnet , 5 months ago

Hybrid pow/pos has been worked on since the beginning. Peercoin is still alive.

RememberTheApollo_ , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Modern day gold rush.

Digging up more and more dirt for diminishing returns while destroying the environment.

Bitcoin using more and more power for essentially the same.

Badeendje , 5 months ago

Electricity is too cheap for these uses.

aniki , 5 months ago

Why is commercial power so cheap and residential so expensive? We could fix two problems by balancing that back.

Deceptichum , 5 months ago

Because companies > people in the eyes of the state.

just_another_person , 5 months ago

It depends on which state, which is even more sad.

General_Effort , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

It's more like companies = jobs in the eyes of voters.

ETA: What's with the downvotes? You guys think this is wrong?

aniki , 5 months ago

I have never once gave a flying fuck about a nebulous concept of "jobs."

General_Effort , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Sounds like you are in a very good position to appreciate how the average voter feels about this.

ETA: I think we'd all be better off if people had a more realistic and practical attitude to jobs.

joekar1990 , 5 months ago

Something something job creators….something something trickle down

Nighed , 5 months ago

My understanding is tha some commercial/industrial users will get a highly variable tariff. This may be cheaper much of the time, but can get ridiculously expensive at times of high demand.

The difference is that a bitcoin farmer can shut down at those expensive times, but a home user still needs to heat/cool their house, run their fridge etc, so the savings cancel out. Because of this, averaging the costs works out easier/better for most home consumers

frezik , 5 months ago

You can get time of use billing at home with many power companies. Only makes sense if you have solar panels or storage batteries or some such.

st3ph3n , 5 months ago

I have real time pricing from my utility. It works out well because we charge 2 electric cars overnight for a fraction of what they would cost to charge at the standard fixed kilowatt-hour rate. My house is heated by natural gas; I don't think the savings would be there if I also was heating my house with electricity as I live in the midwest, where it gets cold as fuck for the winter.

AbidanYre , 5 months ago

My Volt (and I assume other EVs) has a setting to charge when power is cheaper.

crossover , 5 months ago

The miners are taking power from the same grid as everyone else. Miners don’t emit carbon. Electricity generation from fossil fuels does.

The focus should be on moving to a renewable and abundant energy grid. Then let people use it for whatever the fuck they want.

Kecessa , 5 months ago

Even if it was green energy (which doesn't generate zero pollution over its lifetime by the way, we still need to produce the equipment to generate electricity and that's a source of pollution), that's extra power that needs to be generated that wouldn't need to be otherwise and it's used for something intentionally inefficient.