Distribution can be done transparently, a mixture of PoW for the distribution phase, and also direct currency buy in would work.

You can take a look at Bitshare's distribution for a relatively fair distribution model.

Since discus fish and ghash.io's only stake is in their mining equipment, the attacker just has to spend a bit more than that amount of money to buy their loyalty, or if they don't agree, the attacker could just start their own mining operation, yes? that amount is not even 5% of Bitcoin's marketcap.

Now with Peercoin, if you want 51%, you have to buy them, you can't just "collude", since no one will listen you. Now if Peercoin's marketcap is same as Bitcoin, tell me which way is easier?

Except discus fish and ghash.io controls at least 40% of the Bitcoin network, and some times over 51%, and they mostly own the machines they are mining with. How is that decentralized?

Why do you need to know about who owns what stake in PoS? do you know every miner in a PoW system? does a PoW miner advertise they are going to attack the network?

That's why I call NxT distribution a scam and is not participating in it, it should fail. See my post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325261.msg8559235#msg8559235

An unfair distribution is simply a failed execution, it does not invalidate the advantage of PoS.

I'm not sure where this PoS "collude" concern come from. Who would collude to destroy their own wealth? I hold some peercoin, if you tell me to collude with you to attack Peercoin, I would tell you to gfys. Do you think it's easy to collude with 10,000 peercoin holders? or is it easier for discus fish and ghash.io to collude and gain 51%? I think the answer is obvious.

The fact is forks has NOT appeared more often in PoS, in fact PoW system has had much more forks, including Bitcoin.

Thanks for posting a blatantly false claim. Currently, half of the top 10 altcoin by marketcap are not PoW.

Wow, lots of claims made here. Are you sure 51% attack is illegal in all countries? (or in any country at all? lol) otherwise the attacker could just concentrate the effort in one country, not sure how they will "lose their mining investment" if their only intention was to attack. Many PoW altcoin has been 51% attacked to death, I haven't heard anyone got prosecuted for it, or "lost their mining investment"?

Not sure what "altcoins don't really have much work behind them yet" means. In altcoins, it has been clearly shown that it's much easier to attack a PoW system, as no PoS system has been successfully 51% attacked, even though many of them exists, and some of them very tiny too.

"PoS is aristocratic in nature. PoW is proletariat"... wtf does this even mean, if we look at Bitcoin PoW mining power is extremely concentrated. discus fish and ghash.io controls at least 40% of the network, and several other large mining companies control the rest. While PoS distribution is usually much better, and this is demanded by the community. For example Peercoin, the largest PoS stakeholder address that is mining with his stake, has about 1% of the coin. Also one of the funny thing I observed in a PoS system, is that many of the stake holders decides to not to mine. Usually only about 10-20% of the coin actively engage in mining PoS.

It's not a problem, distribution can be clearly checked and verified. An unfair distribution will not succeed, and will be instantly mocked by the community, and usually tagged as scams.

Does Bitcoin even need re-distribution to switch to PoS system? I'm not convinced that it does. Only a hard fork would be required. Because for example Peercoin has built in functionality to fade out PoW naturally, without any re-distribution needed.

There's so much wrong in your statement, I don't know where to start, let me give it a try:

* "currently no PoS system is safe at all"
Actually, just the opposite. Currently no PoS altcoin has been successfully 51% attacked, ZERO! While plenty of PoW altcoin has been attacked to death.

* "If a 51% secret cabal took over any PoS, then it could take permanent control"
That's true, except you don't even need 51% of the eco-system in PoW, you need 0% of the coin, and at most 10% of the value of the eco-system, also you don't push up the coin price while you acquiring hardware, unlike in PoS, you will push the price up astronomically even acquiring 10% of outstanding coins. So attacking a PoW system is MUCH easier. Also, if someone manages to somehow owns 51% of the PoS eco-system (probably after spending an astronomical amount of money), they have zero reason to attack it, since they are basically attacking themselves, as they are the biggest stake holder in the eco-system, the only result would be destroying their own wealth.

* "Even if someone temporarily took 51% control of Bitcoin, then someone else could simply add mining power and take it away"
Like who? non of the 51% attacked to death PoW altcoins has shown this phenomenon, they were all powerless against the 51% attack. please give me some examples.

* "With PoW, the permanent ability to 51% attack isn't even a possibility. With PoS it is inevitable."
Except, again, ZERO PoS altcoin has been 51% attacked, so I'm not sure where this "inevitability" come from. Though I could say a PoW system being attacked IS inevitable, once the coin supply run out, and it become extremely cheap to attack. The Bitcoin PoW network is basically currently being secured by the coin supply, once it runs out, it's laughably cheap to 51% attack Bitcoin(unless transaction fees somehow become extremely expensive, and people would still accept that).

