Bitcoin Forum

In the last year, I've watched Proof of Work slide from the most commonly sought after, highest market cap group of coins based on current coins in existence to being represented by less than half of the top fifteen coins.

Taking its place, we have mostly variants of Proof of Stake coins that, by number, seem to be cornering the cryptocurrency scene.

Let's take a look:


Of this list we have the following coins that are not mineable:

NuBits
BanxShares
Fuelcoin
Stellar
Counterparty
NXT
Bitshares
Ripple

And these that are still mineable:

Bitcoin
Litecoin
Dogecoin
Peercoin
Darkcoin
Namecoin
Monero

Of the list that's still mineable, only two do not have publicly available dedicated hardware designed to eliminate GPU and CPU miners, while five have hardware available to follow an industrial mining process.

So, we now have roughly two coins out the top fifteen marketcaps that are capable of being mined by anyone with reasonably standard computer hardware.

Is Proof of Work dead, as a method to distribute a constant supply of new coins in a manner that requires a constant supply of fresh money?

What happened here?

What does the future hold for both PoW and PoS in terms of the number of coins with the top fifteen market caps based on current emission?

Will PoW become further industrialized, with a hardware race?

How long can Proof of Stake variants hold the top spot in the marketcap race?

I think that the current situation is what will more or less be the norm. A mix of idea and systems of distribution. Asics will exist. Some will endeavor to make coins that can use the cpu/gpu hardware and other will go with pos and other variations of it. I would like to see a coin made that uses pos/cpu/gpu hybrid system. That after a week of cpu/gpu mining with large block payouts it would end with pos at say 5% and have cpu/mining with small (1-5) coin payout with 5 minute times. That would still allow small mining with out much interests from Asic folks and not have a ridiculous coin total or inflation.

Good point and as always i won't have anything to do with Non-Minable coins.. they are all crap as afar as i am concerned.

I am not surprised by this either.. if you think about it it's all about the least path of resistance to greed and profit.
why bother mine coins when you just want to make a buck on something... anything ?

Mining coins is what got me into crypto because i could use my existing hardware and did not have to take money out of my bank for this stuff.
and i never have either.. 0 cents invested to date  8)

This topic remind me of the IPO coins Poll you all refuse to comment on no matter how many times i bump LOL

Yeah, one thing that I think that stands out like a sore thumb is the ridiculous advantage that specialized hardware and privatized software get in PoW.

I mean there's kernels out there that push out more than double the hashrate for some GPUs/CPUs that just aren't available to regular users.

People make these things and keep them to themselves, because PoW itself has created a situation where things like that are basically infinitely valuable.

You literally can't pay some people enough money to release some of these things, and they're not wrong for keeping them to themselves.

PoS seems to eliminate this industrial advantage and settle on the idea that everyone will get a reward representative of the amount of value they control.

On balance, I don't know which one is more decentralized - just too much at play - but in the very least I know for sure that the new coins coming into existence with PoS do not favor people with specialized hardware or software, but more of the coins do end up in the hands of people with more money than you, before it hits the market. Where, with PoW, new coins coming into existence will permanently be acquired by an industrial mining process and then sold to the market.

One method requires people with more resources to invest capital for a risky reward, one method requires people with more resources to hold capital. Honestly, viewing it like this seems to make them compliments.

So, which one is more likely to put coins into my hands, assuming I originally started out with .0005% of the currency (total emission * .000005) by whatever means, after a year or two of sitting on it?

Will this be a negligible point after adoption though? Wouldn't you just go to work and earn your currency, rather than mine your currency?

Personally, I tend to heavily favor the risk that becomes associated with investing into PoW mining with all three of hardware, software, and power .. because it pretty much eliminates the need to ever go to an exchange, sort out getting BTC in the first place, and then buying the coin .. which is probably why people went with PoW distributions for PoS coins. PoW always feels so accessible IMO, one of the main reasons I like it.

yes but the number 1 mineable (and with specialist equipment) dwarfs all the others combined.....


also for anything that has a zillions coins and comparative little trading vol, market cap really aint relevant (well its not really relevant for anything with little trading vol).

Miners have bitten the hand that feeds for years, and generally just use cryptocurrency to convert into fiat. This is natural progression away from that 'problem'.

Try running a significant farm without doing that. It gets expensive quick

PoW just isn't necessary in every case anymore. I'm not going to say it's useless, but proof of stake allows a lot more people to participate without having to buy hardware that will end up becoming obsolete very quickly. Depending on the goals of the cryptocurrency, it doesn't even matter if it's PoW or PoS, like NuBits. 1 NBT = $1, period, so it's not some arms race on getting the biggest piece of the initial distribution pie.

Also, market caps are dumb. It's much easier to reach a high market cap when you have most of the coins supply out on day 1, so it's not a very good way to look at things to begin with.

Some people don't have any interest in mining so it makes sense there would be coins that get distributed in different ways so there are coins for everyone. People are just trying to capitalize on that I think.

capitalize ? i agree.. print free money while putting nothing into it LOL

your defense is it's own criticism hahha

Putting efforts and wasting energy to mine a coin (or create whatever in the universe) doesn't guarantee it will have value. Only demand can guarantee that value. Demand depends on utility, unique use cases, not on how many efforts were put into the creation process.

