The Feds Are Terrified Of Cryptocurrencies... But They're Powerless To Stop Them

[xypos]

The federal government is no match for innovation. This is something lawmakers have always known, and it is the reason state and federal regulations exist. But innovation, by its very nature, will always find a way around those regulations, resulting in the implementation of more regulations for creative minds to learn to evade — which they will. This results in the over-regulation we see in America today.

Nothing scares the government more than something it can’t control, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed this week that it is terrified of cryptocurrencies — as well it should be. See, all those lawmakers and bureaucrats sitting around regulating everything depend on taxpayer money to pay their salaries so they can keep writing regulations. Since cryptocurrencies allow people to keep all of their money, this is a big problem for the lawmakers. Soon, people may even start to realize they can buy, sell, and trade freely without any government intervention. The horror.

Zerohedge

Spot on, and this is exactly why bitcoin in my opinion is gaining some sort of traction. People after seeing Libertyreserve, e-gold, and now BTC-e seized and shut down by the government finally realises that anything centralized has a single point of failure, and only decentralized cryptocurrencies which bitcoin is the first of will be able to combat this.

It would be an interesting situation indeed once people really start dumping their fiat into bitcoin. Then what will happen? Obviously bitcoin will get banned pretty soon but there is nothing they can do because they can't seize bitcoin. They can seize exchanges, they can seize wallet sites, but a p2p network cannot be stopped.

That's the beauty of bitcoin and why it is so useful in a collapse scenario, imo.

[hatshepsut93]

Governments can't destroy cryptocurrencies in one swing, like it happened with private payment systems previously, but if major forces (the US, EU, China, Russia) would act together, they can make sure that cryptocurrencies adoption will never reach mainstream levels. The weakest link of cryptocurrencies is mining - if cryptocurrencies were completely outlawed globally, most large scale mines would be forced to close, meaning lower network hashrates, meaning it would be easier for governments to attack crypto networks with 51% attacks. But there are many reasons why it hasn't happened yet and unlikely to happen in the future.

[pearlmen]

The federal government is no match for innovation. This is something lawmakers have always known, and it is the reason state and federal regulations exist. But innovation, by its very nature, will always find a way around those regulations, resulting in the implementation of more regulations for creative minds to learn to evade — which they will. This results in the over-regulation we see in America today.

Nothing scares the government more than something it can’t control, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed this week that it is terrified of cryptocurrencies — as well it should be. See, all those lawmakers and bureaucrats sitting around regulating everything depend on taxpayer money to pay their salaries so they can keep writing regulations. Since cryptocurrencies allow people to keep all of their money, this is a big problem for the lawmakers. Soon, people may even start to realize they can buy, sell, and trade freely without any government intervention. The horror.

Zerohedge

And that is exactly their fear because the moment government is not getting money to run its activities then its stops functioning which might leads to anarchy because it then mean the police will stop working, public hospitals will also stop working, public transport will also stops, other government agencies will stop as well. You now see the fall out if crypto-currency is going without control and why they wont allow it? But the best for every government is to provide a framework to accommodate for the future.

[Hydrogen]

I can think of cases where large financial institutions were found guilty of fraud, money laundering with drug cartels & terrorists, crimes far worse than ICO's.

They were deemed too big to fail and never answered for their crimes.

Regulation only punishes small players. It doesn't make things fair or equal the way its supposed to.

[deisik]

Governments can't destroy cryptocurrencies in one swing, like it happened with private payment systems previously, but if major forces (the US, EU, China, Russia) would act together, they can make sure that cryptocurrencies adoption will never reach mainstream levels. The weakest link of cryptocurrencies is mining - if cryptocurrencies were completely outlawed globally, most large scale mines would be forced to close, meaning lower network hashrates, meaning it would be easier for governments to attack crypto networks with 51% attacks. But there are many reasons why it hasn't happened yet and unlikely to happen in the future.

