How does PoS work ? (Newbie Question)

[CryptoPiero]

Hello all,

I understand how does Bitcoin's PoW system work. Solving a math puzzle with arbitrarily difficulty so that the block target time of N minutes is met. But the whole minting / forgin / staking system is confusing for me. I know that in PoS holding coins helps the network to agree on a series of events happened, and it mitigates the %51 attack. I need a more technical view.

1) How does the network meet the block target time without solving a math problem with a given difficulty ?
2) In the PoW system, the node that solves the math problem is rewarded. Who is rewarded in a PoS network ? How does the network 'select' someone for the generation of the next PoS block ?
3) It seems that the interest rate is the rate nodes are rewarded to generate PoS blocks. What is the relation of this rate and the network's security ? May it be any number ?
4) I read in the PeerCoin whitepaper, that the coin age is consumed in a PoS block. So whats the difference between online nodes and offline nodes that stake once in a while ? Doesn't that reduce the network's security ?
5) Is 'minting' equivalent to 'mining' ? What is 'forging' then ?
6) Before asking you guys I tried to search. The only whitepaper with a near to good explanation was the PeerCoin whitepaper. Any other sources of information ?

Thank you all !

[devphp]

There are different implementations of PoS.

Peercoin's is different from NXT's, and both of those are different from BitsharesX's.

Here is the whitepaper of NXT (there is a comparison with Peercoin's model):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cbuwrorf672c0yy/NxtWhitepaper_v122_rev4.pdf

[albert73]

5) Is 'minting' equivalent to 'mining' ? What is 'forging' then ?

Minting and mining both create new coins. Forging is used in NXT and no new coins are created by it. The transaction fees for each block are sent to whatever wallet processes it instead.

[rgm108]

This link explains it nicely as well:

http://wiki.hobonickels.info/index.php?title=Proof_of_Stake

[Ramones]

Thanks for excellent question and great replies.

I've been asking myself the same questions