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

[cryptogeeknext]

I want to party with you, cowboy.

Been partying since the beginning of time

[cbeast]

I want to party with you, cowboy.

Been partying since the beginning of time

Obviously.

[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? 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

difference is your pretty much guaranteed 0.5% annual return with pos with even a trivial investment, you can spend the coins after buying them and they don't have a short life span. You can't spend an asic, they need regular replacement and your pretty much guaranteed a loss unless you invest heavily in mining gear.. And reinvest to keep up with the advancement of technology.

It's not about profit or returns, it's about control.
ASICs can be challenged with newer ASICs, stakes (once big enough) can never be challenged.

Would you like control of the money flow to be a competition or would you like it to be in hands of a few forever. If you prefer the latter, just stick to fiat and be done with it.

actually this very argument is the very reason im so involved in nem. nems proof of importance will allow someone 10 years from now to "challenge" the control of someone who was in the genesis block regardless of the fact that the early adopter has way more coins. there are flaws in both pow and pos and from wha i understand proof of importance solves this. in both pos and pow the early adopters will retain the majority of control over the network for the foreseeable future. to challenge control in pow you need to pay large chunks of money but buy up/develop new asics and in pos you must buy up large chunks of coins to challenge the whales. in poi users must only adopt the currency and use it day to day. a merchant could integrate nem, do lots of transactions with lots of other important people and boom he could have higher importance than an early adopter who doesnt do many transactions but has millions of coins. the new poi algorithm levels he playing field for all users and it will stay level far into the future and possibly forever..

in both pow and pos the control of the money flow/network is in the hands of a few. its plain to see for everyone. how many people have thousands, if not millions to buy up coins or asics? not many and the numbers are getting fewer as the price of coins rise and the number of asics needed to mine rises. poi will mean that joe soap on 200 dollars a month can start using nem and earn as high of an importance as anyone else regardless of the fact that he cannot invest huge amounts of money.

i know you are going to say this is game-able but i dont think so as it is not "how many transactions you make" but rather with who you make them, much like a web of trust. im not advocating that poi is 100% secure or that it is battle tested as code has not been released yet so we wont go into the "it will be suitable to this/that attack" as it would be a pointless discussion, but if it continues to work as it has for the last 4-5-6 months and it is proven to be secure, both pow and pos are going to have a serious competitor on their hands.

Actually, I like the sound of it.

I myself thought about something like proof-of-existence and figured PoW was a good approximation to that.
Of course social network effects might become the dominant obstacle to diversity of control in PoI, but maybe they are not that scary and with proper education people would be willing to use only those services that they wish to empower. Like miners with pools, only without hardware requirement.

Will be looking forward towards the launch.

[cbeast]

A commodity money is worth what it costs to make. A $20 gold piece has $20 worth of gold in it, less fees. As Bitcoin expansion decreases volatility (as it already has) it will become the value of the cost to make it, less fees. Mining for money has a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

[cryptogeeknext]

A commodity money is worth what it costs to make. A $20 gold piece has $20 worth of gold in it, less fees. As Bitcoin expansion decreases volatility (as it already has) it will become the value of the cost to make it, less fees. Mining for money has a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

I agree with that.
The PoW mechanism is simple and robust, it's hard to hide some tricks there.
Everyone can understand it.

With PoW only those who explicitly fight for control (miners) get a share of it.
If control is given out for free to all the people who didn't ask for it, they will sell it for profit thus empowering tricksters and charlatans.

You won't easily let go of something that you needed to fight for.
And even if you don't fight for freedom, you might stick to those who do and support them.

[Flashman]

With PoW only those who explicitly fight for control (miners) get a share of it.
If control is given out for free to all the people who didn't ask for it, they will sell it for profit thus empowering tricksters and charlatans.

True.

Why should early adopters relinquish control to Johnny come latelies??? They've had the vision, foresight and iron hard determination to bring it this far, so why let some ADD instant gratification whiner waltz in and reap the rewards when i) they did not assume the huge risks to get it this far and ii) they might waltz off next week for the next new shiny fad. iii) they can damn well roll up their sleeves and fight for position if they really want to, may take a couple of years and resources and risk, but guess what, that's what everyone else put in.

