Long Live Proof-of-Work, Long Live Mining - "there is no meaningful alternative"

[kokojie]

This thread is nothing but PoW miner shills trying to hold on to their waning power, as the crypto world is increasingly moving toward the superior PoS system.

POS can be superior however most of these alt POS are awful.  Fortunately the very 1st one pee pee coin is the best so far.  However it could have been made better with no inflation.  POS means people want to protect their existing coins.  The bitcoin network today is not really protected by miners, it is protected by the owners of the largest amounts of coins.  POS rewards those who keep their client open.

That's completely wrong.
Satoshi has allegedly the largest amount of coins, but has zero control over transactions.
He might decide to gain that control, but he would need to approach the hardware market and find lucrative deals or develop equipment himself, but so can do outside players with fiat. Even if he approaches the goal of total control over the network, his position will never be unchallenged.

Holding coins in PoW doesn't automatically translate to control, and gaining that control might be challenging.
I like the idea of reward for just using the client in PoS, but it is the control model, where an established inner circle of stakeholders will eventually maintain permanent hold on money flow, that bothers me.

IMO, use POS if you want a private members club, not a currency. Use POI if you want to simulate the introduction of black holes into a stable planetary system.

True enough.

So basically in your view, a bunch of profit crazy, no stake, PoW miners controlling the Bitcoin network is ok. But actual Bitcoin stakeholders controlling the Bitcoin networks is not ok?

[cryptogeeknext]

IMO, use POS if you want a private members club, not a currency. Use POI if you want to simulate the introduction of black holes into a stable planetary system.

have you anything to back that statement on? there is no proof yet to prove poi is safe or that it isnt safe so you cannot make that statement based on proof. the only thing you can base that on is opinion. so dont make a statement like that as if it is factual and provable.

I think he refers to what I said in my previous post:

I would not comment on PoI as it is too early. I have concerns if large economic entities would maintain too much importance in the long run (think Facebook, Google), but at least their positions are not set in stone an can potentially be challenged by other players, however social network effects might become a significant barrier to entry. There is no sustainable network effects in mining as hardware is rendered obsolete fairly quickly over time and players need to compete from scratch with every new round of distribution. Also not quite sure if botnets will be able to simulate a lot of activity in PoI by sending random coins back and forth and thus gaining more and more control. It sounds promising, but we will see.

Would you be able to comment?

[cryptogeeknext]

This thread is nothing but PoW miner shills trying to hold on to their waning power, as the crypto world is increasingly moving toward the superior PoS system.

POS can be superior however most of these alt POS are awful.  Fortunately the very 1st one pee pee coin is the best so far.  However it could have been made better with no inflation.  POS means people want to protect their existing coins.  The bitcoin network today is not really protected by miners, it is protected by the owners of the largest amounts of coins.  POS rewards those who keep their client open.

That's completely wrong.
Satoshi has allegedly the largest amount of coins, but has zero control over transactions.
He might decide to gain that control, but he would need to approach the hardware market and find lucrative deals or develop equipment himself, but so can do outside players with fiat. Even if he approaches the goal of total control over the network, his position will never be unchallenged.

Holding coins in PoW doesn't automatically translate to control, and gaining that control might be challenging.
I like the idea of reward for just using the client in PoS, but it is the control model, where an established inner circle of stakeholders will eventually maintain permanent hold on money flow, that bothers me.

IMO, use POS if you want a private members club, not a currency. Use POI if you want to simulate the introduction of black holes into a stable planetary system.

True enough.

So basically in your view, a bunch of profit crazy, no stake, PoW miners controlling the Bitcoin network is ok. But actual Bitcoin stakeholders controlling the Bitcoin networks is not ok?

There is a slight difference, crazy miners don't control, they compete to control the network!
Yes, I believe that those who feel enthusiastic and competitive, should be able to compete without permission

EDIT:

Oops! I just figured my definition of freedom

[kokojie]

This thread is nothing but PoW miner shills trying to hold on to their waning power, as the crypto world is increasingly moving toward the superior PoS system.

