Bitcoin Forum

Will Bitcoin move to proof of Stake? Does anyone know? What are the developers opinions on this matter?

No. Why should they? Precisely what characterizes Bitcoin, an essential feature that distinguishes it from shitcoins, that gives security to the network, is the proof of work. So I don't see any reason to do it.

Bitcoin will move to PoS "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves.".

But seriously the shEthereum brainwash seems to be getting stronger every day. They are fooling people into thinking PoS is a good thing, even go as far as saying it is better than PoW just because they are desperately trying to convince them their centralized shitcoin is getting better after the malicious fork that will only serve the owners of the 72 million premined ETH to make them richer!

OG Bitcoin won't move, but some forks may if they wish.

tl;dr no.

Why? Imagine a currency or SoV asset where the more coins an entity has, the more power the entity has over the network. If that isn't potentially disastrous, I don't know what is.

Yes you can stake bitcoin and earn interest from it. Juat that it will not be actually bitcoin but some fork of it! There is no way for actual bitcoin to move to POS. I agree thay moving to POS may be great for more numbers of people to adopt mining easily but since bitcoin doesn't have a core group of developers, I don't see that happening!

Also I think it's good in the current state! Many people have invested billions to build their mining infrastructure. If bitcoin moves to POS, those will become worthless. No one would want to see their mining rigs sitting idle. So if cumulative opinions are considered, pow is going to remain!

It has been discussed many times and it won't.

But, there's this misleading label from the exchanges that you can "stake" your bitcoin to them. It means that depositing to them and earning interest from doing that.

I just hope that they'll change that label instead of staking, they just call it deposit savings.

No. Okay, politics aside, there isn't any reason why Bitcoin would do so.

Bitcoin is fundamentally a PoW coin and there is no immediate downsides that would affect the security or the integrity of the chain. As the saying goes, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. A sudden shift to PoS, especially when the specific industry is so established will cause an extended period of instability within Bitcoin, be it concerning the security or the economics. I'd rather not have to go through this phase and overcomplicate anything. You don't really have to care what the developers say, just what the community consensus on the issue is. The answer is no, it isn't going to happen.

Not sure why it will confuse anyone since the algo is clearly POW. Does anyone ever have access to make changes to the code because Satoshi disappeared already?

If anyone or the team can modify the protocols, it leaves doubt to investors that its not decentralize.

It's about the label.

They're using "staking" on their platform and the crypto includes bitcoin. Not everyone understands the whole thing about stake/POS or it's just that when a word is being used, there's an exact meaning based on its use.

Well, I'd just remember that even though it's somehow not really a technical stuff.

To be fair, the word "stake" didn't even originate from proof-of-stake or cryptocurrencies in general. "Staking" could simply just mean handing over your stake. "Stake" being a word also being used in the financial markets in general.

Not 100% true, PoW without enough hashpower behind it is about as meaningless as PoS (in my opinion). We only need to look at bcash and laugh at how easily people can 51% attack them. And they're not even the worst PoW shitcoin out there.

I'm not going to say that Bitcoin will never switch to PoS, the future can be very unpredictable. There were people thought that Internet is just a fad and won't get any traction. But currently such switch seems to be very unlikely and the overall probability is very low, because Bitcoin's main goal is maintaining decentralization and PoS is against it. But maybe Bitcoin community will change after many years and will be more accepting of introducing centralization, or maybe some improved versions of PoS will be invented that will be more decentralized and attack-resistant. But PoW works well enough, so there must be some strong reason to seek to replace it.

Highly unlikely, but I am not saying that it will never happen. Who knows maybe in the near future it would happen without warning. As it is using the proof-of-work system, it causes the fees to be higher and the duration of the transaction is longer even up to an hour or more. Just my opinion only.

What makes Bitcoin secured and decentralized is the fact that it is using Proof-of-Work and going away from that can make the coin not anymore Bitcoin but something different. I understand that some people is concerned with the power consumption involved with POW and many can be praising the POS but years from now we can see why POW remains to be the best option. I am not against any other coin who can be going away from POW but that is their own decision and it is good thing to have many options.

The Bitcoin network is at a high level of decentralization, the energy resources are being mined cleanly for bitcoin mining along with the mining equipment being upgraded over time. Following this flow, we will not need to worry about the environmental problems that Bitcoin threatens. The idea of developing POS instead of POW at present is not reasonable. There's been a lot of discussions and I don't believe that's going to happen but in 10 and 20 years it could be the issue.

I guess that this is a result of "clean energy bitcoin" narrative, mixed up with some Eth like brainwash.
This Bitcoin will not go PoS, but you can make your own coin if you like PoS so much.

