[Megathread] The long-known PoW vs. PoS debate

[NotATether]

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I'll run the numbers; just ballpark calculations.
A single general-purpose motherboard with a single extremely multithreaded CPU and a PSU costs a whole lot less than a 2kW miner, right? A Ryzen 5950X costs around 600€, so with motherboard and PSU under one grand. Instead of a $10k S19, you could get 10 of these, then. They have 16 cores and 32 threads, so they should be well suited. In idle, it pulls just 54W, so at the wall, with RAM and everything, it will be 60W. Ten of these will be 600 watts, instead of 1 or 2 kW.
Definitely an improvement, but not the order of magnitude type improvements that one might wish for when thinking about 'idle mining', am I right?

Edit: It's also not about physical size really; if you're concerned that 10 miners take up more space than 1, they will probably put them closer together (less heat issues with low-power miners) and / or build more facilities.

In Proof of Sleep/Time/Idle (I really want to use Sleep but I resigned to the fact that the acronym would get confused with Proof of Stake) we don't need CPUs that fast because the cores will be asleep the vast majority of the time, even when you take into account the dozens of containers running in the background - ultimately, make the sleep time long enough and they will collectively yield some processor time to idleness (there's a memory limit to max #containers).

So instead of a Ryzen or a Threadripper, old Opterons and Xeons that draw less power would be more favored. Clock speed doesn't matter at all here, just the number of threads - which you can quickly multiply by accumulating several cheap processors. There will be no motherboard or PSU shortage because there are several vendors who make generic parts for servers & server CPUs. Theoretically you could design a chassis that squishes together multiple machines in the same chassis, but that would suck up too much money in R&D - It would be far better for manufacturers to simply use horizontal 1U/2U/3U etc. racks instead.

So as long as the servers stacked vertically (or horizontally) on each other draw less than 1/3 the power of ASICS, energy is saved, assuming three of these take as much space as a single ASIC. This should be the case in practice considering the enormous power that popular modern miners such as Antminer S17 draw (over 2kW in the case of S17).

I'm not sure how many old xeons I could buy with 1 grand (including associated memory sticks, HDDs and racks) but I'm pretty confident it's going to assemble more than 10 servers. If we get mobos with extra sockets that pushes the core count up even more.

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[n0nce]

I'm not sure how many old xeons I could buy with 1 grand (including associated memory sticks, HDDs and racks) but I'm pretty confident it's going to assemble more than 10 servers. If we get mobos with extra sockets that pushes the core count up even more.

But then didn't I even give more optimistic numbers than what you're suggesting? Sure, old chips might draw a bit less, but not by a lot. By them being significantly cheaper than the latest and greatest Ryzen, you can get a ton more of them at the same cost of a specific ASIC, so even if they draw a tiny bit less, in total the consumption will go even higher than the 600W/$1k I suggested.

This page suggests a Xeon E5-2620 pulls over 50W in idle and it only has 6c/12t. But of course significantly cheaper than a 5950X.
https://www.servethehome.com/dual-intel-xeon-e5-2620-v1-v2-v3-compared/intel-xeon-e5-2620-v1-v2-v3-power-consumption/

It's on Amazon for $80. So instead of paying around $1k for 16 cores, the same money here would get you 7 chips (with hardware needed) with each 50W, in total 350W. Multiply by ten to reach $10, it's 3.5kW.
Nothing gained compared to ASIC? Not sure...

Seems to me like getting lots of old multicore chips would be the best strategy to make money here; but it would push energy consumption since you can get many and less efficient ones (32nm and other limitations).

[NotATether]

I'm not sure how many old xeons I could buy with 1 grand (including associated memory sticks, HDDs and racks) but I'm pretty confident it's going to assemble more than 10 servers. If we get mobos with extra sockets that pushes the core count up even more.

But then didn't I even give more optimistic numbers than what you're suggesting? Sure, old chips might draw a bit less, but not by a lot. By them being significantly cheaper than the latest and greatest Ryzen, you can get a ton more of them at the same cost of a specific ASIC, so even if they draw a tiny bit less, in total the consumption will go even higher than the 600W/$1k I suggested.

That's a good point. For a new algo to get widely adopted, there has to be a resource surplus that can be used. With PoW it used to be various ASIC models and electricity supplies.