Doesn't really matter if a coin been mined or just created out of the thin air and distributed on some fancy way, if there are no real world services for it.

^ This. Mining is fetishized in this community, to me it's just a means to an end. People forget what attracts the mainstream to Bitcoin is not how the coins are created but the end use of it, that I can send it across the world instantly and that it is a deflationary currency not controlled by any state, government or one-party entity.

You are probably right, but to get there bitcoins was supported by many miners (not investors investing their money on dev good words) who invested in hardware, time, electricity etc... real investors (and shady one as well...) who created company to use and support bitcoins.

Non-minable coins rely mostly on unreliable dev and investors, there is basically no future to them, because anybody going to these coins are only interested in short term profit (and no mining means also no string attached... you don't need to buy or sell hardware or anything... ), there is nothing in that which would bring confidence in those coins to make them mainstream... (well even if you reinvent again and again silkroad... )

None of the "mineable" coins are really mineable. No average joe will ever get a full coin out of these currencies by mining with the current difficulties...

you have a very distinctive view on the markets there. I beg to differ from this observation. Just the today's picture taken to clearify, starting with the


82.98 % of all trades are done in Bitcoin vs. Anything, that is $ 37,722,936 in Volume
8.88 % Litecoins, $ 4,037,171 in Volume
100 % - 82.98 % - 8.88 % = 8.14 % left for everything else

That is by far less then 8 out of the 15 which somewhat makes it sound like more than half

Admittingly I usually only watch currencies/views/filter-non-mineable-and-premined/ since there might 30,881,360,458 Ripples be in existence, and they roll out more every day (your picture from 2 days ago shown only 28,989,252,282 XRP so they printed 1,892,108,176 more in 48 hours) but who buys them? To be honest at the moment I have to read some more about Ripple. According to Ripples knowledge_center/bridge-currency/

disclaimer: on the long I like to prefere POS myself, seeing POW mining as a waste. A new concept is very much welcome! A currency agnostic "XRP has great value as a bridge currency " that I do not have to buy to use seems intriguing, too.

PS: had posted about POW electricity costs, placed in relation to daily trade volume to explain why Bitcoin goes down in value steadily. If interested can link to that posting or crosspost here. I cannot explain why XRP coin supply goes up steadily, you might want to ask Alan Greenspan

Right! Same stance here. 533 listed coins make that figure not easily visible, but the size relations are like that. 532 dwarfes standing around 1 giant.
The mood point is that giant stumbling and guess who else gets burried below

Implying they are becoming just mere economic tools like toxic stock options and subprimes. With no adoption and increasingly elitarian access no one gives a fuck.

This is my view as well, and one reason our developer created a new multi-coin wallet that will support any coin. Rather than the bother of downloading wallet after wallet, the Goldcoin user can simply add an LTC or NXT module and keep all the coins in the same wallet.

 

hi all ...

an old topic but still one of interest ... even though this sort of discussion has been hashed out in almost every other thread ...

mining coins should be as difficult or as easy as you make it ...

obviously - the more popular the coin - the higher the hashrate - the harder it is to get ...

our coin is specifically a 'miners' coin - and even though is not so popular now - can be mined easily ...

for all the miners out tehre - have a go ... x11 is pretty much a standard nowadays ...

here is the thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=718939 ...

and we have started a new donation thread for those wonderful devs out there if you would prefer to doante hasrate rather than coin to the devs ...

the donation links will be growing steadily as we get the hardware and facilities to add more ...

here is the thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1089744 ...

we believe that mining will be the force behind crypto for a very long time to come ...

#crysx

Average joe's are getting blocks of Monero mining with cpu'z

see - and who said that mining was dead ;) ...

#crysx

yup - this might be a dead thread - but i came across it and wanted to comment ...

so necrothread it is :) ...

but you do make some good points ...

#crysx

aaand - that one is ... ? ...

#crysx

Banxshares

It's pretty funny to compare TS's printscreen of cryptocurrency markets capitalization to today's cap  :)

Actually is same. Right now 8 out of TOP15 crypto currencies cant be mined. Just like in 2014.

What's funny is seeing a thread i made two years ago pop up again :)

What is amazing a solidary none minable coin (BitShares) has survived and 3 minable (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero)
Ripple is not Blockchain (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2012026.0) tech, instead a evolotion of 1960 database technology and Dash is now Pos (45% minable, 55% Proof of Service)
Very telling.

Ratio now 9 minable 5 not and a out of place database operating company.

No, you invest in the coins themselves and hold them like equities which pay a dividend. There is an investment, just not in hardware and electricity.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a gpu miner with several rigs running 24/7 and happy as a clam with how eth is rolling up. However, I am also openminded and see the advantages of POS, so I'm also building a stake in Ripple using my mined eth.

BTC has become centralized by the four major pools in China.  China is well known as a currency manipulator so expect more of the same for BTC in the future.

BTC and ETH have both proven to be archaic at this point.  When their networks get flooded they can't handle it well. Some transactions taking days is exactly what it wasn't intended to be. I don't know what THE coin(s) will ultimately be, but I do know it won't be BTC, ETH, LTC, or BTH. Maybe IOTA, Ripple, Steem, Walton... who knows.  Maybe we'll get a better handle on it by 2018/19.