And I also come with a question: why this interest for bitcoin getting PoS? (Did you mistaken/confuse some altcoins, like Eth with Bitcoin?!)

There was no news about this. Moreover I think that Bitcoin is not developing any more, so it is doomed to be unchangeable. When some people say that they want Bitcoin to be greener they don't mean Proof-Of-Stake, they are talking about renewable energy for mining. Moreover, you can look at Ethereum, it is a long-long process that has not finished yet and we are still waiting for Ethereum 2.0.

Bitcoin will not have that movement because the bitcoin mining industry is green enough. In addition, the FUD since May 2021 help the mining hashpower migrates from China to other nations. It also increase the use of renewable energy resources.

I think more renewable resources will be used for Bitcoin mining and PoS is not necessary.

PoS is for shit coin and their developers launch coin network with huge premined coins. They use premined coins to stake and dominate network when block rewards are high.

those wanting PoS are the small idiots thinking changing the algo will give them chandce to get rewards and get rich quick.
what they dont realise is that a good amount, about 20% of coins are hoarded in exchanges and so these exchanges will have the most signing/staking power. meaning the little guys with under 0.01btc wont get to be rich and wont be solving blocks

meaning a new algo wont make a difference in the rich vs poor relationship

..
ontop of that there are more flaws in block signing using PoS. and on crapcoins they are too small to bother exploiting. but on a network as valued as bitcoin it would get exploited alot.

..
ontop of that PoW has a stronger security. needing ~100,000 special machines to create the block sequence that locks its content.
something PoS cant offer

.. ontop of that
the cost of mining offeres an underlying value of the block reward. where it costs
$170k a block for 6.25 btc for chinese miners
$220k a block for 6.25 btc for american miners
$340k a block for 6.25 btc for germany/japan

this gives underlying value of $27k - $54k which makes people feel the price is worthy
PoS does not actually have underlying costs to help produce an underlying value
PoS 'values' are purely speculative based on emotion and feeling and hope and prayers.

PoW has some actual cost and value of economic logic backing it up. and then some amount of speculative hype above that

changing bitcoin to PoS will be like having gold initially needing expensive mining costs. to then become easily minable in backyards for penny costs. sending gold prices down to crappy low prices

..
if PoS became a thing. little penny guys will need to syndicate(pool) their funds into large staked addresses and have the address owner then split the reward down..  
pretty much the same pool scenario as PoW but without the large security of PoW

so the real question is.. WHY SHOULD it change to PoS.. the answer.. no reason.. no benefits

Proof of Stake is garbage and it blows my mind that so many people seem to be trying to promote it as if it's a better way to run the blockchain.  The question I ask everyone who is a fan of Proof of Stake is, how many cypherpunks are in favor of proof of stake over proof of work? The answer is not many!  The largest "bag holders" are given too much control with this method..hence a huge reason why Elon Musk owns and promotes Dogecoin...he want's to be in control and that appeals to him.

Bitcoin will never switch to PoS. If you want to play with that, you can go to the altcoins and see how it goes, good luck.

If i wanted centralization, i would stick to fiat. I have some bolivares for you, bet you want to live earning those instead?. It has only lost 14 zeroes in 13 years. Its already worst than classic textbook example of hyperinflation: Germany post WWI (lost 12 zeroes in 10 years).

Many altcoins have centralization AND inflation built in, because they can't bother to read Austrian economics. So they exist under a flawed model, in other words, its more of the same. Digital fiat with all its flaws and then some. CBDCs or so called "stable" altcoins which are just pegged doing fractional reserve practices without the pesky regulation banks receive, what could possibly go wrong?

And don't get me started with reversing transactions. That act itself destroyed the value forever, if a select few can invalidate transactions at will, its worthless forever.

POS is the transition of ETH, while performance improvement issues in the 2.0 upgrade, most recently Staked will gradually remove miners from Ethereum.  While bitcoin does not need to do so as POW is highly preferred for miners because of issues related to bitcoin network security. I think,  It is the key feature that keeps decentralization
Decentralization is the source of the existence of the crypto market. POW will make bitcoin unbreakable or pressurized.  Bitcoin will never change this mode.

POS is a long ponzi , S.N would ve chosen if it wasnt.

I think POS will be a serious impact on fairness for the entities participating in the network because it has so many advantages that include manipulation that can happen more in the other way.  POS will be a slaughterhouse for much more enforceable control than POW, bitcoin will never move to POS.