You wouldn't want to utilize an already scarce resource such as GPUs, because that will cause vendor backlash (nvidia crypto mining throttling comes to mind).

Nobody has a need for old CPUs and servers so there's a surplus of them, and that's the only reason why I suggested them.

For something like this to work, there would have to be a new system design where all the parts use less power. But this drifts into ASIC-like territory, and particularly with things such as CPU dies, are hard to manufacture because foundries such as TSMC impose quotas on how much you can order (built-in scarcity => less adoption). The last thing a new algo would need are its custom miners getting delivered after 3-6 months, this doesn't make them any better than PoW ASICS in that regard.

[n0nce]

Nobody has a need for old CPUs and servers so there's a surplus of them, and that's the only reason why I suggested them.

I mean, it's not a bad idea, but if the concern is power consumption, in many cases in the end the lower-power devices cost less so you can buy more of them and end up consuming the same amount. Pretty sure it's also the case with GPUs and other mining techniques that are supposedly better than Bitcoin ASICs.

For something like this to work, there would have to be a new system design where all the parts use less power. But this drifts into ASIC-like territory, and particularly with things such as CPU dies, are hard to manufacture because foundries such as TSMC impose quotas on how much you can order (built-in scarcity => less adoption).

Yes, of course, ASICs are the most energy efficient electronic device you can make to solve a task.

[NotATether]

Yes, of course, ASICs are the most energy efficient electronic device you can make to solve a task.

I need to find a wall somewhere to hang this quote on. 

[garlonicon]

When it comes to Proof of Stake, there are some networks where we have "validators", so that only some selected nodes can mine. So, my question is: why those developers create their own coins out of thin air, instead of creating two way peg-in with BTC? Because it is possible to have a federation, a "signet sidechain", just some Bitcoin address that can represent the whole status of their chain, and then it is possible to convert between BTC and ALT in 1:1 ratio, just by creating a Bitcoin transaction!

Taproot even make things easier, because Schnorr signatures can reduce any N-of-N multisig into a single key. So, if there are some "validators", then they can join their keys, create a Taproot address, and mine by moving coins to and from Bitcoin, creating any altcoin blocks by merged mining (or rather: merged signing in this case). Users are going to trade that altcoins for Bitcoin anyway, so why not batch all of those transactions as a part of the protocol?

[MrSolo]

I might not be the best PoS enthusiast but i'm definitely not a fan of Pow, today a new bill was introduced into the EU parliament named (MiCA) legislation, the bill lost votes but it had 28 votes, this bill says that All tokens to stay Legal must move away from the high energy consumption it currently has, I suggest all the PoW people to stop dragging BTC to the mud because of their pride and ruin the whole cryptocurrency movement. this is a dark point in the history for crypto people. Energy isn't free and Bitcoin uses lots of it. and we are playing Russian roulette because bills like MiCA will keep coming and oneday one will pass and it would be too late.

[pooya87]

this is a dark point in the history for crypto people. Energy isn't free and Bitcoin uses lots of it. and we are playing Russian roulette because bills like MiCA will keep coming and oneday one will pass and it would be too late.

No offense but your post is very naive.

For starters the point of bitcoin was to create a decentralized, censorship resistant currency. If such bills in such a small part of the world were to be able to stop bitcoin, that would have meant bitcoin's failure regardless of its mining protocol.

Secondly you think the issue that EU has with bitcoin is energy related. It is not, not even a little bit. They are using it because the FUD works and it is easier to make people believe that than telling them they hate bitcoin. Their issue with bitcoin is a decentralized related one. To put simply, they can't control bitcoin so they want to ban it. It has been like this ever since bitcoin started gaining traction.

[LegendaryK]

I might not be the best PoS enthusiast but i'm definitely not a fan of Pow, today a new bill was introduced into the EU parliament named (MiCA) legislation, the bill lost votes but it had 28 votes, this bill says that All tokens to stay Legal must move away from the high energy consumption it currently has, I suggest all the PoW people to stop dragging BTC to the mud because of their pride and ruin the whole cryptocurrency movement. this is a dark point in the history for crypto people. Energy isn't free and Bitcoin uses lots of it. and we are playing Russian roulette because bills like MiCA will keep coming and oneday one will pass and it would be too late.

Your Post is reasonable, but you won't get a logical reply from illogical people that support PoW flawed design.