I disagree with the emphasized part

This is true only to a certain extent and (as it seems) only with regard to PoW coins. But even in the latter case, shutting down major mining operations won't change anything in particular over long times. Mining difficulty will readjust in a couple of weeks, and the efforts and resources spent to close down mining farms will be wasted for the most part. As to me, the weakest link is exchanges themselves since most people are there for profits alone, and shutting down them will have a by far more devastating and disastrous effect on cryptocurrencies than raiding mining facilities all over the world. That's why the introduction of decentralized exchanges (as well as some metaexchange embracing these exchanges) is so urgent nowadays

[Lancusters]

Governments can't destroy cryptocurrencies in one swing, like it happened with private payment systems previously, but if major forces (the US, EU, China, Russia) would act together, they can make sure that cryptocurrencies adoption will never reach mainstream levels. The weakest link of cryptocurrencies is mining - if cryptocurrencies were completely outlawed globally, most large scale mines would be forced to close, meaning lower network hashrates, meaning it would be easier for governments to attack crypto networks with 51% attacks. But there are many reasons why it hasn't happened yet and unlikely to happen in the future.

I think that now all the governments are studying what is best for them to accept crypto currency and take taxes from them or start a war but they do not believe in the victory. In addition each country has its own interests so they will never unite.

[olubams]

I wont say they are terrified because they can actually stop it when taken to an extreme length but the issue is at what costs exactly are they willing to go? I am sure Satoshi does not create this to limit the basic function of government which means for government to meet that function, it needs to be able to generate revenue and that is why although government cannot stop crypto-currency but they can frustrate its penetration by ensuring that exchanges are made to face extreme conditions and also tax them to death which will fall back on us.

[jaysabi]

The federal government is no match for innovation. This is something lawmakers have always known, and it is the reason state and federal regulations exist. But innovation, by its very nature, will always find a way around those regulations, resulting in the implementation of more regulations for creative minds to learn to evade — which they will. This results in the over-regulation we see in America today.

Nothing scares the government more than something it can’t control, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed this week that it is terrified of cryptocurrencies — as well it should be. See, all those lawmakers and bureaucrats sitting around regulating everything depend on taxpayer money to pay their salaries so they can keep writing regulations. Since cryptocurrencies allow people to keep all of their money, this is a big problem for the lawmakers. Soon, people may even start to realize they can buy, sell, and trade freely without any government intervention. The horror.

Zerohedge

This post is full of absurd premises.  The government is no match for innovation. Government's role is not to obstruct innovation, your bias notwithstanding. If you view that as government's primary and intended function, you're not living in any type of reality that resembles the real world. But innovation, by its very nature, will always find a way around those regulations resulting in the implementation of more regulations for creative minds to learn to evade... The people actively attempting to skirt regulations are exactly the people regulations are designed to stop. Those people are the REASON regulations exist. It has nothing to do with "stopping innovation" and everything to do with stopping bad actors who harm others without regard or recompense. ... and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed this week that it is terrified of cryptocurrencies... Substantiation? Where does this come from? I bet wherever you're extrapolating from, the conclusion will prove as baseless as the rest of these ideas when you provide the context that brought you to this conclusion. See, all those lawmakers and bureaucrats sitting around regulating everything depend on taxpayer money to pay their salaries so they can keep writing regulations. Epic lol. Not only do you not understand the purpose of the SEC, the mandate of the SEC, or the historical reasons the public demanded the SEC exist, you seem to think their existence is predicated on writing regulations. Pro-tip: Congress creates financial regulation, and the SEC's mandate is to create rules to enforce the law that already exists. Your understanding of any of this is exactly what I'd expect for a reader of Zerohedge.

[jaysabi]

Governments can't destroy cryptocurrencies in one swing, like it happened with private payment systems previously, but if major forces (the US, EU, China, Russia) would act together, they can make sure that cryptocurrencies adoption will never reach mainstream levels. The weakest link of cryptocurrencies is mining - if cryptocurrencies were completely outlawed globally, most large scale mines would be forced to close, meaning lower network hashrates, meaning it would be easier for governments to attack crypto networks with 51% attacks. But there are many reasons why it hasn't happened yet and unlikely to happen in the future.

