The next step in LEOcoin’s evolution
1. Lower electricity costs
POW: Mining LEOcoins with mining RIGs consumes a lot of energy, both for the computations of the CPU/GPU as for cooling the devices with extra fans and air-conditioning. Most of this energy is wasted as all RIGs perform the same cryptographic calculations, but only one RIG per block is rewarded with 20 LEOcoins (or the pool is where each RIG is awarded conform their shares in the pool’s round).
POS: The POS mechanism requires no additional electricity; you only have to open your LEOcoin wallet and stake in an easy and safe way.
The fact that PoS doesn't require any capital or risk or work (energy, hardware, software) is a negative, not a positive. Energy is not 'wasted'... it is a mechanism for various functions.
2. Longer Hardware Life Cycle
POW: Mining is hard on your hardware and it reduces your hardware’s life cycle. A decent GPU will cost you about 300$ and a RIG will take several of these! Also additional memory might have to be installed when the n-factor goes up. Used hardware loses its market value extremely fast because of new and faster performing update-models. Next to energy, hardware and maintenance are the main cost factors.
POS: There is no significant impact on your computer’s lifespan because only very little computation is done when staking. Nor do you need a very fast pc to stake LEOcoin.
One great thing about scrypt-chacha (at n-factor 14 and above) is that you can mine with low-cost GPUs (750ti or the R7 240 4GB, priced at less than $130). The $300 for a GPU statement is false. The additional memory statement is also false: under a linux setup, 4GB is plenty. Used GPUs/CPUs do not lose their market-value nearly as much compared to Bitcoin's ASICs. In fact, the market value for the aformentioned GPUs really have not declined much at all.
I'm not sure of the point here... it will be 'easier' to obtain LEOcoins? There is a cliche to keep in mind: "Nothing worth having comes easy." If that was the case, the premined (and PoS only) coins would be dominating in marketcap and volume.
3. Probability of Reward
POW: Pay-out become less rewarding due to increase in difficulty (n-factor increase)
POS: Reward is based on the LEOcoins held in your wallet(s).
The difficulty increases with n-factor increases? How? You mean the opposite?
4. No Industrial Computer Farms - More egalitarian distribution
POW: Prone to compute-power centralization.
POS: Every LEOcoin that you own, has a chance to earn more LEOcoin.
It is hard to make the case for LEOCoin as the poster child for decentralization. It seems to me that PoS-only would give more of the newly created LEOCoins to the "foundation" just by simply having LEOCoins that were obtained through the premine.
Again, you can build a rig and participate in the creation of LEOCoins at a relatively low cost point and without dealing with corrupt ASIC companies.
5. Malware Attacks – botnet viruses
POW: Prone to malware taking advantage.
POS: Botnets can’t leverage computers to mine a Proof of Stake LEOcoin.
This argument is years old. We can pull up the same old comments about Bitcoin, and how it would become a failure because of botnets.
It would make more sense to move the NFactor back and possibly adjust NFactor changes. Hardware from large, legitimate, consumer-friendly companies in the future (CPUs with higher cache, lower TDP; GPUs with higher VRAM) will be a deterrent against botnets.
It isn't just that going from PoW (or PoW/PoS) to PoS has been done before. It has been done MANY times before. It hasn't worked. Most importantly, it isn't an innovative or an interesting idea at all. It has been the result of centralized manipulators not participating in, and not understanding, the value of Proof of Work.
