POS coins

[urdubit]

I always read about bitcoin and how the POW makes the network unbreakable. The question I have is what is the security of POS coins. I looked at a few and they usually dont have more then maybe 30 nodes or active. Does that mean the network is especially attackable. I am just trying to understand the concept.

[Daedelus]

If you can take enough nodes offline then it could make it easier to break concensus, as is the same for POW.

More established POS have more nodes. Nxt has 300 on average and on an upward trend (there are about 500 coming on and offline at different times).

It is harder for a new POS coin to get off the ground now, if they don't offer anything new then people are less likely to run a node.

[urdubit]

If you can take enough nodes offline then it could make it easier to break concensus, as is the same for POW.

More established POS have more nodes. Nxt has 300 on average and on an upward trend (there are about 500 coming on and offline at different times).

It is harder for a new POS coin to get off the ground now, if they don't offer anything new then people are less likely to run a node.

I see what you mean so all these coins such as xpy etc arent very secure cause of less nodes. As when I see the active list at a time there are only a few online.

[iGotSpots]

Node count is not important. Network stake weight is. Taking down nodes with huge network stake weight will affect it, yes, but the more distributed the stake weight the better. Thousands of nodes are useless when they are responsible for pennies, especially in a system like that, since it's not even conventional decentralized PoS to begin with

[funkenstein]

Proof of Stake can offer variable rewards, from massive coinbase inflation like BALLS and 10K to zero coinbase inflation like NXT and all intermediate values between starting with the 1st one PPC. 

In essence, the issuance (staking or printing or minting in the lingo of different coins) has zero cost of production.  It's unclear to me just what kind of role this kind of system is built for.  The "energy efficiency" argument has zero validity as proof of work networks do not require any energy level to work, the amount of energy is used that miners choose to use.     

The network security is also an issue, depending on the implementation.  See for example the discussion of "nothing at stake" problems.  Typically these are solved with various degrees of centralization and or combination with proof of work.  A lot of people talk smack but I haven't seen that many real attacks.  Possibly we will see more such block chain reorg attacks if any of these coins build more value.   

In the end, the security of the network is going to be proportional to the rewards given to the stakers or miners.  This cannot be avoided.  What is the incentive is for them to put up the resources to stake?  In the case of NXT for example, there is basically no incentive to stake as the rewards for solving a block are near zero.  Hopefully the fees will grow, but in the meantime we rely on the founders of the coin who got all the units to keep the network alive for us, the incentive being that a living network is better for their holdings than a dead one. 

Personally, I like to play with coins and have used a number of stake coins.  I encourage those who are building and working with the technology.  However I wouldn't recommend holding serious value in any POS coin.