I disagree with the emphasized part

This is true only to a certain extent and (as it seems) only with regard to PoW coins. But even in the latter case, shutting down major mining operations won't change anything in particular over long times. Mining difficulty will readjust in a couple of weeks, and the efforts and resources spent to close down mining farms will be wasted for the most part. As to me, the weakest link is exchanges themselves since most people are there for profits alone, and shutting down them will have a by far more devastating and disastrous effect on cryptocurrencies than raiding mining facilities all over the world. That's why the introduction of decentralized exchanges (as well as some metaexchange embracing these exchanges) is so urgent nowadays

PoS coins fall victim to the same problems as PoW coins without a robust and diversified mining base. In PoW everyone mines for their own profit and coins are awarded to those who solve the blocks, but in PoS everyone mines to keep the network functioning and coins are awarded based on proportional ownership of existing coins. In both cases, if you target the miners, the coin is in jeopardy. I fully agree with you that the weakest point is not mining though, it's the exchanges. If you cripple the point of exchange between fiat and crypto by targeting websites that allow for easy transfer, you can cripple the economy. It will stop new funds from coming in, and create price crash as people rush to get out fearing being stuck holding a worthless coin. Online exchanges more than anything have allowed crypto to grow to the point it has.

[deisik]

Governments can't destroy cryptocurrencies in one swing, like it happened with private payment systems previously, but if major forces (the US, EU, China, Russia) would act together, they can make sure that cryptocurrencies adoption will never reach mainstream levels. The weakest link of cryptocurrencies is mining - if cryptocurrencies were completely outlawed globally, most large scale mines would be forced to close, meaning lower network hashrates, meaning it would be easier for governments to attack crypto networks with 51% attacks. But there are many reasons why it hasn't happened yet and unlikely to happen in the future.

I disagree with the emphasized part

This is true only to a certain extent and (as it seems) only with regard to PoW coins. But even in the latter case, shutting down major mining operations won't change anything in particular over long times. Mining difficulty will readjust in a couple of weeks, and the efforts and resources spent to close down mining farms will be wasted for the most part. As to me, the weakest link is exchanges themselves since most people are there for profits alone, and shutting down them will have a by far more devastating and disastrous effect on cryptocurrencies than raiding mining facilities all over the world. That's why the introduction of decentralized exchanges (as well as some metaexchange embracing these exchanges) is so urgent nowadays

PoS coins fall victim to the same problems as PoW coins without a robust and diversified mining base. In PoW everyone mines for their own profit and coins are awarded to those who solve the blocks, but in PoS everyone mines to keep the network functioning and coins are awarded based on proportional ownership of existing coins. In both cases, if you target the miners, the coin is in jeopardy

And how are you going to fight with the miners in practice?

Okay, you remove a huge mining farm, and that wouldn't be difficult obviously, but in less than no time ten smaller mining operations will immediately spring up in different quarters of the world to fill the void. If you take down these, a few hundred even smaller miners will soon emerge, so you will be essentially fighting with windmills uselessly and fruitlessly wasting your resources. That would be a perfect example of an immortal hydra



Sprouting cut parts faster than you chop them off

[jaysabi]

Governments can't destroy cryptocurrencies in one swing, like it happened with private payment systems previously, but if major forces (the US, EU, China, Russia) would act together, they can make sure that cryptocurrencies adoption will never reach mainstream levels. The weakest link of cryptocurrencies is mining - if cryptocurrencies were completely outlawed globally, most large scale mines would be forced to close, meaning lower network hashrates, meaning it would be easier for governments to attack crypto networks with 51% attacks. But there are many reasons why it hasn't happened yet and unlikely to happen in the future.

