Proof Of Stake Coins are killing this community

[porcupine87]

We are being led way off-field by promoting Proof Of Stake coins in this community.  While I understand there is a efficiency problem with PoW coins, all we are doing by using PoS is to give altcoins a bad name.  They inherently make the rich richer and keep the poor poorer.   I understand the burning desire to reward the early adopters, but we are turning into a bunch of vultures rather than creating a coin that fixes Bitcoin's problems.

1.  PoS creates even higher volatility than what we are seeing in Bitcoin by concentrating wealth and dissuading actual spend.
2.  PoS encourages pump-and-dump, and members are behaving like they've never heard of a pyramid scheme before.  "psst, the more you promote the product, the more we'll give you.  Oh, and the more you buy, the more you can make."  WTF!
3.  PoW doesn't have to be useless computation.  Sunny has proved this with Primecoin (although it's not the *most* useful thing) - I'm keeping an eye out for a better copy of Primecoin.

Point 3 is valid, but I can't follow the first two points?
#1 Why does a steady gain in value dissuade spending? Everybody have assets which are growing. But will they never spend it and die poor? I have bought bitcoins and sold them while they were rising 20% every day and bought a nice new notebook.
#2 ?

What do we *REALLY* need?
1.  A coin with a 5sec block time for real-world transactions.
2.  A coin with a rate of inflation that is on par with economic growth.
3.  A coin that support multi-hash signing so that we can embed a distributed exchange in the program.
[/quote]
1. way too many orphans. I like the coins which confirmes faster than 10min, but 5s is way to fast (technical aspect). And Bitcoin is real time. Did you ever spend a btc? It is like an email. Yes, confirmation take a while but VISA takes 180 days. Bitcoin only 30min... (ok, there is not a fixed time. The longer you wait the stronger is the confirmation).

[Slingshot]

Just a note; there is a reason we don't have 5 second block time coins.  The blockchain system just isn't capable of that kind of speed efficiently.  There would be tons of orphan blocks and similar. 

+1


 That's obvious to anyone that already knew this. nuff said.

[Clunge]

2.  A coin with a rate of inflation that is on par with economic growth.

I think you should sit down with a hot cup of tea and think carefully about that one. Especially the words 'inflation' and 'economic growth'.

The answer seems, inevitably, to turn into hidden debt.

The experiment is being done - in spades - in the world around us.

In the cryptocurrency world, the solution to your problem is The Bernankoin.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375010.0

Enjoy.

[nesco1805]

Totally agree with OP.

It's ridiculous that wiki article starts with PoS solving PoW monopoly problem, when PoS main problem is monopoly.
Furthermore PoW monopoly issue is technical and largely academic, while PoS monopoly is in it's very core, it's an economic issue and a daily one.

Problem for small holders - No matter at how low you have bought your NXT, major stakeholders will always have incentive to dump at even lower price.
It's a problem arising from the fact that major holders have bough their coins at infinitely low price (compared to others), and loads of it at that.
And they can make a profit by selling it at any given price, hurting everyone else in the process.
You hold tiny %, yet you have meaningful lowest price at which you can exit - they are not limited from bellow, and yet they hold overwhelming %.

Problem for major holders - They can pump the currency to infinity, I mean sky is the limit, but they can't dump considerable % of it, not even at a reasonable price.
The circle is too tight and demand is simply not there.

There ought to be a correlation between starting investment and (starting?) market cap. 21 BTC -> $100M or $50M(atm) WTH is that?
This is not a critique of NXT per se, but rather of PoS.

[meta.p02]

They should make a coin that decays back to the foundation account or miners if not used. This would solve the problem of coins that ended up in limbo accounts (retreivable) and stimulate trading, spending and the economy
The foundation can then use this money to invest in better utilities and marketing or if miners retreive them it will still make sense to mine.

PM me for a deal on the rights to this new idea

Freicoin would be what you look for. Sorry, no deal for you 

Just if you make it don't have it give 80% to the foundation, that's totally excessive and locks in massive inequality between the foundation members and the general populace.

If I make a coin, I would have reward steadily increasing up till a limit far in the future (5~10 years), PoS interest too. This way the coin can be spread throughout the world without overly-large advantage given to the early adopters (who likely already have large advantages over the rest of the world).