It might be elitist, but elitism builds awesome shit, communism builds Trabants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant

Things that are hard to come by, retain and gain value, things that are easy to get, become "as common as dirt", in massive quantities, certain types of dirt may have value, but unless it came from the moon, a handful of it will remain perennially worthless.

[cryptogeeknext]

So to sum it up:

PoW - control is a fierce competition, only the fittest get to the top

PoS - illusion of control can be bought, the actual control is not for sale

PoI - everyone has control, the future is undetermined

I think we need a proof-of-education, then PoI might have a chance to become a place of peaceful co-existence without wasting too much energy. If no one builds cages while they are free, then no one will ever get into one.

[jonald_fyookball]

See, I don't think PoS is the final step. I only consider it more advanced than PoW. Something better than PoS is possible, I don't doubt it. But PoW miners are dead set that PoW is the blessing and use exactly the same arguments against anything else that bankers use against Bitcoin. This is so funny and hypocritical at the same time.

What arguments would those be?  The article in the OP has some very good logical arguments IMO, such as the following:

WORKING ON WHAT?

What will these individuals spend their X dollars on, to produce the block? Maybe they’ll be generating lots of addresses, or using computing power to examine many alternate block histories (under proof-of-stake (PoS), both of these use CPU power to increase the likelihood of generating coins).

The true answer: Who cares?! Whatever is done will consume (“waste”) $X of economic activity. We have merely transformed the PoW algorithm into something less straightforward and less cumulative.

Just because PoS routes around the issue of ASICs doesn't mean it is more advanced, nor does it mean it is viable.  

[devphp]

See, I don't think PoS is the final step. I only consider it more advanced than PoW. Something better than PoS is possible, I don't doubt it. But PoW miners are dead set that PoW is the blessing and use exactly the same arguments against anything else that bankers use against Bitcoin. This is so funny and hypocritical at the same time.

What arguments would those be?

Anything to protect their vested interests even though the old technology and/or rules clearly don't cut it any more.

[Baghead]

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable 
 

[cbeast]

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable 
 

The 1970s called. They want their solar panels back for Earth Day.

[jonald_fyookball]

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable  
 

The arms race ends when the market is saturated.  but obviously the market is still growing.
all this is free market dynamics. I really don't get why the skeptics are so concerned. If it is not sustainable then it will atrophy of its own accord at some point.

[scarsbergholden]

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable  

I don't understand why you would say the amount of energy "spent" is unsustainable.

The price of the energy used for PoW is purchased at market prices, and in theory the miners will only buy additional hardware if the NPV value of such hardware is positive.

It is all but certain that the difficulty of bitcoin will almost always follow the price of both bitcoin and electricity (and potentially interest rates)

[jonald_fyookball]

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable  

I don't understand why you would say the amount of energy "spent" is unsustainable.

The price of the energy used for PoW is purchased at market prices, and in theory the miners will only buy additional hardware if the NPV value of such hardware is positive.

It is all but certain that the difficulty of bitcoin will almost always follow the price of both bitcoin and electricity (and potentially interest rates)

as transaction fees displace subsidies, transaction voulme will become increasingly important instead of price with relation to difficulty.

[kokojie]

With PoW only those who explicitly fight for control (miners) get a share of it.
If control is given out for free to all the people who didn't ask for it, they will sell it for profit thus empowering tricksters and charlatans.

True.

Why should early adopters relinquish control to Johnny come latelies??? They've had the vision, foresight and iron hard determination to bring it this far, so why let some ADD instant gratification whiner waltz in and reap the rewards when i) they did not assume the huge risks to get it this far and ii) they might waltz off next week for the next new shiny fad. iii) they can damn well roll up their sleeves and fight for position if they really want to, may take a couple of years and resources and risk, but guess what, that's what everyone else put in.

It might be elitist, but elitism builds awesome shit, communism builds Trabants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant

Things that are hard to come by, retain and gain value, things that are easy to get, become "as common as dirt", in massive quantities, certain types of dirt may have value, but unless it came from the moon, a handful of it will remain perennially worthless.

That's not a problem with PoS, that's a problem with your imagined distribution scheme. Distribution doesn't have to be all at the start, nor does it have to be free.

[kokojie]

This competition between cryptos and different Proof-of-... is exactly the game of skills, only the fittest will survive.

But it makes sense to review all options available on the market if you're an investor and a user.