POS can be superior however most of these alt POS are awful.  Fortunately the very 1st one pee pee coin is the best so far.  However it could have been made better with no inflation.  POS means people want to protect their existing coins.  The bitcoin network today is not really protected by miners, it is protected by the owners of the largest amounts of coins.  POS rewards those who keep their client open.

That's completely wrong.
Satoshi has allegedly the largest amount of coins, but has zero control over transactions.
He might decide to gain that control, but he would need to approach the hardware market and find lucrative deals or develop equipment himself, but so can do outside players with fiat. Even if he approaches the goal of total control over the network, his position will never be unchallenged.

Holding coins in PoW doesn't automatically translate to control, and gaining that control might be challenging.
I like the idea of reward for just using the client in PoS, but it is the control model, where an established inner circle of stakeholders will eventually maintain permanent hold on money flow, that bothers me.

IMO, use POS if you want a private members club, not a currency. Use POI if you want to simulate the introduction of black holes into a stable planetary system.

True enough.

So basically in your view, a bunch of profit crazy, no stake, PoW miners controlling the Bitcoin network is ok. But actual Bitcoin stakeholders controlling the Bitcoin networks is not ok?

There is a slight difference, crazy miners don't control, they compete to control the network!
Yes, I believe that those who feel enthusiastic and competitive, should be able to compete without permission.

Bullshit, there isn't anyone controlling more than 10% of all Bitcoin. But there are private miner or cloud mining, that currently or used to control more than 20%, or even 30%, 40% of mining power. At some point, there WILL be a person secretly controlling more than 50% of mining power.

The reason is PoW is cheap, it's easy to buy enough hardware to gain 50%+ control, it is especially easy to do this to control PoW altcoins, there are many PoW altcoin got 51% attacked. PoW is an extremely flawed system.

[devphp]

Holders of stakes in a PoS model don't compete? It's the same competition: in PoW - who can afford to buy the best and more hardware, in PoS - who can afford to buy more stake. The difference is hardware wastes electricity and other kinds of waste that come with PoW mining.

[cryptogeeknext]

...
There is a slight difference, crazy miners don't control, they compete to control the network!
Yes, I believe that those who feel enthusiastic and competitive, should be able to compete without permission.

Bullshit, there isn't anyone controlling more than 10% of all Bitcoin. But there are private miner or cloud mining, that currently or used to control more than 20%, or even 30%, 40% of mining power. At some point, there WILL be a person secretly controlling more than 50% of mining power.

The reason is PoW is cheap, it's easy to buy enough hardware to gain 50%+ control, it is especially easy to do this to control PoW altcoins, there are many PoW altcoin got 51% attacked. PoW is an extremely flawed system.

You didn't refute my argument.
Any one entity approaching or even controlling 50% of the network doesn't become permanently unchallenged.

Holders of stakes in a PoS model don't compete? It's the same competition: in PoW - who can afford to buy the best and more hardware, in PoS - who can afford to buy more stake. The difference is hardware wastes electricity and other kinds of waste that come with PoW mining.

Why compete, if they can collude, and then nobody outside can ever challenge them?
Wasting energy, having maintenance cost, making decisions to upgrade or skip is what allows other players to regain a share of control from miners.

EDIT:

If you have freedom, you need to fight to keep it,
If you don't, there is nothing to worry about.

[devphp]

Holders of stakes in a PoS model don't compete? It's the same competition: in PoW - who can afford to buy the best and more hardware, in PoS - who can afford to buy more stake. The difference is hardware wastes electricity and other kinds of waste that come with PoW mining.

Why compete, if they can collude, and then nobody outside can ever challenge them?
Wasting energy, having maintenance cost, making decisions to upgrade or skip is what allows other players to regain a share of control from miners.

