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Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

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Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#61

Post by noman-land »

hansword wrote: post #17

Doesn't this just mean the rich decide? Please correct me if I am wrong, but that is what it sounds to me. (And yes, I understand that POW means the 'compute-rich' decide.)

The article touches on this toward the end.

"The idea of CPUs, GPUs, and ASICs churning away in a mathematical competition to find hash preimages the fastest has an egalitarian elegance to it. Sovereign individuals where individuals running home gaming computers can compete with nation-states for the right to earn 6.25 freshly minted BTC.

Unfortunately, ASIC supply chains are easily controlled by import/export regulations, not to mention a dangerous dependency on Taiwan. The need for cheap, abundant energy is another weak point that prohibits individuals from running discreet mining setups. And because we have not yet entered a post-scarcity utopia, you need upfront capital to purchase mining rigs. Worse, technological advances mean miners are constantly required to upgrade their setups to remain competitive, meaning the supply chain dependency is an ongoing weak point if things ever go south.

PoW can be thought of as a specific instantiation of PoS, where users stake capital to purchase mining rigs that then compete for the block proposal rights. Your staked principal can be withdrawn at any time, but its value follows a decay curve corresponding to the current market value of your computer chips. The need for upfront capital is identical in both PoW and PoS, the key difference being that the capital is forced through a computer chip supply chain in PoW while it can be purely staked in PoS."

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#62

Post by capableweb »

rglullis wrote: post #51
bibabaloo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the more you have of the capital the more you influence the system That's not how PoS works, though?

Do not feed the troll. Flag and move along...

Well, the problem with this is that the misinformation stays around, influencing future discussions when it comes up again, when people keep repeating the same thing over and over.

It would be more interesting to discuss new flaws in the protocol, or things that generally haven't been discussed before.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#63

Post by RF_Savage »

SilverBirch wrote: post #54

>Let’s walk through a couple theoretical scenarios where a subset of malicious validators wants to censor transactions, say those originating in FATF-blacklisted countries. Hang on a second. Just to be clear about this example, this example is walking through how Ethereum has been designed specifically to allow North Korea to transact Ethereum, and more than that, prevent anyone who dissents. Like, I mean ok, I get t…

Yep, that is going to be an interesting thing to observe.

I wonder if USA based validators will just have to block NK and Iran. What a mess.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#64

Post by Barrera »

The article does not even mention long range attacks in which large portions of the block chain are rewritten.

This is made extremely hard in Bitcoin through proof-of-work. To rewrite history you must re-do all of the work, which means you burn enough real-world energy to work faster than the entire rest of the network (aka majority hash rate attack). It's allowed, but expensive.

In PoS, there was never any work, so you can just rewrite history.

Every time the subject of Ethereum's move to PoS comes up, it seems this issue is there. The solutions mutate into a head-spinning kaleidoscope of different guises, all rabbit holes in their own maddening way and suspicious on that basis alone.

That this lengthy piece doesn't even mention long range attacks speaks volumes.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#65

Post by bhawks »

hansword wrote: post #17

Doesn't this just mean the rich decide? Please correct me if I am wrong, but that is what it sounds to me. (And yes, I understand that POW means the 'compute-rich' decide.)

No in several ways.

1: The definition of an acceptable transaction is a part of the protocol. Being a block validator or attestor doesn't let an entity change the rules of the protocol.

2: intentionally excluding transactions from the Blockchain (essentially censorship) causes economic harm to the PoS censors and is ultimately futile.

The fine article discusses both these points in more depth (mostly in the misconception section).

Essentially stake in a proof of stake system is used to punish selfish/destructive behaviours and reward honest cooperation. Participating in that system does not create a 2 tiered system of participants where one tier has powers the other doesn't not. Nonstakers simply do not aid in the production of blocks and therefore the incentive mechanisms of block production do not have any impact on them.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#66

Post by haarts »

bibabaloo wrote: post #46
drdrek wrote: post #31

Ahh proof of stake, the nail in the coffin of decentralization. What did you say? the more you have of the capital the more you influence the system? what a novel concept! Monterey and legal systems based on structures that are at least partially built to take care of the needs of people of similar culture and geographic area? YUCK! Machine enforced plutocratic system where early adopters and syndicates have absolute…

> the more you have of the capital the more you influence the system That's not how PoS works, though?

How does it work?

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#67

Post by rekoil »

drdrek wrote: post #31

Ahh proof of stake, the nail in the coffin of decentralization. What did you say? the more you have of the capital the more you influence the system? what a novel concept! Monterey and legal systems based on structures that are at least partially built to take care of the needs of people of similar culture and geographic area? YUCK! Machine enforced plutocratic system where early adopters and syndicates have absolute…

Proof of Work is the same, just with more steps.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#68

Post by clippablematt »

SilverBirch wrote: post #54

>Let’s walk through a couple theoretical scenarios where a subset of malicious validators wants to censor transactions, say those originating in FATF-blacklisted countries. Hang on a second. Just to be clear about this example, this example is walking through how Ethereum has been designed specifically to allow North Korea to transact Ethereum, and more than that, prevent anyone who dissents. Like, I mean ok, I get t…

You should understand that this is a very USA centred opinion. There’s a whole big world of different cultures and politics, and it is possible to believe there are other approaches where we reject violence and authority.

It’s the usual “you’re helping drug dealers/terrorists/North Korea, but what about the children?!” state simping that ignores the violence of the existing systems, and ignores the billions of people in the world who aren’t any of the above and are also benefiting from our attempts to design systems that respect liberty.

I think we absolutely should build infrastructure that allows people within oppressive regimes options with which they can resist, escape, coordinate. For example, we shouldn’t accept that Iranian devs get booted off GitHub.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#69

Post by YetAnotherNick »

whatisweb3 wrote: post #8
RL_Quine wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally we've described this sort of research as "review resistant", rather than being secure in some classical sense. How Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies actually work is often eagerly explained but completely unfathomable on closer inspection. Concerns raised are fixed with additional complexity repeatedly until the reviewer grows weary of attempting to piece it together. Consequently there's sufficient confl…

The spec is open and documented pretty clearly.[1] [1] https://notes.ethereum.org/@vbuterin/Sys3GLJbD#Misc

That's just a random function description. The main thing here is how is seed calculated and analysis of whether it seed is safe from network partition, DDoS, malicious attack, nodes being offline, forks etc.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#70

Post by drdrek »

ETH_start wrote: post #47
drdrek wrote: post #31

Ahh proof of stake, the nail in the coffin of decentralization. What did you say? the more you have of the capital the more you influence the system? what a novel concept! Monterey and legal systems based on structures that are at least partially built to take care of the needs of people of similar culture and geographic area? YUCK! Machine enforced plutocratic system where early adopters and syndicates have absolute…

>>the more you have of the capital the more you influence the system? what a novel concept! That is exactly how Proof of Work works as well. What makes PoW and PoS implementations like Ethereum's capture resistant is that they are governance-free, so capital is NOT used to influence governance. It is only used as a signal that is costly so as to prevent Sybil attacks.

The "Move" to POS breaks the myth of the system being immutable and "governance-free". The people with a lot of stake in the system can change or prevent change to the system. One of the major reasons that POS takes so long to implement is that individuals and syndicates that have invested a lot of money in to POW infrastructure block it and warn that it "doing it hastily" will harm the stability of the system. And they are right, it will harm the stability of the system because it is centralized and is governed by the individuals and syndicates with the most vested interest.
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