This change burns the "base fee" instead of giving it to miners, which means it goes to nobody and is gone forever
If it goes to nobody, is it really "gone forever"? Did it even exist in the first place? The confusions arise from thinking cryptocurrency tokens as material things (like gold). Money is just a numeric representation of the social relationship people have with each other, and the rules of the monetary system is just an technical agreement on how we should have relationships with others. This is a change of rules for…
Confidently incorrect and took a lot of words to do it. Bravo!
There are coins like Monero that are ASIC-resistant and can only be mined with CPU, not GPU.
Incorrect. Monero can be mined using GPUs, and that is the dominant way it is mined. Source : Mined Monero on an R9 290X until a few months ago.
Monero's PoW algorithm is RandomX [1], which is optimized for CPU mining. While it is possible to mine with GPUs, it is significantly slower and unprofitable.
Can someone explain to me how PoS is not centralized? The whole point of crypto and the blockchain is decentralization, no? I feel like crypto/blockchain will end up looking nothing like how it was intended, and be regulated to the point that it's just the next iteration of the traditional banking system, where the current power holders continue holding the power. Maybe I was naive to ever think it would be any diffe…
How is it more centralized than PoW? I see multiple factors that hamper decentralization: - Fixed costs that act as barrier of entry - Economies of scale that lead to centralization - Geographic factors (operation costs being different in different parts of the world, regulation/taxation, supply chain...) This is how I see each factor playing out in both scenarios: - Fixed costs: PoS runs on consumer-grade hardware,…
In practice exchanges end up holding most of the crypto, and they will decide how to use the crypto in PoS. With PoW it looks like miners/pools will quite rarely work as exchanges, so the powers tend to be separated. With PoS, it looks like exchanges will basically run Ethereum, and it look something like Blockstream Liquid, where group of exchanges basically mint the blocks.
Can someone explain to me how PoS is not centralized? The whole point of crypto and the blockchain is decentralization, no? I feel like crypto/blockchain will end up looking nothing like how it was intended, and be regulated to the point that it's just the next iteration of the traditional banking system, where the current power holders continue holding the power. Maybe I was naive to ever think it would be any diffe…
PoS should be less centralized than PoW as I understand it. At least in Ethereum if you stake your 32 ETH then you get transactions to validate assigned to you randomly. You don't need a purpose-built rig with a ton of hash power to compete so smaller players are incentivized to participate, leading to a far greater incentive to run a node.
Different strategies. ETH PoS is about distributing a consensus state. Bitcoin PoW is about hardening a deterministic state.
Can someone explain to me how PoS is not centralized? The whole point of crypto and the blockchain is decentralization, no? I feel like crypto/blockchain will end up looking nothing like how it was intended, and be regulated to the point that it's just the next iteration of the traditional banking system, where the current power holders continue holding the power. Maybe I was naive to ever think it would be any diffe…
This is not a rant for or against Bitcoin or Etherium. It's more to point out the persuasive and idealistic rhetoric of crypto gets confused with what may happen in the real world as people work on use cases.
If Ethereum can hard fork like this, it stands to reason as well that the 21 Million Bitcoin limit is a lot more changeable than Bitcoin proponents would say. Or the opposite is true - and Ethereum is under heavily centralized control.
All blockchains are controlled by rough consensus. There's already like half a dozen Bitcoin forks in the wild (Bitcoin Cash, BSV, etc). When Bitcoin Cash forked off from the main chain in 2017, the community ultimately decided which chain was the "legitimate" one. Of course Bitcoin could decide to increase the issuance. In doing so, however, it would inevitably lead to a fork (with the 21M holdouts in one camp and t…
You could also increase the 21M cap through soft-fork and the existing chain wouldn't have to split.
The key distinction is that PoW is permissionless, whereas PoS is permissioned. Bitcoin is secured by hashpower, which is produced by physical capital outside the network. Nobody needs to ask for permission to start hashing and trade kilowatts for sats. PoS networks are secured by on-chain assets. This means you can't "mine" it without first buying tokens from someone who already owns them. You need permission from a…
> You need permission from an existing player in order to start participating. This is an incorrect explanation of what a permissioned blockchain is. A permissioned blockchain is one in which the ability to add blocks is limited to a certain collection of entities whose public keys are hard coded into the blockchain's consensus mechanism. We don't say that needing to buy tokens constitutes needing "permission" any mo…
What are the advantages of a permissioned blockchain over the same collection of entities without the blockchain? If you have a set of trusted entitites that sign and publish the data, why do they need the blockchain part?
Is there a law of the internet describing the phenomenon whereby any comment criticising cryptocurrency will promptly elicit a response comment proffering a cryptocurrency that's somehow different and "not like those other cryptos"?
If not, you should name it yourself. The Ellie Kelly effect - whereby any mention of a flaw in a cryptocurrency is met with a rebuttal of the one true cryptocurrency, usually obscure and with little traction.
If only the transaction confirmations were as fast as these responses usually are.
> You need permission from an existing player in order to start participating. This is an incorrect explanation of what a permissioned blockchain is. A permissioned blockchain is one in which the ability to add blocks is limited to a certain collection of entities whose public keys are hard coded into the blockchain's consensus mechanism. We don't say that needing to buy tokens constitutes needing "permission" any mo…
Manufacturing ASICs from scratch requires a lot of capital, but it is fundamentally possible. There is no way to acquire a permanent, unassailable monopoly over ASIC hardware in general. It is possible to acquire an unassailable monopoly over PoS tokens. You might be able to buy scraps from random traders, but will the >51% whale be willing to sell their core holdings when they can simply live off their staking yield…
> There is no way to acquire a permanent, unassailable monopoly over ASIC hardware in general.
Is ASIC hardware made of silicon? In that case, an entity who owns the entire supply of silicon has a "permanent, unassailable monopoly over ASIC hardware in general".
Manufacturing ASICs from scratch requires a lot of capital, but it is fundamentally possible. There is no way to acquire a permanent, unassailable monopoly over ASIC hardware in general. It is possible to acquire an unassailable monopoly over PoS tokens. You might be able to buy scraps from random traders, but will the >51% whale be willing to sell their core holdings when they can simply live off their staking yield…
> There is no way to acquire a permanent, unassailable monopoly over ASIC hardware in general. Is ASIC hardware made of silicon? In that case, an entity who owns the entire supply of silicon has a "permanent, unassailable monopoly over ASIC hardware in general".
I hope you're joking?
Silicon is the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust, after oxygen: and only because there are two oxygens in silicon dioxide.
If someone corners the market on silicon, Bitcoin dominance is the least of our problems.