Just do your crypto trading in preparation for what you see as the conclusion of the folly know as PoW mining.
At some point in the future, a worldwide PoW ban will be in effect, because if they don't, the miners greed will destroy their power grids.
Destruction of a power grid is not fud, it is a massive death toll for the citizens of any country dumb enough to not ban it.

Only BTC & LTC are refusing to evolve , so take that into consideration during your trading.

Ethereum and the rest of the coins will be unaffected by POW Bans, because they are willing to Evolve to a better system.
Even Doge is moving to PoS.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/6912062

It is officially confirmed that Dogecoin, the meme-based cryptocoin, will now migrate from POW to the POS model.
It is because the POS offers an unmatched advantage over the POW model
It was confirmed by Vitalik Buterin, who said he is helping the Dogecoin Foundation migrate the doge consensus method to PoS.
Buterin also pointed out that most major crypto assets are slowly migrating to the POS model.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is the main driving force behind ETH 2.0 update.
The major update aims to migrate the second-largest crypto asset in the world from the current proof-of-work (PoW) model to proof of participation (PoS).
Other significant crypto assets are also contemplating making the switch.
Last year the Dogecoin Foundation, the organization responsible for developing DOGE, had already reported that it was counting on Buterin’s help to make the migration. Buterin, in an interview with UpOnly, confirmed the news that he was involved in this project, saying that virtually all cryptocurrencies will follow the same steps.
Buterin added that all major cryptocurrencies are switching to Proof-of-Stake and Dogecoin’s plans are more advanced, and Zcash’s plans are more advanced.

[n0nce]

Only BTC & LTC are refusing to evolve , so take that into consideration during your trading.

Amongst other reasons, one of the issues any other cryptocurrency has is that they have known founders and developers, where governments can put pressure. They are at much higher risk, because faces are known. Furthermore, for example in the case of Ethereum, the main motivation for the switch is not the environment or some government bill, but rather the fact that Vitalik and his friends hold a large part of the coins and with PoS that will grant them full control over the network.
Doesn't sound that advanced to me.

With PoS you go actually a step backwards. These people make it sound as if PoS was more advanced, since it came after PoW. That's like saying Litecoin is more advanced than Bitcoin, because it was started after BTC. Nothing indicates me that PoW is a 'more advanced' (this implies 'better') system. We had enough good posts in this thread explaining why.

One last point: a really advanced and smart cryptocurrency shouldn't care about a government bill. The whole sense of cryptocurrencies is that they can't be censored, no matter how much anyone wants it. And that they can't be stopped or shut down, no matter who wants that. This is the power of decentralization. If you think bills like this can / should influence Bitcoin, you haven't understood decentralization.

[MrSolo]

Your Post is reasonable, but you won't get a logical reply from illogical people that support PoW flawed design.

Just do your crypto trading in preparation for what you see as the conclusion of the folly know as PoW mining.
At some point in the future, a worldwide PoW ban will be in effect, because if they don't, the miners greed will destroy their power grids.
Destruction of a power grid is not fud, it is a massive death toll for the citizens of any country dumb enough to not ban it.

Only BTC & LTC are refusing to evolve , so take that into consideration during your trading.

Ethereum and the rest of the coins will be unaffected by POW Bans, because they are willing to Evolve to a better system.
Even Doge is moving to PoS.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/6912062

It is officially confirmed that Dogecoin, the meme-based cryptocoin, will now migrate from POW to the POS model.
It is because the POS offers an unmatched advantage over the POW model
It was confirmed by Vitalik Buterin, who said he is helping the Dogecoin Foundation migrate the doge consensus method to PoS.
Buterin also pointed out that most major crypto assets are slowly migrating to the POS model.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is the main driving force behind ETH 2.0 update.
The major update aims to migrate the second-largest crypto asset in the world from the current proof-of-work (PoW) model to proof of participation (PoS).
Other significant crypto assets are also contemplating making the switch.
Last year the Dogecoin Foundation, the organization responsible for developing DOGE, had already reported that it was counting on Buterin’s help to make the migration. Buterin, in an interview with UpOnly, confirmed the news that he was involved in this project, saying that virtually all cryptocurrencies will follow the same steps.
Buterin added that all major cryptocurrencies are switching to Proof-of-Stake and Dogecoin’s plans are more advanced, and Zcash’s plans are more advanced.