If you're a miner, you have no choice but promote PoW to make your living.

I disagree. People who purchased miners are essentially investing in bitcoin via their miner. Additionally most miners have a short useful life span so anyone who has invested in a miner could simply decide to cease upgrading their mining farm if they decided to stop believing in PoW in favor of something else.

Wrong, people who purchase miners are essentially investing in the hardware, which they could potentially use to extract value out of a PoW system, it might be Bitcoin, OR something else, maybe Peercoin for example. Miners only care about what's most profitable to mine at the moment, vast majority of miners have ZERO loyalty to any specific coin, this is a very clearly observed phenomenon in the scrypt mining scene. The biggest pools are the auto-switch pools.

[Argwai96]

This competition between cryptos and different Proof-of-... is exactly the game of skills, only the fittest will survive.

But it makes sense to review all options available on the market if you're an investor and a user.

If you're a miner, you have no choice but promote PoW to make your living.

I disagree. People who purchased miners are essentially investing in bitcoin via their miner. Additionally most miners have a short useful life span so anyone who has invested in a miner could simply decide to cease upgrading their mining farm if they decided to stop believing in PoW in favor of something else.

Wrong, people who purchase miners are essentially investing in the hardware, which they could potentially use to extract value out of a PoW system, it might be Bitcoin, OR something else, maybe Peercoin for example. Miners only care about what's most profitable to mine at the moment, vast majority of miners have ZERO loyalty to any specific coin, this is a very clearly observed phenomenon in the scrypt mining scene. The biggest pools are the auto-switch pools.

If the miner is a SHA-256 ASIC then it is all but certain to be mining bitcoin (it could also be merged mining other coins as well). While you are correct about people switching scrypt based coins is accurate, the same is not true for SHA coins because bitcoin is going to be the most profitable coin to mine. Also the service the miners are providing is securing the network

[Fernandez]

As I understand, with DPOS the established group of stakeholders with majority vote would be able to maintain total control over the network indefinitely at no cost. It doesn't matter much if control is exerted directly or via delegates, more steps only clutter the mechanics of control and contribute to confusion.

Its better to have those who have stakes in the system to look after its good, rather than in PoW where the actual holders are out of luck. they have to rely on some cartels to take the right decision.

The worst part with PoW is that they sold the crypto space as decentralized, while its anything but that. The government can simply take 2-3 pools and destroy everything. Such kind of attacks is possible in PoS by blackmailing big exchanges, but its still difficult than PoW, as for the established coins exchanges don't have more than 4-5% at the most.

[Fernandez]

Mining promotes centralization and single point of failure. Right now all the government has to do is to blackmail or hack and take control of two pools and Bitcoin can be destroyed.

Supporters of mining now are mainly those who have already invested in it and have to rely on having this continue to not get broke.

You obviously don't know much about mining. The hashing power is not on the pools. If a pool acts bad, people just go to another one. Losing a pool wouldn't change much.  That's far away from "Bitcoin can be destroyed"
Some people on this forum even state, that this would be good, since people would change to p2p pool and the whole centralization problem, would be solved.

I do, I used to mine. The miners are just looking for a paycheck and don't care. Thats what happens when the miners and shareholders are separated. The miners don't have much interest in the long term health, just short term profits.

[cbeast]

As I understand, with DPOS the established group of stakeholders with majority vote would be able to maintain total control over the network indefinitely at no cost. It doesn't matter much if control is exerted directly or via delegates, more steps only clutter the mechanics of control and contribute to confusion.

Its better to have those who have stakes in the system to look after its good, rather than in PoW where the actual holders are out of luck. they have to rely on some cartels to take the right decision.

The worst part with PoW is that they sold the crypto space as decentralized, while its anything but that. The government can simply take 2-3 pools and destroy everything. Such kind of attacks is possible in PoS by blackmailing big exchanges, but its still difficult than PoW, as for the established coins exchanges don't have more than 4-5% at the most.

Bitcoin holders are not at the whim of anyone except unregulated markets. Miners work at the pleasure of their customers, not the other way around. Bitcoin is the highest valued not because of government mandate, but because customers value it. Miners are free to mine other cryptocurrencies, but the most competitive miners mine Bitcoin.

Governments or any DOS army can attack a pool, but 2 more will take its place. There are many small pools ready, willing, and able to scale.