Is approval by miners needed to switch to proof-of-stake?

[intrazer]

Mining uses quite a lot of energy, this will show up as transactions fees, a system using proof-of-stake could thus have lower transaction fees than bitcoins. ASIC mining is centralizing mining. It's getting to the point where mining can only be done by large corporations with lots of money to buy huge amount of chips, or even develop chips themselves to stay in the game. It's much easier for governments to force a few large companies to change bitcoin, than many individuals, and its also much easier to attack or try to shut down.

If, at some point in the future, those potential problems was starting to be seen as real problems, and the majority of bitcoin users agreed it would be a good idea to change. Would it be possible to switch bitcoin to proof-of-stake or others alternatives without the consent of the miners, who would no doubt like to protect their investments in hardware, and would likely try to stop such a change?

[PenAndPaper]

Obviously the chain is going to fork if such change ever gets implemented. But out of all things i don't think this will ever happen...

[Impaler]

Holders of BTC have no influence in a fork, it's the EXCHANGERS of BTC that determine which Fork will have value.  If Gox and other exchanges say that one fork will be exchanged for dollars and the other won't you can forget about that other fork having any value, and given that at the moment of the fork everyone would have equal coins in each fork everyone would have a reason to accept the exchanges decision.

[ixne]

Mining uses quite a lot of energy, this will show up as transactions fees

Wrong. If mining takes up too much energy, mining will become unprofitable, some inefficient miners will quit, and difficulty will fall until energy costs are in line with mining profits. You've put the cart before the horse here.

[intrazer]

You need an economic majority to make huge changes. It doesn't really matter what the miners do, if they make changes that holders of bitcoin do not agree with, they will soon find themselves mining worthless coins.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority

That's good to hear. At least miners can't hijack the system then.

[intrazer]

Mining uses quite a lot of energy, this will show up as transactions fees

Wrong. If mining takes up too much energy, mining will become unprofitable, some inefficient miners will quit, and difficulty will fall until energy costs are in line with mining profits. You've put the cart before the horse here.

What I mean is that if you compare two cryptocurrencies, one which uses mining and one which uses proof-of-stake, then the one which uses proof-of-stake will eventually be cheaper to use for the users, since the total cost of running the network will be less. Around 2030 or so, when the majority of bitcoins are mined, unless the value of a bitcoin is high enough so it's still worth mining just for the block reward, it might be cheaper to use proof-of-stake or something similar. If bitcoin then do not change to proof-of-stake, or another system not based on proof-of-work, perhaps that eventually might cause bitcoin to collapse, if there is a good alternative available and people gradually  start switching to that one, and then that gradual switching suddenly lead to a panic and collapse, just speculation of course, but I'm keen to know what the options are to avoid something like that from happening.