Ethereum Proof-of-Stake • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#291

Post by cowtools » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

Geee wrote: post #227

cowtools wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>just as it does with BTC. Reminds me of the (largely failed) bitcoin XT fork. Bitcoiners didn't choose what was right for the network- they chose the easy path in an attempt to prevent fragmentation and keep the price high. I have no reason to expect that ETH users won't do the same, just as they did in the DAO hack fork: they just choose whatever fork happens to profit them in the short-term at the expense of the d…

That's not what happened. Bitcoiners defended decentralization over throughput. The argument back then was that we should first experiment with scaling with other solutions and try to innovate as far as possible, and after that see how much actual L1 block space is needed. Now we are starting to see that it was the right choice.

How is LN the right choice for decentralization? you need central relay nodes with a ton of liquidity. Besides there is nothing stopping you from setting up LN over a L1 that isn't cramped, you have a limited throughput of settlement transactions.

Satoshi himself even suggested a blocksize increase. It is really a no-brainier when the cost of storage and bandwidth will continue to decrease over time, especially in a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin where the vast majority of the hashrate is from ASIC farms that can bear the cost of a single node while the rest simply use SPV wallets.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#292

Post by cowtools » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

redox99 wrote: post #195

cowtools wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just ditch the whole Proof-of-Stake system and use a classical consensus system then?

Because people won't all agree and update their software every 12 seconds for each new block.

In classical consensus, users don't need to agree on every block, they need to agree on who signs the blocks on their behalf.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#293

Post by cowtools » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:39 PM UTC

operator-name wrote: post #198

cowtools wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just ditch the whole Proof-of-Stake system and use a classical consensus system then?

Sybil attacks caused by the nothing at stake problem.

Any reasonable implementation of classical consensus isn't susceptible to Sybil attacks. You manually select which peers sign transactions for you, in the same way that you manually select CA's to sign TLS keys for you.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#294

Post by dcolkitt » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:42 PM UTC

snapcaster wrote: post #71

I'm going to be really impressed and surprised if this ends up working (moving ETH to PoS). I'm still fairly skeptical. It seems like PoS has so many issues that come up with additional complexity being added to handle them. Worried it's increasing the attack surface too much and making a system that's not going to be able to be secured. That being said, I hope it works but it's been "two months from merge" for 5 yea…

In addition to what others have said about testnet transitions already being successful, we already have multiple active PoS networks (Solana, Avalanche, Cosmos, BSC, etc.) that have been successfully securing billions of value for multiple years.

Four or five years ago, it was tenable to say “PoS may just never be successful”, but saying that today ignores literally dozens of real world examples running in production.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#295

Post by cowtools » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

aeternum wrote: post #219

cowtools wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...but if it succeeds, then everyone else gets slashed. The network has no concept of "truth". PoS doesn't fix this, it just puts all your eggs in one basket. Who would be interested in using any network which exists only for the profit of the existing stakeholders? Why not just fork it?

Forking it is the real threat. If some entity does end up controlling 67% or doing something the community does not agree with, people will just stop using the chain. This already happened once with Ethereum.

Yes, but etherium forked in favor of the stakeholders.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#296

Post by cowtools » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #267

cowtools wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you distribute tokens fairly? Give 1 to every person in the world? What about the next generation?

1. Peg coins to units of land value 2. Mint NFTs representing land parcels and persons 3. Collect land value tax from all holders of parcel NFTs 4. Disburse dividends to all holders of personhood NFTs 5. Bask in the glory of Crypto-Georgism (Disclaimer: I have no idea how practical this is, but it sounds fuckin' rad.)

Interesting idea but you need someone to enforce land contracts and distribute person-hood contracts, so it becomes centralized.

Also it would suck for mennonites who don't want to use technology.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#297

Post by operator-name » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 11:04 PM UTC

cowtools wrote: post #293

operator-name wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sybil attacks caused by the nothing at stake problem.

Any reasonable implementation of classical consensus isn't susceptible to Sybil attacks. You manually select which peers sign transactions for you, in the same way that you manually select CA's to sign TLS keys for you.