[matt608]

The OP has a point.  A big part of bitcoin's brilliance is its distribution mechanism.  That's half the problem of launching a new currency, distribution, and mining is a beautiful solution to that problem.

[sixteendigits]

Yes, totally agree!  PoS is what's killing alts!  If only the 300 worthless shitcoin clones released this week were pure PoW as God intended instead of flirting with that filthy, dirty, whore PoS, DOGE would have rightfully overtaken BTC by now!

[Slingshot]

Yes, totally agree!  PoS is what's killing alts!  If only the 300 worthless shitcoin clones released this week were pure PoW as God intended instead of flirting with that filthy, dirty, whore PoS, DOGE would have rightfully overtaken BTC by now!

lmao

[sibilant_doge]

  Anyone know where I can find a primer on PoW vs. PoS? I am new at this and only understand address, port, username, start. It seems that PoW coins are cpu only? I haven't been able to get any cpu coins working on my laptops, so I am kind of curious on the whole topic.

[markm]

So far the PoS coins have been centralised haven't they? Relying on some central "trusted node" like Solidcoin did?

-MarkM-

[nastybit]

Pure PoS are total scam as it's not possible to distribute the coins equally to the entire humanity and even if you can do that I believe there will be complains for this and that.
On the other hand, probably PoW is a waste of energy but the distribution it's not centralized as PoS (don't paste BTC distribution, I know, thanks)
Maybe we need another paradigm a better PoW/PoS?

[efx]

So far the PoS coins have been centralised haven't they? Relying on some central "trusted node" like Solidcoin did?

-MarkM-

I think we are able to run our own trusted nodes in the case of something like NVC.

However, If the dev of a PoS coin still controls the majority of trusted nodes, then I'm pretty sure it's still effectively centralized.


I know there was talk of decentralization with PPC but I don't remember what became of it. Anyways, I mostly consider PPC to be obsolete since NVC is a more polished version and sonny has his new project anyways.

[Thorgrim]

and in POW the rich don't get richer 

I keep running into this argument and it is a weak one.

Yes if you mined a coin with POW and the coin goes up in value then you make a profit. BUT...

When you spend money on mining hardware the money spent doesn't go to the developers of the coin you are mining.

POS is different though. In order to mine a POS coin you need to buy some coins from the Developers or early adopters. It creates false demand for the coins. If you don't wish to fork over money or BTC for coins then you can't mine a significant amount of the coin (if any). You are left out of the loop while the initial holders continue to increase their positions.

----

For example lets say you managed to mine or buy a 1% position in POWcoin in the first month. Lets say this coin was successful and price and hashrate increased significantly after that. In order to maintain that 1% position you would have to spend ever greater amounts of money on either mining power or through direct purchasing of the coin to maintain that 1% position. If not then your position would continue to get diluted and it isn't a bad thing. For a currency to function it needs widespread adoption.

Now with POScoin you acquire a 1% position in the coin the first month and basically have to do nothing to maintain that position in the future except not sell.

See the difference?

[Thorgrim]

What do we *REALLY* need?
1.  A coin with a 5sec block time for real-world transactions.
2.  A coin with a rate of inflation that is on par with economic growth.
3.  A coin that support multi-hash signing so that we can embed a distributed exchange in the program.

+1

Spot on. I would add just one thing: needs to be distributed, hence block must be generated with consumer grade equipment. If you allow specialized hardware then distributed network goes out the window.

I don't think this is as big a problem as people make it out to be.

If someone can't come up with $1000 for a decent rig that is their own problem. Out in the real world you generally don't get money for free. So having to invest in order to acquire coins isn't that big a deal.

Even without investing you can usually mine something even if it is a small amount or maybe you could earn coins by selling something at a market or doing some work for them. There are also giveaway's and faucets.

People point at bitcoin as an example of a currency out of reach of the little guy but at one time it was profitable to CPU mine even so it is widely disbursed.

The problem with disbursing the coin is generally in coins that are created 100% like NXT or with very short mining cycles like Quarkcoin. 6 months or even a year for 98% coin creation is going to tend to concentrate the coins in the hands of a few. Longer mining cycles are needed. Something else that BTC did right.