I disagree with the emphasized part

This is true only to a certain extent and (as it seems) only with regard to PoW coins. But even in the latter case, shutting down major mining operations won't change anything in particular over long times. Mining difficulty will readjust in a couple of weeks, and the efforts and resources spent to close down mining farms will be wasted for the most part. As to me, the weakest link is exchanges themselves since most people are there for profits alone, and shutting down them will have a by far more devastating and disastrous effect on cryptocurrencies than raiding mining facilities all over the world. That's why the introduction of decentralized exchanges (as well as some metaexchange embracing these exchanges) is so urgent nowadays

PoS coins fall victim to the same problems as PoW coins without a robust and diversified mining base. In PoW everyone mines for their own profit and coins are awarded to those who solve the blocks, but in PoS everyone mines to keep the network functioning and coins are awarded based on proportional ownership of existing coins. In both cases, if you target the miners, the coin is in jeopardy

And how are you going to fight with the miners in practice?

Okay, you remove a huge mining farm, and that wouldn't be difficult obviously, but in less than no time ten smaller mining operations will immediately spring up in different quarters of the world to fill the void. If you take down these, a few hundred even smaller miners will soon emerge, so you will be essentially fighting with windmills uselessly and fruitlessly wasting your resources. That would be a perfect example of an immortal hydra


Sprouting cut parts faster than you chop them off

I'm not saying that targeting miners is a technically effective way undermine a cryptocurrency, just that PoS coins are not immune to such a disruption if one were to happen. Since your original statement said this was only a concern for PoW coins, I'm broadening that to include PoS coins, since both require miners to diversify and protect the network. A mining disruption would impact both (not only PoW), but I do not believe either is in significant danger from having their operations disrupted by a targeting of the mining population.

[deisik]

Governments can't destroy cryptocurrencies in one swing, like it happened with private payment systems previously, but if major forces (the US, EU, China, Russia) would act together, they can make sure that cryptocurrencies adoption will never reach mainstream levels. The weakest link of cryptocurrencies is mining - if cryptocurrencies were completely outlawed globally, most large scale mines would be forced to close, meaning lower network hashrates, meaning it would be easier for governments to attack crypto networks with 51% attacks. But there are many reasons why it hasn't happened yet and unlikely to happen in the future.

I disagree with the emphasized part

This is true only to a certain extent and (as it seems) only with regard to PoW coins. But even in the latter case, shutting down major mining operations won't change anything in particular over long times. Mining difficulty will readjust in a couple of weeks, and the efforts and resources spent to close down mining farms will be wasted for the most part. As to me, the weakest link is exchanges themselves since most people are there for profits alone, and shutting down them will have a by far more devastating and disastrous effect on cryptocurrencies than raiding mining facilities all over the world. That's why the introduction of decentralized exchanges (as well as some metaexchange embracing these exchanges) is so urgent nowadays

PoS coins fall victim to the same problems as PoW coins without a robust and diversified mining base. In PoW everyone mines for their own profit and coins are awarded to those who solve the blocks, but in PoS everyone mines to keep the network functioning and coins are awarded based on proportional ownership of existing coins. In both cases, if you target the miners, the coin is in jeopardy

And how are you going to fight with the miners in practice?

Okay, you remove a huge mining farm, and that wouldn't be difficult obviously, but in less than no time ten smaller mining operations will immediately spring up in different quarters of the world to fill the void. If you take down these, a few hundred even smaller miners will soon emerge, so you will be essentially fighting with windmills uselessly and fruitlessly wasting your resources. That would be a perfect example of an immortal hydra


Sprouting cut parts faster than you chop them off

I'm not saying that targeting miners is a technically effective way undermine a cryptocurrency, just that PoS coins are not immune to such a disruption if one were to happen. Since your original statement said this was only a concern for PoW coins, I'm broadening that to include PoS coins, since both require miners to diversify and protect the network. A mining disruption would impact both (not only PoW), but I do not believe either is in significant danger from having their operations disrupted by a targeting of the mining population.

