Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#591

Post by nscalf » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

jude- wrote: post #555

seph-reed wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the PoW side. But you should note that PoW is also oligarchic in the sense that individuals have no ability to compete in terms of mining. The rich get richer is still a thing here. That being said, PoS is very much a human centric valuation (rich peoples opinions being the value), so yes: politics and then war seem likely. Pretty much every fiat currency has the same issues as PoS, where eventually war become…

In PoW, the "rich" have to keep selling their coins to buy more dedicated mining equipment in order to stay competitive. And because PoW hasn't reached "optimum efficiency," there's still profits to be had by building better miners and cheaper power sources. Innovations here have positive downstream effects, since innovations in cheap renewable power and efficient chip fabs and designs have many applications beyond m…

It still doesn't change the underlying issue you discussed. Just because there is some friction removed in PoS doesn't mean that PoW isn't weighted to favor people with large pools of capital to invest.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#592

Post by leishman » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

aqme28 wrote: post #585

leishman wrote: post #574

Proof of Stake is already how our current financial system works. The people with the most money make the decisions. Proof-of-Work is provably resistant to this, as evidenced by the 2017 blocksize debate where almost every large miner and bitcoin company wanted to change the protocol and it was fought off through grassroots efforts. A PoS currency will be controlled by a cabal of US financial institutions, and indire…

I am not convinced that PoW is immune to those pressures or even resistant to it. The people with capital control the mining. At least the environmental problems are reduced with PoS

The difference is that PoW is censorship resistant. Anybody can be a miner and existing miners cannot censor new miners. Performing new work is external to the network state. In PoS, existing stakers can prevent new stakers from registering. Very important distinction.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#593

Post by minsc__and__boo » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

aqme28 wrote: post #585

leishman wrote: post #574

Proof of Stake is already how our current financial system works. The people with the most money make the decisions. Proof-of-Work is provably resistant to this, as evidenced by the 2017 blocksize debate where almost every large miner and bitcoin company wanted to change the protocol and it was fought off through grassroots efforts. A PoS currency will be controlled by a cabal of US financial institutions, and indire…

I am not convinced that PoW is immune to those pressures or even resistant to it. The people with capital control the mining. At least the environmental problems are reduced with PoS

That's a good point, though mining is also controlled by access to the cheapest costs (i.e. siphoning electricity off of a grid).

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#594

Post by leishman » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

fabioyy wrote: post #588

leishman wrote: post #574

Proof of Stake is already how our current financial system works. The people with the most money make the decisions. Proof-of-Work is provably resistant to this, as evidenced by the 2017 blocksize debate where almost every large miner and bitcoin company wanted to change the protocol and it was fought off through grassroots efforts. A PoS currency will be controlled by a cabal of US financial institutions, and indire…

people with money can buy mining factories and make decisions anyway.

See my comment to another in the thread. Existing stakers can prevent new people from staking. Existing miners can't do this in a PoW system

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#595

Post by colordrops » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

aqme28 wrote: post #585

leishman wrote: post #574

Proof of Stake is already how our current financial system works. The people with the most money make the decisions. Proof-of-Work is provably resistant to this, as evidenced by the 2017 blocksize debate where almost every large miner and bitcoin company wanted to change the protocol and it was fought off through grassroots efforts. A PoS currency will be controlled by a cabal of US financial institutions, and indire…

I am not convinced that PoW is immune to those pressures or even resistant to it. The people with capital control the mining. At least the environmental problems are reduced with PoS

Controlling the mining doesn't allow you to control much about how transactions work.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#596

Post by 0134340 » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

fredfoobar wrote: post #483

Everything in this universe is analogous to Proof of Work, it's the most natural system out there. If there is a base monetary layer for the internet, it should be Proof of Work based (and Bitcoin, because it's got the most work done to improve the technology + network effects).

And Stake is derived from Work. Some of you assume PoS exists within its own ecosystem. Even in PoW, the work is derived from previous works, ie, the work required to buy and build the hardware and pay for electricity, etc.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#597

Post by roelb » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

leishman wrote: post #574

Proof of Stake is already how our current financial system works. The people with the most money make the decisions. Proof-of-Work is provably resistant to this, as evidenced by the 2017 blocksize debate where almost every large miner and bitcoin company wanted to change the protocol and it was fought off through grassroots efforts. A PoS currency will be controlled by a cabal of US financial institutions, and indire…

Proof of work is no different in this regard: more capital, more mining power, more control. Miners interests don't always align with the network's users interests (see gas fees). Proof of work isn't more decentralized either (a few mining pool delegators control bitcoin), eth2 proof of stake is more secure because of the pseudorandom validator selection.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#598

Post by colinmhayes » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #435

I really wish the UN could get together and implement a global treaty on a revenue neutral carbon tax. The only reason energy is as cheap as it is right now is because we're not properly pricing in the externalities of environmental damage. This would immediately make unproductive energy use ( cough POW crypto cough) a lot less profitable, without the government having to come in and set prices and regs for every lit…

The UN doesn't actually have any power though. Even if all the UN members agree to sanction countries that don't implement the tax there are countries like North Korea and Iran that are already fully sanctioned. These countries would immediately take full advantage of the comparative advantage given to them. PoW mining for example would end up being completely centralized in these countries.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#599

Post by wmf » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

sva_ wrote: post #383

SwagtimusPrime wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but comes at the great cost that people who aren't already in the game won't be able to acquire Ether without basically paying cash for it. That's a weird dependence on fiat currencies for a 'decentralized ledger'. PoW is just as much depending on fiat currencies. You can't get electricity without paying for it, you can't get a mining rig without paying for it, etc. This is one of the more common critiques against P…

>This is one of the more common critiques against PoS and it just doesn't hold true at all. Maybe I'm an edge-case (I don't think so), but I was able to use the hardware I already owned, and the electricity already included in my utilities bill to acquire enough Ether that would allow me to deploy a smart contract. That won't be possible anymore in the future. So you're factually wrong, at least in my case.

Globally, very few people have gaming GPUs. You're super-privileged and you're effectively arguing for locking in your privilege and making the other 90% of the world worse off. PoS puts everyone on an equal footing. You want to stake? Buy in.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#600

Post by leishman » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

roelb wrote: post #597

leishman wrote: post #574

Proof of Stake is already how our current financial system works. The people with the most money make the decisions. Proof-of-Work is provably resistant to this, as evidenced by the 2017 blocksize debate where almost every large miner and bitcoin company wanted to change the protocol and it was fought off through grassroots efforts. A PoS currency will be controlled by a cabal of US financial institutions, and indire…

Proof of work is no different in this regard: more capital, more mining power, more control. Miners interests don't always align with the network's users interests (see gas fees). Proof of work isn't more decentralized either (a few mining pool delegators control bitcoin), eth2 proof of stake is more secure because of the pseudorandom validator selection.

It is very different: The difference is that PoW is censorship resistant. Anybody can be a miner and existing miners cannot censor new miners. Performing new work is external to the network state. In PoS, existing stakers can prevent new stakers from registering. Very important distinction.