I think in the future we will look back at this moment either in sorrow or as a moment of change and admitting that pow is like coal and we either change with the times or be left behind, bitcoin holders have a moral responsibility to be aware of the impact mining does to grids.

[n0nce]

I think in the future we will look back at this moment either in sorrow or as a moment of change and admitting that pow is like coal and we either change with the times or be left behind, bitcoin holders have a moral responsibility to be aware of the impact mining does to grids.

Sorry, this had be done...

[tromp]

one of the issues any other cryptocurrency has is that they have known founders and developers

Most Bitcoin developers are known; see the bottom "credits" section of [1] for instance.
An unknown founder is not unique to bitcoin either [2].

[1] https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/22.0/

[2] https://docs.grin.mw/about-grin/story/

[BlackHatCoiner]

Your Post is reasonable, but you won't get a logical reply from illogical people that support PoW flawed design.

What does it sound more "logical", as you say, to you? Rewarding someone with new coins if they prove that they did a costly process or rewarding someone with new coins if they prove they own coins? Honestly, besides the arguments that have been numerous times told, what sounds more rational to you?

If I was a person who didn't know what's a cryptocurrency, I'd suggest that the latter lacks in some parts, even if I couldn't indicate where exactly. My common sense would say that there's something problematic.

[n0nce]

one of the issues any other cryptocurrency has is that they have known founders and developers

Most Bitcoin developers are known; see the bottom "credits" section of [1] for instance.
An unknown founder is not unique to bitcoin either [2].

I know; though it's harder to put pressure on a project by going for individual independent developers. A Core dev could just stop working on Bitcoin (it happened already in the past) to stop being harassed from government / politics.
Compared to a project that has a designated 'head' like Vitalik, if one such developer has to stop its engagement with the project due to political pressure, it will have little to no effect on the project and the valuation. That's why I believe projects without 'known founder' and without a very centralized, known team (I don't mean a GitHub contributor list - I mean e.g. a company which is behind some cryptocurrencies), are more resiliant to censorship and political influence.
Since most cryptocurrencies do have a fixed team behind it, it's super easy for politicians to put pressure on those companies / CEOs / founders.

It doesn't mean that all coins without a known founder are definitely good and definitely secure and all that, though. An implication doesn't have to be an equivalence..

[LegendaryK]

Your Post is reasonable, but you won't get a logical reply from illogical people that support PoW flawed design.

What does it sound more "logical", as you say, to you? Rewarding someone with new coins if they prove that they did a costly process or rewarding someone with new coins if they prove they own coins? Honestly, besides the arguments that have been numerous times told, what sounds more rational to you?

If I was a person who didn't know what's a cryptocurrency, I'd suggest that the latter lacks in some parts, even if I couldn't indicate where exactly. My common sense would say that there's something problematic.

Common Sense would be listening to repeated warnings and at least preparing a plan of action to protect btc investors.
Bitcoin PoW supporters deny all PoW ban warning as fud, as you can see from the pic by n0nce.

Kind of like the claims that the China PoW mining ban was fud and would never happen, until it did.  

[n0nce]

Kind of like the claims that the China PoW ban was fud and would never happen, until it did. 

First of all, China is a dictatorship so anything can happen, and happen quickly - while in democracies the population must (directly or indirectly) decide about something such as a PoW ban.
Secondly, this ban showed us very nicely how censorship-resistant Bitcoin is. The hashrate dropped a lot and nothing changed. Difficulty adjusted, miners moved around the world, started back up, all working as designed.
Therefore, I'm not concerned a single bit about PoW bans honestly.

Furthermore, bans of industrial mining (how would you stop home mining?) wouldn't even be that bad. Satoshi's original whitepaper intended mining to take place in everybody's home (on CPU back then).
It would be worse for the environment though, since industrial miners tend to have access to cleaner energy than normal households. Industrial miners also put less stress on the grid than if every household suddenly had a 1-3kW miner running 24/7, because they don't have their own power lines.

So, for the sake of the energy grid and the climate, both of which you seem to care a lot about, it would be better to let these mining companies do their thing.
Either way, Bitcoin doesn't care where the hashpower comes from and it can't even be stopped if a country as large as China bans it. That should be proof enough, isn't it?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Common Sense would be listening to repeated warnings and at least preparing a plan of action to protect btc investors.