I disagree with even this minor point of view

Not for the sake of disagreement obviously, but because you are missing an ever important distinction here (which conceptually distinguishes between the PoW model and the PoS model). This important distinction lies in the fact that with the PoS approach to securing network, you have to literally own the network before you can successfully attack it (i.e. get hold of the majority of coins), but in that very case you essentially become the owner of the whole shebang itself. This is totally different with the PoW model since in the latter case you just need enough hashing power to ruin such a coin

[jaysabi]

Governments can't destroy cryptocurrencies in one swing, like it happened with private payment systems previously, but if major forces (the US, EU, China, Russia) would act together, they can make sure that cryptocurrencies adoption will never reach mainstream levels. The weakest link of cryptocurrencies is mining - if cryptocurrencies were completely outlawed globally, most large scale mines would be forced to close, meaning lower network hashrates, meaning it would be easier for governments to attack crypto networks with 51% attacks. But there are many reasons why it hasn't happened yet and unlikely to happen in the future.

I disagree with the emphasized part

This is true only to a certain extent and (as it seems) only with regard to PoW coins. But even in the latter case, shutting down major mining operations won't change anything in particular over long times. Mining difficulty will readjust in a couple of weeks, and the efforts and resources spent to close down mining farms will be wasted for the most part. As to me, the weakest link is exchanges themselves since most people are there for profits alone, and shutting down them will have a by far more devastating and disastrous effect on cryptocurrencies than raiding mining facilities all over the world. That's why the introduction of decentralized exchanges (as well as some metaexchange embracing these exchanges) is so urgent nowadays

PoS coins fall victim to the same problems as PoW coins without a robust and diversified mining base. In PoW everyone mines for their own profit and coins are awarded to those who solve the blocks, but in PoS everyone mines to keep the network functioning and coins are awarded based on proportional ownership of existing coins. In both cases, if you target the miners, the coin is in jeopardy

And how are you going to fight with the miners in practice?

Okay, you remove a huge mining farm, and that wouldn't be difficult obviously, but in less than no time ten smaller mining operations will immediately spring up in different quarters of the world to fill the void. If you take down these, a few hundred even smaller miners will soon emerge, so you will be essentially fighting with windmills uselessly and fruitlessly wasting your resources. That would be a perfect example of an immortal hydra


Sprouting cut parts faster than you chop them off

I'm not saying that targeting miners is a technically effective way undermine a cryptocurrency, just that PoS coins are not immune to such a disruption if one were to happen. Since your original statement said this was only a concern for PoW coins, I'm broadening that to include PoS coins, since both require miners to diversify and protect the network. A mining disruption would impact both (not only PoW), but I do not believe either is in significant danger from having their operations disrupted by a targeting of the mining population.

I disagree with even this minor point of view

Not for the sake of disagreement obviously, but because you are missing an ever important distinction here (which conceptually distinguishes between the PoW model and the PoS model). This important distinction lies in the fact that with the PoS approach to securing network, you have to literally own the network before you can successfully attack it (i.e. get hold of the majority of coins), but in that very case you essentially become the owner of the whole shebang itself. This is totally different with the PoW model since in the latter case you just need enough hashing power to ruin such a coin

Perhaps I'm not as familiar with how PoS coins work then. How does ownership over coins factor into control over the network? Are there miners solving the blocks in the same manner as PoW? (If so, could you not just disrupt the miners solving the blocks to interfere with the system? Not to take it over, mind you, but to disrupt it and make it unusable.)