We have to be very clear about this, this is never going to happen, and if the bitcoin core developers were dumb enough to do or try to do something like this I can assure you that someone will fork the core of bitcoin immediately and from that point on that will probably be considered to be the true bitcoin.

I know there are a lot of people that care about the environment and that do not like the energy consumption of bitcoin, but those people know nothing about the technology behind it and how it is by far the most efficient system that we have in place, it is way more efficient than the banking system that we have in place, so if that is the reason you are asking then don't worry since all of those people do not really know what they're talking about.

Actually, the renewable sources thing is just a FUD in my opinion. Every world industry needs to make the switch, not just Bitcoin mining. It was singled out because of the misunderstanding that mining produces no value (totally wrong of course).

PoS is an alternative I think it can be done right, but agree that most coins using it now are just lazy and scammy.

We can't move to proof of stake because it's not a true consensus mechanism. You can however hold Bitcoin (without the consensus) and benefit from future price increase.    There is a good reason why Bitcoin consensus mechanism is called Proof of Work rather than Proof of Stake or Proof of Equipment or Proof of Capacity etc. People who know this fact will be careful with PoS to avoid missing the importance of right consensus mechanisms to truely decentralized network.
"When purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable"

Satoshi had made himself clear that once bitcoin was out in the public, there are no alteration that will be made directly to the coin itself. So this means that however people think PoS is beneficial for bitcoin in the long run we can never expect it to be reimplemented into that system because Satoshi wouldn't want and wouldn't do it. Main reason why it wasn't put in the same system I would assume is because Satoshi never assumed bitcoin will be a store of value besides being a form of currency that could rival fiat, so they never bothered with ensuring that computation is efficient and cheap because it was made under the same assumption that it will be used just as how you would use cash. This is also true, what really made bitcoin outshine fiat is the fact that it is decentralized, and if we were to transfer into a PoS service system bitcoin will inevitably fall into a centralized network which will not fare well for users who adopted bitcoin for its anonymity and security. One more reason why I think it's only fair that bitcoin is in PoW right now, even if PoS in the long run offers some more benefits.

All attempts to change from PoW to Piece of Shit would break the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. Not only would the Rewards process have to change but so would the millions of miners being used.

In short - it ain't gonna happen!

NEVER  :o :o :o

The ones that decides this are the people that has invested heavily in mining hardware. Why would they move to PoS and make their whole investment worthless??

I always thought about this too, but the ETH miners also resisted ETH 2.0 (which essentially was moving from PoW to PoS) and in the end they also started getting behind it.

I think ETH miners would love it. Stake the ETH they were mining during the grace period, then move their hardware to other PoW alts. Bitcoin people would probably never consider it though, or would they?

Proof of Stakes actually rewards the rich and the network can be hijacked by group of whales for their benefits. while in proof of power, it's purely a decentralized fair distribution and has a stronger better security. Bitcoin is POW and it will remain so.

Compared to Ethereum, there should be a way on how to use POS without letting whales manipulate the market. The main difference is that Ethereum has a centralized administration responsible for updates while bitcoin updates need the agreement of the majority of miners to change the mining algorithm .
Actually, the migration from POW to POS will break the entire ecosystem of bitcoin. But for the long term, it will become a serious problem how to reward the miners who maintain the network unless they start impose too much high fees to cover the mining charges at least. This would probably happen after the next halving .

No, Bitcoin will not move to Proof of Stake ever. I am as sure of this as I am that the earth is not flat. The developers all believe this is a bad idea for reasons that are already littering this thread. Mostly, because Proof of Work is just plain better and more fair.

My bet on this is Bitcoin will never ever go to Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm. It already has the superior and decentralized PoW. See how durable and impregnable the blockchain ledger is for the last 12 years? Still cannot be hacked, the security itself underlines the effectivity of PoW as very much strong and cannot be manipulated .

I'd bet on it too but the payout is probably peanuts. PoW has worked well for Bitcoin, nothing even comes close in terms of security, still the most important thing for anyone who wants to use Bitcoin to pay and keep value.

At the same time block rewards are still going to be very good at these prices even for the next 2 halvings so that is at least 8 years more if not 12 years with no issue.

I'm thinking of any reasons for Bitcoin to move from POS to POW but I can't think of any (or its just because I don't want to think anymore :D).

I don't also think that it will do what ETH did too. Moving from POW to POS. Bitcoin is a decentralized currency unlike Ethereum that is being owned by Vitalik so moving it from POS to POW requires many, many and many people that will agree into it. To cut it, it will never happen :).