There have also been warnings that Bitcoin is only used by criminals, that it's solely a speculative bubble, that it's a ponzi, that the government will shut it down, that it fails as a currency, that it can't scale, that is controlled by China, that it can be killed by quantum computers etc., and I've concluded that all these are stated without further study of the subject.

You say that China forbid mining; I say, why not going one step further and forbid its use too? Maybe even take the heads of the disobedient? That should definitely discourage the rest do so. Why should the people use a currency that decentralizes the economy when their political regime requires the exact opposite? Trust to the pigs.

So, here's my counterexample to your assertion: What if China decides to ban every cryptocurrency, including the PoS ones, as a cause that it's a threat to (their) people?

Satoshi's original whitepaper intended mining to take place in everybody's home (on CPU back then).

True, but they also stated it wouldn't work that way in the long term.

For now, everyone just runs a full network node.

I anticipate there will never be more than 100K nodes, probably less.  It will reach an equilibrium where it's not worth it for more nodes to join in.  The rest will be lightweight clients, which could be millions.

At equilibrium size, many nodes will be server farms with one or two network nodes that feed the rest of the farm over a LAN.

[pooya87]

bitcoin holders have a moral responsibility to be aware of the impact mining does to grids.

It's funny how you guys keep mentioning China PoW ban and only see the ban not the afterwards. This supposed "impact on the grids" never existed as it is evident from China and how their energy crisis didn't even change. In fact the stats suggest after China banned bitcoin mining the electricity usage kept on rising instead of having even a small drop!

Basically when it comes to this news you only ate the FUD and didn't even analyze what happened. For example the fact that the hashrate drop was very small and didn't change anything apart from affecting newbies who believed the FUD to panic sell and cause a crash that led to a bigger drop in hashrate than the ban itself!

The meme @n0nce posted is very apt.

[LegendaryK]

Kind of like the claims that the China PoW ban was fud and would never happen, until it did.  

a PoW ban.
miners moved around the world, started back up, all working as designed.
Therefore, I'm not concerned a single bit about PoW bans honestly.

(how would you stop home mining?)  
Industrial miners also put less stress on the grid


Either way, Bitcoin doesn't care where the hashpower comes from and it can't even be stopped if a country as large as China bans it.
That should be proof enough, isn't it?

You rambled a little, so I cleaned it up for the reply.

China did ban PoW mining.    Fact
PoW Miners did leave China.  Fact
You are not concerned,
1. You did not have to relocate.
2. You did not live on the same grid, where the PoW miners drove up the price of electricity for everyone on the specific grid not just other miners.
3. You did not suffer rolling blackouts during the cold/heat because of the PoW miners using excessive amounts of energy compared to the local populace.
4. You think calling everything FUD that is bad Public relations for BTC , will help make you rich. (Good Luck with that.)

Last Fact for you Governments won't care what you think when their energy resources are being exhausted and power grids are in danger of collapse.
Which is why their will be more PoW Bans , and more moving of miners, until they run out of places to move.
Will it take 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, or longer for a worldwide PoW ban, but that is undeniably the final destination of PoW,
which is why any coin with a sane development team is moving to Proof of Stake.
As it happens a worldwide PoW ban would only ban bitcoin, as likely litecoin PoW miners just slowly go bankrupt after Doge evols to Proof of Stake and leaves them.

Home PoW mining was stopped by the Elites centralizing PoW mining and going industrial ,
Home PoW miners that were spread further across the power grids, actually put less strain on individual grids,
mainly because they did not use industrial transformers limiting their ability to waste energy of only a single household.
The Elite Miners would rather take the whole btc chain down with them than promote a longer run by returning to CPU only PoW,
but what do you expect when the PoW miners whole motive is pure greed.

Actually considering China is a major hydro power producer and they still banned PoW,
only proves that all countries will have to at some point ban PoW mining, for the same reason China did, to protect their power grids.

PoW miners have only just started moving to Texas,
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/texas-crypto-mining-power-grid-b2004745.html

Texas Governor Greg Abbot reportedly urged crypto miners to shut down in the event the state’s power grid appeared to be failing due to bad weather as it did in February last year, leaving hundreds dead.

Best case Texas bans PoW mining within 2 years,
Worst case Texas power grid collapses within 4 years, and Texas needs ~5 years to restart the power grid, if and only if China sells them the replacement transformers. Expect a worldwide PoW ban in less than 6 months if that happens.