[deisik]

I disagree with even this minor point of view

Not for the sake of disagreement obviously, but because you are missing an ever important distinction here (which conceptually distinguishes between the PoW model and the PoS model). This important distinction lies in the fact that with the PoS approach to securing network, you have to literally own the network before you can successfully attack it (i.e. get hold of the majority of coins), but in that very case you essentially become the owner of the whole shebang itself. This is totally different with the PoW model since in the latter case you just need enough hashing power to ruin such a coin

Perhaps I'm not as familiar with how PoS coins work then. How does ownership over coins factor into control over the network? Are there miners solving the blocks in the same manner as PoW? (If so, could you not just disrupt the miners solving the blocks to interfere with the system? Not to take it over, mind you, but to disrupt it and make it unusable.)

You may want to read the Wikipedia article on the PoS model

There are no miners in the sense mining works in Bitcoin. As per article (emphasis added), "in PoS-based cryptocurrencies the creator of the next block is chosen in a deterministic (pseudo-random) way, and the chance that an account is chosen depends on its wealth". In other words, your voting rights (which roughly corresponds to hashing power in Bitcoin) are directly proportional to the amount of coins you have (i.e. your stake). So if you want to take down or otherwise damage the coin, you have to outright accumulate more coins than anyone else (in general case, 50% plus 1 coin). But that would amount to acquiring the controlling stake in a company or firm, i.e. you essentially become an owner of it. After that, you can do with the company whatever you might want to do, but this is kinda natural course of events

[Yuuto]

The federal government is no match for innovation. This is something lawmakers have always known, and it is the reason state and federal regulations exist. But innovation, by its very nature, will always find a way around those regulations, resulting in the implementation of more regulations for creative minds to learn to evade — which they will. This results in the over-regulation we see in America today.

Nothing scares the government more than something it can’t control, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed this week that it is terrified of cryptocurrencies — as well it should be. See, all those lawmakers and bureaucrats sitting around regulating everything depend on taxpayer money to pay their salaries so they can keep writing regulations. Since cryptocurrencies allow people to keep all of their money, this is a big problem for the lawmakers. Soon, people may even start to realize they can buy, sell, and trade freely without any government intervention. The horror.

Zerohedge

I think that no doubt the government is scared of what bitcoin can bring to the table but really what can they do against it? Ban all bitcoin exchanges? Stricter KYC and AML laws? Or just completely outlaw bitcoin altogether?

Governments around the world have basically tried everything to stop people from using bitcoin and very few has actually encouraged their citizens to use bitcoin by reducing or eliminating taxes(australia, japan etc.).

What's the result? people keep on using bitcoin because it can't be stopped by a central point.... To shut down the entire bitcoin network you'd need to either shut down the internet, or shut down every single computer that runs bitcoin. Both of which is close to impossible. That is why centralized fintech is bound to fail, whilst decentralized ones will thrive.

[hatshepsut93]

And how are you going to fight with the miners in practice?

Okay, you remove a huge mining farm, and that wouldn't be difficult obviously, but in less than no time ten smaller mining operations will immediately spring up in different quarters of the world to fill the void. If you take down these, a few hundred even smaller miners will soon emerge, so you will be essentially fighting with windmills uselessly and fruitlessly wasting your resources. That would be a perfect example of an immortal hydra



Sprouting cut parts faster than you chop them off

It's not about shutting down every miner in the world, it's about preventing growth of cryptocurrencies. In free environment, like we have now, hashrate follows the price, so 51% attacks can't be profitable for private parties, and also very expensive for governments. But when mining is banned globally and hashrate drops to very low levels and can't grow freely, it becomes a natural limit to the price, because disproportionally high price would make malicious mining profitable. Also, in this scenario governments could use seized mining equipment to further disrupt cryptocurrencies with 51% attacks. Successful attacks further drop the price and cause miners to quit.
But for this to work, all governments in the world need to treat cryptocurrencies as a terrorism, to make sure that some countries won't become safe havens.