Nope, it won't - that's one reason why we like BTC so much  :)

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You can check Bitcoin's open source code: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
As you can see, there are currently 819 contributors, meaning Bitcoin does get modified by various developers, here are the BIPs that have been proposed and implemented over the years: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/.
However: any change that is added to the code must be backed by the decentralized node and miner community. Since nodes independently 'vote' which blocks and transactions are accepted, they can thus essentially refute a BIP for example. So without the support of majority of the network, developers can't change Bitcoin BTC.

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As explained above, Bitcoin does develop, check the GitHub and version history: https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/.
Please don't spread misinformation if you are unsure about something.

Nothing is completely impossible in this world but in the current situation, I can strongly say bitcoin will not move or adapt to proof of stake and there are many logical and non-logical reasons for it. It's just like you say when the earth will turn in the opposite side direction and impossible in the current situation. However, since bitcoin is available on GitHub and anyone can take a fork from it there can be many other pos versions of bitcoin forked from the original version.

The question wasn't about forks though; it was about Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure there are PoS cryptos already that started as a Bitcoin fork.

Bitcoin switched to Proof Of stakes?  That would be crazy for bitcoin and bad for fairness.  Bitcoin holders will have a better ROI and keep putting bitcoin in the slaughterhouse, it will kill the very nature of bitcoin, I think bitcoin will never let that happen.  I doubt the move of ETH to POS will increase in value but will dig its own grave in the long term.

As others have mentioned, there's no chance of this happening. Of course, someone might give it a shot, but this will result in a hard fork, and we'll just have another Bitcoin clone. But the majority of the community will stand behind the current version. The huge problem with moving to PoS from PoW is miners: this is a disastrous decision for their future, so they won't support it. It also seems not that easy to make it happen, as Ethereum was meant to switch to PoS a long time ago, and yet it's still good old PoW.
There's also an ideological obstacle here, as proof-of-stake makes the coin more centralized. With proof-of-work there are miners and mining farms, but there are also big hodlers, and these are separate categories. With proof-of-stake, the more you possess, the more you get in return, and the more influence you're gaining over the market. This naturally centralizes power in the hands of the few. Not to mention that it also highly incentivizes viewing a coin purely as an investment instead of viewing it as a type of money, as doing nothing with your coins is rewarded by getting more coins.

No, this will not happen, Bitcoin will remain as proof of work only.

This is why it is so obvious that they are attacking bitcoin and they are not really interested over the environment or anything like that, if they are that worried about our energy consumption and waht this means to the planet then every single industry must be encouraged to move to more renewable sources.

Also many people think of POW as a waste of energy when it is protecting the most important decentralized database on the world from being compromised, and that is a very important job which the majority of people will not understand until their fiat comes crashing down.

Bitcoin mining system looks like until the end will remain a Proof Of Work, there is not the slightest news in bitcoin mining changes. All I've heard that will change to Proof Of Stake is ethereum. Bitcoin is already too famous for its mining machines. If it is changed it will remove the hallmarks of bitcoin itself.

In my opinion, I don't think that would necessary. Imagine those who possess large quantities of Bitcoin, those who can PoS their assets into infinity, that would drop the price of Bitcoin I think and would spell financial doom for those who bought Bitcoin at a high price. It is a PoW coin and should remain so. Someone pointed out here, that if the think is not broken then there is no need to fix it. And I want those who campaign for Bitcoin to be a PoS coin to stop because they are not helping with the development of the coin.

That is true with what you said, for Proof of Stake, the more one has coins then he will be able to mine more and mine faster. I think there would be no decentralization at that point because whales can simply buy more to mine more. If you are going to ask me, they should instead focus on making Bitcoin more widespread in its adaptation and develop the technology further. It is much better if they leave Bitcoin as PoW rather follow those very few people who want it PoS.

I recommend everyone to read the articles linked here:
PoW vs. PoS (https://endthefud.org/PoW)
Put simply, PoS doesn't work, coins are created out of thin air and the network is super centralized and insecure. Fundamental flaws in any cryptocurrency.

Nobody is campaigning for bitcoin to move to PoS. There are brainwashed newbies who have been listening to a shitcoin's developer who has been fooling them into thinking that when they change their PoW to PoS their shitcoin called ethereum is going to become "better" as it would solve some imaginary problems.

I'm inclined to agree with you. The Proof-of-Stake algorithm explicitly contradicts Bitcoin White Paper written by Satoshi Nakamoto. It does not solve the problem of transaction censorship and does not fully protect the network from various attacks. Some whales owning thousands of PoS coins can endure penalties incurred by a network consensus for their untrustworthy activities if they want to fraud a rich merchant or a large cryptocurrency exchange during a short period of time.