I think the biggest problem with PoW is that:
1. it bleeds money from the community, into the pockets of hardware vendors and electric company, continuously, non-stop. The price action this year has clearly shown this problem. There has been a joke circling around in the Chinese community that "Bitcoin was invented by electric companies".

2. to attack a PoW system, you don't need a stake in the eco-system. I could borrow Gavin's argument "There is no stake" to describe PoW as well, you need exactly 0 stake in a PoW eco-system to attack. This is how big miners attacked PoW altcoin with ease and frequency, because they have no stake in their target. Now if they have to acquire 51% of the coin to attack? then forget about it, no one will spend that much money to attack (and they are attacking themselves at that point).

It's only logical that the 51% group of holders will not have bad intentions against a currency that they themselves have a majority stake in.

You have no guarantee in a PoW system neither, since it only needs about 10% of the value of the eco-system to 51% attack. Also the other problem is you don't even need to own the currency to attack it, therefore the attacker have no stake in the system.

To 51% attack a PoS eco-system, you yourself must be an extremely large stake holder in the eco-system, which means you are basically attacking yourself. Not to mention you need extremely large amount of resources, at least several times the value of the eco-system, to achieve 51% in the first place.

I think you could think of it this way. If it cost $1B to attack/cause huge trouble to a country like say Slovenia with no repercussion, no country in the world would do it, because it's not worth it. But now if I tell you if you spend $1B, and you could attack/cause huge trouble and loss for the United States of America (and still with no repercussion), I would bet at least several dozen countries in this world will do it in a heart beat. My point is, as you become large and powerful, then the cost to attack you MUST also rise, it can not be cheap. Otherwise, someone WILL attack Bitcoin, just so he could say I did it, and if Bitcoin does get that big, I think the existing established banks/creditcard/governments have PLENTY of incentive to do just that.

Now the advantage of a PoS system, is that it's naturally resistant against a 51% attack. To attack a PoS eco-system, you must have resources several times the value of the eco-system, otherwise, you WILL fail. On the other hand, to attack a PoW system, you just have to buy enough hardware to overwhelm the current miners, which currently cost about only 10% of Bitcoin eco-system value. This is why there has been exact ZERO successful 51% attack on any PoS alt coin, while plenty of PoW alt coin has been attacked to death.

If Bitcoin eco-system is to become that big, say 1 Trillion, then the mining cost MUST also rise to match it, otherwise the incentive to 51% attack the network is too high, since it would be cheap to do so.

Why money is "bleeding" from the community? I thought it's pretty clear. Someone is paying for the hardware and electricity, correct? on the surface, the miners are paying. But then the miners gets paid by block reward, which they probably immediately sell to cover their cost. Those who buys these newly minted Bitcoin are paying. The existing Bitcoin holders and eco-system did not gain any value from this process.

But with a DPoS system, since there's no need to pay hardware vendor and electric company, the money is used to directly purchase the currency, and the existing currency holders and eco-system all benefit from this inflow of money.

Yes, for speculators that held from years ago, they are laughing all the way to the bank, including myself, I have made very large profits from buying Bitcoin over 3 years ago.

But for Bitcoin eco-system, the current PoW mining situation is toxic for the survival of Bitcoin eco-system.

Yes, when block reward is gone, that number may drop dramatically, but what then? what about 51% attack? Right now a PoW 51% attack on Bitcoin would cost hundreds of million dollars too, if the block reward is gone, then transaction fees better make up for it, otherwise a 51% attack would become very cheap.

Now if the transaction fee does make up for the block reward, then we are still back to to the original problem, hundreds of millions of dollars bleeding from the community each year, and paid to hardware vendor/electric company.

This is the paradox of PoW, you can't make it too cheap for 51% attack, but when you make it expensive, you bleed money from the community and eco-system.

So my point is, currently the block reward is what's keeping Bitcoin security safe against a 51% attack, that's why it should be included in the cost of transaction.

My reasoning:
* Each transaction in Bitcoin costs hundreds of time more than a credit card transaction to process. (currently this is subsidized by inflow of capital into the eco-system, so users haven't felt the full effect).

* Hundreds of millions of dollars are paid to mining hardware vendor and electricity company. This will continue year after year, and only will grow more and more as Bitcoin grows bigger. The Bitcoin community is being bled dry. The price action this year shows that even with massive amount of big name adoption and good news, the inflow of capital is having trouble to keep up with the insane surge of mining cost.

* There are better ways to secure the network, for example Bitshares's DPoS system or ETH's upcoming PoS system. Money is re-invested into the eco-system and community, instead of paid to hardware vendor and electric company.

Is 2M the hard cap on PTS? or it will go above it at 1% inflation annually?

Apple is "involved" by banning all Bitcoin apps in the first place. 

Because Bitshares is big enough to have its own forum. There are exactly 0 crypto have a larger forum/community activity than Bitshares (except maybe LTC, and LTC has a much longer history).

how to upgrade on ubuntu when stable version released? I could just do "apt-get upgrade bitcoin"?