[jaysabi]

I disagree with even this minor point of view

Not for the sake of disagreement obviously, but because you are missing an ever important distinction here (which conceptually distinguishes between the PoW model and the PoS model). This important distinction lies in the fact that with the PoS approach to securing network, you have to literally own the network before you can successfully attack it (i.e. get hold of the majority of coins), but in that very case you essentially become the owner of the whole shebang itself. This is totally different with the PoW model since in the latter case you just need enough hashing power to ruin such a coin

Perhaps I'm not as familiar with how PoS coins work then. How does ownership over coins factor into control over the network? Are there miners solving the blocks in the same manner as PoW? (If so, could you not just disrupt the miners solving the blocks to interfere with the system? Not to take it over, mind you, but to disrupt it and make it unusable.)

You may want to read the Wikipedia article on the PoS model

There are no miners in the sense mining works in Bitcoin. As per article (emphasis added), "in PoS-based cryptocurrencies the creator of the next block is chosen in a deterministic (pseudo-random) way, and the chance that an account is chosen depends on its wealth". In other words, your voting rights (which roughly corresponds to hashing power in Bitcoin) are directly proportional to the amount of coins you have (i.e. your stake). So if you want to take down or otherwise damage the coin, you have to outright accumulate more coins than anyone else (in general case, 50% plus 1 coin). But that would amount to acquiring the controlling stake in a company or firm, i.e. you essentially become an owner of it. After that, you can do with the company whatever you might want to do, but this is kinda natural course of events

I guess I'm just trying to understand how cryptography figures into it then. In PoW, everyone is "mining" to solve a cryptographic puzzle, and the person who does it gets the reward of new coins. But there are still computers hashing an algorithm in PoS, even if that's not how the blocks rewards are chosen. But in any event, it seems like targeting the computers decentralizing the network (miners in PoW and hashers or whatever they're called in PoS) would have the same effect in both systems. It would be a horribly inefficient way to try to disrupt the system, but it should have the same effect on both. This operates differently from the notion that the only way to disrupt the currency is to seize control of it (by owning majority in PoS or the majority of the hashing power in PoW).

[deisik]

I disagree with even this minor point of view

Not for the sake of disagreement obviously, but because you are missing an ever important distinction here (which conceptually distinguishes between the PoW model and the PoS model). This important distinction lies in the fact that with the PoS approach to securing network, you have to literally own the network before you can successfully attack it (i.e. get hold of the majority of coins), but in that very case you essentially become the owner of the whole shebang itself. This is totally different with the PoW model since in the latter case you just need enough hashing power to ruin such a coin

Perhaps I'm not as familiar with how PoS coins work then. How does ownership over coins factor into control over the network? Are there miners solving the blocks in the same manner as PoW? (If so, could you not just disrupt the miners solving the blocks to interfere with the system? Not to take it over, mind you, but to disrupt it and make it unusable.)

You may want to read the Wikipedia article on the PoS model

There are no miners in the sense mining works in Bitcoin. As per article (emphasis added), "in PoS-based cryptocurrencies the creator of the next block is chosen in a deterministic (pseudo-random) way, and the chance that an account is chosen depends on its wealth". In other words, your voting rights (which roughly corresponds to hashing power in Bitcoin) are directly proportional to the amount of coins you have (i.e. your stake). So if you want to take down or otherwise damage the coin, you have to outright accumulate more coins than anyone else (in general case, 50% plus 1 coin). But that would amount to acquiring the controlling stake in a company or firm, i.e. you essentially become an owner of it. After that, you can do with the company whatever you might want to do, but this is kinda natural course of events

I guess I'm just trying to understand how cryptography figures into it then. In PoW, everyone is "mining" to solve a cryptographic puzzle, and the person who does it gets the reward of new coins. But there are still computers hashing an algorithm in PoS, even if that's not how the blocks rewards are chosen. But in any event, it seems like targeting the computers decentralizing the network (miners in PoW and hashers or whatever they're called in PoS) would have the same effect in both systems. It would be a horribly inefficient way to try to disrupt the system, but it should have the same effect on both. This operates differently from the notion that the only way to disrupt the currency is to seize control of it (by owning majority in PoS or the majority of the hashing power in PoW).

