Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

The tradeoff is fundamental: because VDFs don't benefit from throwing computational resources at them, there is no disadvantage to computing a bunch of them in parallel. So if you had bad intentions from the getgo (and you had a majority of stake at the time), you could still secretly compute a fake bad chain starting at time t, and then release an alternative at time t+n that was as long or longer than the real chain; the security they provide is that if someone compromises your keys later (after you already lost your majority), they can't do this. Since in practice proof of stake chains start very centralized and then distribute over time, this is a useful practical thing to care about!

With PoW, on the other hand, computing a fake chain requires you to not use all your hashpower, which opens you up to economic attacks from someone else who is willing to use that hashpower. When someone uses more hashpower than you were, they'll be able to make a longer chain faster (before the difficulty readjusts again), so now all your secret chains have been made useless (and in cases of equal chain length, people tiebreak by hashpower, so you can't just maintain a little side network that eventually catches up when hashpower decreases, either). That's the theory, anyway: it's heavily based on economic incentives, so if some government decided that they didn't really care about the economics and just wanted to screw over chain users by pumping out hashpower, they could do so quite easily. Note that by contrast, proof of stake is not susceptible to this: you actually do have to compromise a majority of the active stakers no matter how much money you have.

Personally, I think this is a distinction without a difference because I don't think any cryptocurency can stand up to sustained attacks by large nation-states (which is part of why I don't think it's very useful). But like I said, that's an assessment of the threat model, so it's subjective and up to you to decide.

But my understanding was that you can only have enough stake in the network to make decisions...by having that stake in the network. If you un-stake your crypto and cash out, by definition, you no longer have any stake in the network. If you no longer have any stake, how do you have a controlling stake?

To be fair, I'd love to hear him chime in on this discussion, and tell his side of the story, relate his exploits and prosecution as a viagra spammer, and finally answer all those unanswered questions people have asked him, to which he replied "Dodge Dodge".

Not that he's unique or special: POS shills like him are a dime a dozen. But he hangs out here and shills on HN, and has won awards for his deceptive scams (and also lost court cases too), and claims to "help people" on his web site, so I hope to hear from him again.

https://richardheart.com/

His real name is actually Richard J Schueler, under which he is famously known as the "Spam King", for being one of the first people in the world to be successfully sued for online spam, specifically the Viagra spam scheme that he ran from Panama (which he lost).

Richard Hart (aka "Spam King" Richard J Schueler) wins the "Golden Pump Award" for "Best New Scam" for his POS shitcoin Ponzi scheme "HEX":

https://twitter.com/JuanSGalt/status/1233242355995750400

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=857&v=tf-lJu5iDh...

Peacefire.org beats spammers in court.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/peacefire-org-beats-spammers-i...

>Free-speech group Peacefire.org wins a legal round in its fight against unsolicited e-mail, invoking Washington state's anti-spam law.

>The King County District Court in Bellevue, Wash., on Monday granted Peacefire $1,000 in damages in each of three complaints filed by Peacefire Webmaster Bennett Haselton. The small-claims suit alleged that Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard Schueler [who now operates under the pseudonum "Richard Hart"] sent unsolicited commercial messages to Haselton that bore deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or misleading subject line.

Confronting Richard Heart of HEX - SPAM KING and Crypto Scammer

https://www.cointelligence.com/content/confronting-richard-h...

>During ANON Summit 2020, I participated in a “fireside chat” with Richard Heart, founder of HEX. HEX is one of the most sophisticated, if not THE most sophisticated scams I have ever seen.

>Why was I so aggressive with Richard? I have a lot of experience fighting with scammers, at events, and in online discussions. I’m familiar with their bullshit techniques. Richard is the sort of “master debater” who will answer a question without actually answering the content of the question. I watched more than 6 hours of his previous talks and learned how to tell when he was trying to avoid a real answer.

>If you don't want to sit through hours of interviews yourself, this 4 minute video not only sheds light on Heart's motivation for establishing HEX, but also shows just how abrasive and crude he can be. This video was not created or edited by Cointelligence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MIdlXHedlU

>I want to draw your attention to the quote in the video above: "What am I going to make more money doing? Promoting my token, that I own a whole ton of? Or promoting bitcoin, where I own one-one zillionth of the available supply?" He's clearly in this to make money for himself in any way possible. [...]

>When asked why HEX was not categorized as a security, at around the 21 minute mark, Richard offered an explanation that has no legal grounding. On the website, HEX claims that it is "The first high interest blockchain certificate of deposit." However, HEX has no legal authority to issue CDs. Richard is illegally claiming to provide CDs when in fact the instruments are nothing but glorified savings accounts.

More quotes: "What's up now, fggot? What are you going to do now, you little btch? Get the fuck out of here! That's the dumbest piece of shit I've ever seen in my fucking life. [...] Let me give you some more bullshit, ok?" -Richard Heart aka Richard J Schueler

Richard Heart - Spam, ICOs, and Death Threats

https://imnotdead.co.uk/blog/richard-heart

Richard James Schueler - Friggin Spam King

https://web.archive.org/web/20190416235350/http://www.panama...

Why HEX is a Ponzi and not a solid investment (Part 2): Richard Heart

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kwhjxa/why_...

>During the interview at ANON, Richard confirmed that he was one of the first people in the world to be sued for online spam, back in 2002. This shows us Richard has experience abusing unregulated markets, as he is doing with crypto these days.

Richard: this an accurate quote of your own words?

>When I pressed the matter and asked for a simple “yes” or “no” as to whether he, as the FOUNDER of HEX, knows who benefits from the funds sent to the “Origin Address” he flat-out said “I’m dodging your question.” Dodging the question! He proceeds to repeat “Dodge, dodge.”

Richard, your tag-line "Do you want to develop my new cryptocurrency?" is the new "Do you want to develop an app?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVy0JWX5XEY&ab_channel=Adult...

"Dodge, dodge." -Richard Heart aka Richard J Schueler