They won't be getting additional profit by colluding, so what's the purpose of that? It works exactly like miners in a pool: if you solo mine, you will get a block occasionally, if you mine in a pool you get regular profit but it's small, and over the long term it works out to what you'd get if you mined solo.

[cryptogeeknext]

Holders of stakes in a PoS model don't compete? It's the same competition: in PoW - who can afford to buy the best and more hardware, in PoS - who can afford to buy more stake. The difference is hardware wastes electricity and other kinds of waste that come with PoW mining.

Why compete, if they can collude, and then nobody outside can ever challenge them?
Wasting energy, having maintenance cost, making decisions to upgrade or skip is what allows other players to regain a share of control from miners.

They won't be getting additional profit by colluding, so what's the purpose of that?

Control?
There are things in this world you cannot buy, you know.

[devphp]

Control?
There are things in this world you cannot buy, you know.

What's the difference with PoW? You spend more on equipment, you control more. You can collude with other large miners.

EDIT: the only difference like I said is waste and inconvenience. In PoS anybody can be a miner by just leaving their wallet opened, so user = miner -> more decentralized network in the long run. In PoW only geeks can be miners -> more centralized network in the long run.

[cryptogeeknext]

Control?
There are things in this world you cannot buy, you know.

What's the difference with PoW? You spend more on equipment, you control more. You can collude with other large miners.

Those who develop new equipment might not sell it to those who are currently at the top.
Not everybody sells their share of control for profit.

[devphp]

Control?
There are things in this world you cannot buy, you know.

What's the difference with PoW? You spend more on equipment, you control more. You can collude with other large miners.

Those who develop new equipment, might not sell it to those who are currently at the top.
Not everybody sells their share of control for profit.

So can we expect one company to develop super powerful ASICs and totally hijack the PoW network? Wow, that's scary. In PoS anybody can be a miner with their normal computer, I say it's very attractive to users. Users drive the price and adoption, not miners. Crypto should be user-centric, not miner-centric, to be successful. And that's where PoW fails.

[BittBurger]

how many times have pow coins been 51% attacked? hint: plenty of times!

how many times have pos coins been 51% attacked? hint: never!

Those weren't hints!   

-B-

[cryptogeeknext]

Control?
There are things in this world you cannot buy, you know.

What's the difference with PoW? You spend more on equipment, you control more. You can collude with other large miners.

Those who develop new equipment, might not sell it to those who are currently at the top.
Not everybody sells their share of control for profit.

So can we expect one company to develop super powerful ASICs and totally hijack the PoW network?

Yes, it can happen, but the new quality of their product would need to compete with the sheer quantity of the old equipment already available on the market, this will give time for other competitors to come up with their improvements, which might not necessarily be in advanced chip technology, but rather in energy sources or deeper understanding of cryptographic hash functions. The field of competition is fairly diversified and any innovation developed there will eventually find applications in other areas.

Wow, that's scary. In PoS anybody can be a miner with their normal computer, I say it's very attractive to users. Users drive the price and adoption, not miners. Crypto should be user-centric, not miner-centric, to be successful. And that's where PoW fails.

The difference is same as with wild-life and those living in a zoo.
The food might be better in a zoo, but you would hardly enjoy it as much as those outside.

[cryptogeeknext]

how many times have pow coins been 51% attacked? hint: plenty of times!

how many times have pos coins been 51% attacked? hint: never!

Those weren't hints!   

-B-

Nobody can take your freedom if you already don't have it.

[devphp]

Can you be more technical please? Wild life vs. zoo is picturesque and all, but what makes you think that users care about building all that equipment, dealing with all the troubles, electricity, figuring out mining costs, trying to break even, if they can just turn on their PC, do their normal work or socializing and the PoS wallet will be doing work in the background? Like I said, PoW is for geeks, but geeks don't power wider adoption, and the number of geeks is limited, which leads to issues like centralized network and less actual users of the crypto, it's all revolving around miners in a PoW crypto.