But that distinction can in fact make a tremendous difference

In other words, it may be quite feasible and doable to disrupt the PoW network provided enough resources are put into mining, and you are sort of guaranteed to succeed at bringing the network down. At the same time, the mission of accumulating enough coins in the PoS model may be virtually impossible since as soon as you start buying up, the price is set to spike exponentially. And whatever the price might be, you still might not be able to make it simply because some holders won't sell at any price. And then you are stuck

[jaysabi]

I disagree with even this minor point of view

Not for the sake of disagreement obviously, but because you are missing an ever important distinction here (which conceptually distinguishes between the PoW model and the PoS model). This important distinction lies in the fact that with the PoS approach to securing network, you have to literally own the network before you can successfully attack it (i.e. get hold of the majority of coins), but in that very case you essentially become the owner of the whole shebang itself. This is totally different with the PoW model since in the latter case you just need enough hashing power to ruin such a coin

Perhaps I'm not as familiar with how PoS coins work then. How does ownership over coins factor into control over the network? Are there miners solving the blocks in the same manner as PoW? (If so, could you not just disrupt the miners solving the blocks to interfere with the system? Not to take it over, mind you, but to disrupt it and make it unusable.)

You may want to read the Wikipedia article on the PoS model

There are no miners in the sense mining works in Bitcoin. As per article (emphasis added), "in PoS-based cryptocurrencies the creator of the next block is chosen in a deterministic (pseudo-random) way, and the chance that an account is chosen depends on its wealth". In other words, your voting rights (which roughly corresponds to hashing power in Bitcoin) are directly proportional to the amount of coins you have (i.e. your stake). So if you want to take down or otherwise damage the coin, you have to outright accumulate more coins than anyone else (in general case, 50% plus 1 coin). But that would amount to acquiring the controlling stake in a company or firm, i.e. you essentially become an owner of it. After that, you can do with the company whatever you might want to do, but this is kinda natural course of events

I guess I'm just trying to understand how cryptography figures into it then. In PoW, everyone is "mining" to solve a cryptographic puzzle, and the person who does it gets the reward of new coins. But there are still computers hashing an algorithm in PoS, even if that's not how the blocks rewards are chosen. But in any event, it seems like targeting the computers decentralizing the network (miners in PoW and hashers or whatever they're called in PoS) would have the same effect in both systems. It would be a horribly inefficient way to try to disrupt the system, but it should have the same effect on both. This operates differently from the notion that the only way to disrupt the currency is to seize control of it (by owning majority in PoS or the majority of the hashing power in PoW).

But that distinction can in fact make a tremendous difference

In other words, it may be quite feasible and doable to disrupt the PoW network provided enough resources are put into mining, and you are sort of guaranteed to succeed at bringing the network down. At the same time, the mission of accumulating enough coins in the PoS model may be virtually impossible since as soon as you start buying up, the price is set to spike exponentially. And whatever the price might be, you still might not be able to make it simply because some holders won't sell at any price. And then you are stuck

But again, this operates on the notion that the only way to disrupt a PoS system is to seize control of it, rather than disrupting it's ability to propagate a network by attacking or taking offline the computers that make it up, does it not? Even under PoW, you don't have to seize control of it to render it unusable, you just have to destabilize it to the point that blocks can be corrupted.  (I say "just" knowing this would be a technical feat.) But I would think that you could hamper the system the same way by disrupting the network activity in PoS. Theoretically, what happens if a wallet with 51% of a PoS coinbase is not connected to the network? I would think they don't get to solve any blocks, otherwise the network would grind to a halt. If 51% of the coinbase in PoS is not connected to the network, doesn't that degrade network security the same way as taking out a large portion of the mining power making up PoW? My guess would be yes, but I don't know, which is why I'm asking.

[Shamie1002]

I think they are not really afraid. They have the legal power and I know that they can do what they want. Bitcoin is a big money and I am sure that they are just waiting for the right time to attack. We should all be ready for any situations.