Figuratively saying, the Proof-of-Work algorithm is anchor in the real world for any strong cryptocurrency. I assume that the global market should have a small number of cryptocurrencies mined using ASICs, GPUs, CPUs, SSDs with high hash rate. Other altcoins can work as side chains.

I believe that Bitcoin will always remain a PoW coin.

No, and I don't see why it should. You can simply mine for Bitcoins, it's pretty much the equivalent.

Why does bitcoin have to move to Pos?  This is obviously a stupid idea, theoretically possible but in practice it would kill bitcoins and send them all to the slaughterhouse by risk of manipulation.  we don't campaign or vote for that damn idea.  ETH will shoot itself in the foot when it switch to POS

I don't think its even possible with conventional BTC rather with its hard fork. PoW is not liked only because it consume too much energy but that's also sole reason of BTC security and robustness.
While PoW is giving too much power in the hands of miners that can afford expensive hardware and electricity bills. PoS and PoW to me are same way of climbing same mountain. Since with PoS, miners that have huge quantity of coins can dominate the mining process.

It's not even that much energy, really. If you want to really dig a bit deeper into the energy topic, check out a few of the articles linked here: https://endthefud.org/energy

That's not true; for example, it's quite easy to quickly acquire a lot of coins, have the majority of vote for a short time and to sell them off again. Instead, buying an equal amount of ASICs, renting warehouses, setting up a huge energy infrastructure for that ginormous plant just to mount an attack and subsequently tearing it back down takes a significant larger amount of effort and money.

More information can be found in the articles linked here: https://endthefud.org/PoW

The people who make the miners won't let it go POS for a start.  Just think how much money they would lose.  All of it.

Bitcoin will never move to Proof of Stake. The reasons for this are obvious. PoS increases centralization as it gives power to a few. Those with the most wealth will be able to take control of the network's consensus. Imagine how Bitcoin would be compromised if it were a PoS coin. Big exchanges like Binance and Coinbase would make use of customers' funds in order to take control of the entire Blockchain network. It would be something similar to the STEEM/HIVE hard fork where exchanges turned to Justin Sun's side, effectively taking out legitimate witnesses (validators) out of the system.

Believe me, PoW (aka Nakamoto Consensus) is and will always be the only decentralized consensus algorithm in the crypto/Blockchain space. Other algorithms may be energy efficient but highly susceptible against external attacks. Bitcoin developers know PoW is the safest, most secure, and reliable consensus algorithm to date. There's basically no need to change the algorithm at this point, since Bitcoin is working like a swiss watch. We may see a future where most (if not all) altcoins turn to PoS, while Bitcoin remains a PoW cryptocurrency. I'm fine with that as long as decentralization and censorship-resistance are prioritized. Just my opinion :)

I don't think bitcoin will ever move to Proof of Stake or anything else. Maybe there will be a fork but bitcoin will never move to Proof of Stake.

Because there are some people out there with the wrong information and think that bitcoin mining is contaminating the planet or something like that, so those that are in favor of PoS want bitcoin to switch to it as it supports their idea that it is the best way to secure the network.

I know it is ridiculous but that does not stop people from making those arguments, however we need to take them for what they are, baseless speculations, bitcoin is never going to leave PoW as it is without a doubt the best way to secure the network, and even more importantly it is more cost effective and energy efficient than the current banking system, so if anything if they are going to use those arguments then the banking industry as a whole is the one that must disappear.

Bitcoin will never become a Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrency. The reasons for this are pretty obvious. PoS encourages centralization since only a few players will be able to gain large dominance on the network. It has a model where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Imagine how whales will be able to control Bitcoin with their large stake. Mainly big exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, will be able to dominate the whole Blockchain leaving the average person out of the system. The huge security risks of PoS are simply not worth it for Bitcoin in the long run.

I fail to see how Ethereum will retain its security after it becomes a full-fledged PoS coin. It'll probably end up like the rest of the other "shitcoins" dominated by whales. PoW may be energy-intensive but it's still the best consensus algorithm towards achieving decentralization and censorship-resistance. Satoshi Nakamoto was pretty smart in choosing PoW as Bitcoin's main consensus algorithm. Things would've been a lot different now if Bitcoin had been a PoS cryptocurrency. Knowing that developers have no interest in switching to PoS, we could say that Bitcoin will remain a PoW cryptocurrency forever. Just my thoughts ;D

It certainly is and it's good that it is! Really almost all facts about this matter are covered in: https://endthefud.org/PoW