Manually selecting peers doesn't prevent sybil attacks, it just moves the problem one layer up (to the social level).

Either you have some trust in all participating parties or you don't. Classical consensus algorithms assumes the former. Achieving consensus when a percentage of parties cannot be trusted and may even be bad actors is a seperate problem.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#298

Post by cowtools » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 11:17 PM UTC

elif wrote: post #254

cowtools wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is a fundamental aspect of modern capitalist organization of wealth. In a functioning system it's a property that reflects the time-value of money. In cryptocurrency, there is no need for such a property. Any altruistically-designed cryptocurrency would have inflationary tokenomics.

Let me know when ETH gives interest-free borrowing, debt forgiveness, bankruptcy bailouts, years of quantitative easing, 10x leveraging of capital etc. but only for the richest 100 or so ETH holders... It's easy to believe in M1 and even M2 USD, but when you look at M3 and FR policy driving continuous unending inflation, I think you'll find proof-of-stake to be Robinhood level egalitarian by comparison. Btw you can s…

I don't know what you are trying to say here, but know this:

ETH and USD are not comparable. The US Government secures real-world business operations themselves, while cryptocurrencies merely secure payments.

Who pays the price of USD inflation? It's largely not Americans. It's a net transfer of wealth from the satellite economies (that the USA secures through its military presence) to the USA. Not to mention, (an appropriate amount of) inflation promotes actual spending.

Cryptocurrencies are not economies, they are merely payment networks. They should be useful as payment systems. They should primarily serve to provide value to those using them as payment systems, not investors, developers, inside traders, stakers, miners, or any other middleman. The moment that it's more favorable to become a middleman than to use cryptocurrency for it's intended purpose is the moment that the dynamics of the system switch from payment network to ponzi scheme.

Cryptocurrencies SHOULD NOT favor early investors. They SHOULD have inflation in the form of a block reward, which ensures the security of the network for those that USE cryptocurrency at the cost of those who merely OWN it.

You can't escape consequences forever.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#299

Post by cowtools » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 11:33 PM UTC

operator-name wrote: post #297

cowtools wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reasonable implementation of classical consensus isn't susceptible to Sybil attacks. You manually select which peers sign transactions for you, in the same way that you manually select CA's to sign TLS keys for you.

Manually selecting peers doesn't prevent sybil attacks, it just moves the problem one layer up (to the social level). Either you have some trust in all participating parties or you don't. Classical consensus algorithms assumes the former. Achieving consensus when a percentage of parties cannot be trusted and may even be bad actors is a seperate problem.

The problem is already on the social level, it's just that in Classical Consensus, trust is established explicitly. Whereas in Proof-Of-Stake, it's established implicitly by means of controlling monopoly money.

If the stakers disagree with each other, or if the users disagree about who ought to be stakers, then that's a social problem. That's really no different than the problem of notaries disagreeing with each other or with users disagreeing about who ought to be notaries.

The difference is that in PoW, Miners have to stop when it becomes unprofitable for them (due to economies/dis-economies of scale). PoW is decentralized so long as normal people have great economies at a small scale (They have free access to electricity, they are using hardware they already own anyways, they would pay for heating anyways). In PoS, Stakers just get more and more power.

Re: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake

#300

Post by latchkey » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 11:47 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #294

snapcaster wrote: post #71

I'm going to be really impressed and surprised if this ends up working (moving ETH to PoS). I'm still fairly skeptical. It seems like PoS has so many issues that come up with additional complexity being added to handle them. Worried it's increasing the attack surface too much and making a system that's not going to be able to be secured. That being said, I hope it works but it's been "two months from merge" for 5 yea…

In addition to what others have said about testnet transitions already being successful, we already have multiple active PoS networks (Solana, Avalanche, Cosmos, BSC, etc.) that have been successfully securing billions of value for multiple years. Four or five years ago, it was tenable to say “PoS may just never be successful”, but saying that today ignores literally dozens of real world examples running in productio…

The targets on those networks are a small fraction of ETH's marketcap. If one had an exploit against ETH2, it certainly won't be "announced" until after launch.