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Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

yanmaani.github.io

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Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#41

Post by pmorici »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #11

PoS is a flawed system that enriches the project founders primarily. Just look at Charles Hoskinson or Gavin Wood. PoW is apparently bad for the environment. So it leaves us in an interesting situation. The Ethereum project has shown that the concept of decentralization only applies when it's on their terms. It's not a true principle.

“Decentralization” has been the argument ideologues have fallen back on time and again in crypto. It’s never well defined and typically used to oppose policies that would promote low transaction fees or increased transaction throughput. It’s why things like Solana which is focused on massive scale and low fees have found a foothold. Ethereum is repeating the mistakes of Bitcoin

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#42

Post by Findecanor »

CraftingLinks wrote: post #19

Can't wait for the day all PoW mining activities are declared illegal. To be honest, I don't understand why it hasn't been banned already. Sweden has recently called for a EU wide ban because it identified PoW mining as a threat to transition their economy to renewable energy. https://www.fi.se/en/published/presentations/2021/crypto-ass...

A couple Swedish public servants have called for a EU-wide ban. Sweden does not have an official stance on PoW mining.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#43

Post by omarfarooq »

TTPrograms wrote: post #22

Why do unsophisticated, redundant, vitriolic takes like this get upvoted on HN so much? Is there some common ax to grind here? The strongest point here is the strawman presentation of the altered security model that PoS can be proven to form consensus under. Reading the source he cites is far more informative: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-lov... The majority of the article frames distribut…

One way of conquering FOMO is to totally write the thing off, and to stubbornly stick to that thesis.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#46

Post by rank0 »

pmorici wrote: post #41
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #11

PoS is a flawed system that enriches the project founders primarily. Just look at Charles Hoskinson or Gavin Wood. PoW is apparently bad for the environment. So it leaves us in an interesting situation. The Ethereum project has shown that the concept of decentralization only applies when it's on their terms. It's not a true principle.

“Decentralization” has been the argument ideologues have fallen back on time and again in crypto. It’s never well defined and typically used to oppose policies that would promote low transaction fees or increased transaction throughput. It’s why things like Solana which is focused on massive scale and low fees have found a foothold. Ethereum is repeating the mistakes of Bitcoin

It’s because if you’re not decentralized, then you don’t need a blockchain.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#48

Post by reginold »

TTPrograms wrote: post #22

Why do unsophisticated, redundant, vitriolic takes like this get upvoted on HN so much? Is there some common ax to grind here? The strongest point here is the strawman presentation of the altered security model that PoS can be proven to form consensus under. Reading the source he cites is far more informative: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-lov... The majority of the article frames distribut…

I would love to see the same content / angle of this article re-written. I think it could be condensed to a few paragraphs perhaps, for those who already understand Proof of Work. I found myself getting stuck in the analogies (infinite lottery tickets) and not being able to make progress. But I'm interested in the pros/cons of PoW vs PoS if you have recommendations.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#49

Post by ricardolopes »

Laforet wrote: post #20
josnyder wrote: post #8

PoW systems rely on the "phone a friend method" as well. When you download a Bitcoin client from a "friend", you are trusting them to honestly introduce you to the network. If you fall asleep for a period of years, you have to trust your friends to honestly inform you of all of the PoW forks and policy changes that have occurred over that interval. The only difference is that PoS blockchain clients must be bundled wi…

Is the threat of long range attacks in PoS any worse than PoW in practice? Bitcoin for example still relies on a list of hardcoded nodes for bootstrapping clients. Not to mention very few people actually bother to verify the full chain (360GB and counting) from genesis. As for auditing the the integrity of the code or binary, it is signed by GPG keys hosted on public key servers accessed using X509 certificates pinne…

The Bitcoin Core client includes a hardcoded list of DNS servers that point to thousands of nodes. These lists get updated frequently by different people. Other clients may use other lists. What is the threat model you're suggesting here, exactly? Do you know any other way to bootstrap a peer to peer network without centralised authorities?

All network participants are forced to verify the full chain from genesis. Some might be OK with validating block header signatures only, and not the full transaction set. It's a tradeoff.

You don't need to use those public key servers if you somehow distrust the CA certificates in your OS. Feel free to contact the repository maintainers or whatever else floats your boat.

Anyway, bitcoin is an open source protocol, not a particular client implementation. If you distrust everything and everyone, no one can stop you from building your own client that works with the rest of the network.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#50

Post by thruway516 »

TTPrograms wrote: post #22

Why do unsophisticated, redundant, vitriolic takes like this get upvoted on HN so much? Is there some common ax to grind here? The strongest point here is the strawman presentation of the altered security model that PoS can be proven to form consensus under. Reading the source he cites is far more informative: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-lov... The majority of the article frames distribut…

"The majority of the article frames distributed consensus mechanisms in an extremely sophomoric understanding of asset value and the PoW security model"

This is one of those sentences that reads like it is saying a lot but might actually be nonsensical. Care to elaborate on this? i.e how exactly does the article 'frames distributed consensus mechanisms in an understanding of asset value'.

I read the article and I didn't see anything about asset value (whatever that is). As far as I can tell they point out that the article you cited pretty much agrees with what they're saying (about PoS by itself not being self-certifiable or irreversible) but disagree with the position that this can be acceptable in the real world. Whether you agree with that is subjective but the main criticism in the article seems to be directed at those who selling PoS as a sufficient distributed consensus algorithm to replace of PoW. There are blockchain projects raising literally Billions of dollars on this false guarantee so it is valid to criticize them.

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