[cryptogeeknext]

Can you be more technical please? Wild life vs. zoo is picturesque and all, but what makes you think that users care about building all that equipment, dealing with all the troubles, electricity, figuring out mining costs, trying to break even, if they can just turn on their PC, do their normal work or socializing and the PoS wallet will be doing work in the background? Like I said, PoW is for geeks, but geeks don't power wider adoption.

The interesting thing is that trying to explain it to others I actually start to better understand it myself.
I don't know if it's better in a zoo or in the wild, both experiences define and reinforce each other, they are both needed for either one to exist at all.

I find it exciting, though, to discern various models on the market and see what they really offer compared to what they advertise. If you are building a zoo, you don't usually advertise the cage, you advertise the food

EDIT:

The yin-yang symbol comes to mind. In a zoo there is this little positive potential to eventually break-free (white circle in the dark half), in the wild there is this little negative potential to eventually end up in a zoo (black circle in the white half). So there are pluses and minuses to both sides of the circle.

[Flashman]

IMO, use POS if you want a private members club, not a currency. Use POI if you want to simulate the introduction of black holes into a stable planetary system.

have you anything to back that statement on? there is no proof yet to prove poi is safe or that it isnt safe so you cannot make that statement based on proof. the only thing you can base that on is opinion. so dont make a statement like that as if it is factual and provable.

That was a factual statement of my opinion, I would like to hear your proposal to prove that it wasn't my opinion.

[kodtycoon]

IMO, use POS if you want a private members club, not a currency. Use POI if you want to simulate the introduction of black holes into a stable planetary system.

have you anything to back that statement on? there is no proof yet to prove poi is safe or that it isnt safe so you cannot make that statement based on proof. the only thing you can base that on is opinion. so dont make a statement like that as if it is factual and provable.

That was a factual statement of my opinion, I would like to hear your proposal to prove that it wasn't my opinion.

what information are you basing your opinion on?

[Eisenhower34]

Control?
There are things in this world you cannot buy, you know.

What's the difference with PoW? You spend more on equipment, you control more. You can collude with other large miners.

Those who develop new equipment, might not sell it to those who are currently at the top.
Not everybody sells their share of control for profit.

So can we expect one company to develop super powerful ASICs and totally hijack the PoW network? Wow, that's scary. In PoS anybody can be a miner with their normal computer, I say it's very attractive to users. Users drive the price and adoption, not miners. Crypto should be user-centric, not miner-centric, to be successful. And that's where PoW fails.

This is misleading. In order to mine on a PoS coin, you will first need to "invest" in the coin and to have a larger impact on the network you would need to invest in larger amounts of the coins (and mine from multiple computers - likely from something similar to VMs). This is little different from someone investing in ASIC's and running the ASIC's to secure the network

[devphp]

Control?
There are things in this world you cannot buy, you know.

What's the difference with PoW? You spend more on equipment, you control more. You can collude with other large miners.

Those who develop new equipment, might not sell it to those who are currently at the top.
Not everybody sells their share of control for profit.

So can we expect one company to develop super powerful ASICs and totally hijack the PoW network? Wow, that's scary. In PoS anybody can be a miner with their normal computer, I say it's very attractive to users. Users drive the price and adoption, not miners. Crypto should be user-centric, not miner-centric, to be successful. And that's where PoW fails.

This is misleading. In order to mine on a PoS coin, you will first need to "invest" in the coin and to have a larger impact on the network you would need to invest in larger amounts of the coins (and mine from multiple computers - likely from something similar to VMs). This is little different from someone investing in ASIC's and running the ASIC's to secure the network

Don't you need to invest in ASICs and invest a lot to get a lot of ASICs or invest a lot into R&D to get more efficient ASICs, and all that with the same purpose - to have a larger impact on the network? What's the difference with PoS then, besides electricity waste and all the inconvenience that comes with all this ASIC work that only a limited number of geeks can enjoy to do?