Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus • Hacker News Board

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#491

Post by Geee » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #453

Geee wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PoW generates heat, which is not waste, if it is utilized. The endgame of Bitcoin mining is that every bit of heat is utilized, because that's the only way mining will be profitable. Running these miners is profitable even without block rewards (heat alone is sold at a profit). You didn't take into account, that: - Bitcoin price growth won't continue forever; it'll find a stable price - Mining rewards halve every 4 y…

> PoW generates heat, which is not waste, if it is utilized. There are far more energy-efficient ways of generating that heat than PoW. This is an (extremely) flawed argument. PoW is roughly akin to resistive heating. Heat pumps are about three times as energy-efficient as resistive heating. This does not even begin to take into account that there is no practical way to transfer the heat generated in massive server f…

There's also the need to heat water, and that requires resistive heaters. Also, heat pumps don't really work in colder climates as the only heat source. Resistive heating is the most common way to heat spaces with electricity.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#492

Post by TheMagicHorsey » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #391

lottin wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, there is no voting and there is no leader election. Every 10 minutes a miner wins the right to append a block to the chain, by guessing a secret number. The chances of winning are proportional to the amount of money each miner has expended in the process of guessing the secret number. This is equivalent to holding a vote every 10 minutes in order to choose who gets to append the transaction block. Therefore, yo…

Obviously I can’t change your decision to use this terminology, but ponder this: when the leader is elected every 10 minutes, do they get a choice of what block they append to the chain? No they don’t. So was it election of the leader or election of the block? And if it was an election, wouldn’t the result always be the same with largest miner always winning because they have most votes? As I said in a sibling thread…

I’ve been reading this thread. I have no idea why these people insist on using the word “leader” when it doesn’t fit. Is there some ideological reason for this?

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#493

Post by losvedir » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #391

lottin wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, there is no voting and there is no leader election. Every 10 minutes a miner wins the right to append a block to the chain, by guessing a secret number. The chances of winning are proportional to the amount of money each miner has expended in the process of guessing the secret number. This is equivalent to holding a vote every 10 minutes in order to choose who gets to append the transaction block. Therefore, yo…

Obviously I can’t change your decision to use this terminology, but ponder this: when the leader is elected every 10 minutes, do they get a choice of what block they append to the chain? No they don’t. So was it election of the leader or election of the block? And if it was an election, wouldn’t the result always be the same with largest miner always winning because they have most votes? As I said in a sibling thread…

I think you're missing the larger picture of accruing blocks over time, and deciding what is the "canonical" largest chain.

A miner can choose which block to build on. At any given moment Bitcoin can have several competing "in progress" forks. This is why most exchanges require... 7, I think?... blocks on top of yours to consider the transaction more or less confirmed.

> And if it was an election, wouldn’t the result always be the same with largest miner always winning because they have most votes?

Yes, this is a 51% attack in Bitcoin. If you have a majority of votes, you can disregard the current chain, fork from behind, and catch up.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#494

Post by Djrhfbfnsks » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #277

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…

Finally someone actually mentioning the code. In PoS "trust" must exist along several points in time before you can engage with the system - and the most notable point being trusting that the rules (written in the code) are of your desire. With PoW you don't care about the software code. The rules are dominated by the PoW because it literally proves to you which is the chain where most people are interested in, becau…

If you don't trust the code of a PoW client, how could you trust it to not simply empty your wallet as soon as you import your private key?

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#495

Post by sp332 » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

suikadayo wrote: post #67

sp332 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, how many times has it been delayed? Clearly it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

What’s delayed? Beacon chain has been running on mainnet since last December-ish. http://beaconcha.in

The merge was going to happen by the end of this year, but miners complained https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26441399 and then it was delayed again. https://www.coinhighlight.com/2021/10/ethereum-eth-devs-look...

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#496

Post by yholio » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

While the discussion about consensus algorithms is interesting and each side has good points, it should not be confused with the much more pertinent decision about simbolic currency (conceptually similar to fiat) versus proof of burned resources money (conceptually similar to gold).

We should not confuse the two topics. It's entirely possible to have a chain where the consensus is established by PoW, yet the monetary base is created by decree without any wasted resources, for example gifted to some charities or dropped by helicopter to anyone who has a Twitter account.

While the security PoW chains create is proportional to the amount of resources spent, there is absolutely no reason to think the current level of burn in Bitcoin is optimal - and strong reason to think that there is massive waste, that is, Bitcoin protects against double spend to a degree orders of magnitude harder than what a credible attacker might be willing to spend. What results is wasted energy that brings no tangible security to the users of the currency.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#497

Post by Geee » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #451

Geee wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PoW generates heat, which is not waste, if it is utilized. The endgame of Bitcoin mining is that every bit of heat is utilized, because that's the only way mining will be profitable. Running these miners is profitable even without block rewards (heat alone is sold at a profit). You didn't take into account, that: - Bitcoin price growth won't continue forever; it'll find a stable price - Mining rewards halve every 4 y…

You would think then that large bitcoin miners would already be doing this. Maybe installing their miners in large office buildings in cold climates. In theory they could eliminate their cost of electricity and outcompete other miners. Why isn't this happening?

It doesn't make sense yet, because it's currently too profitable to warrant such optimizations. Cheap energy is enough to be competitive.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#498

Post by sudosysgen » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

neuroma wrote: post #223

mathnmusic wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we're going to start legislating how we're all allowed to use energy that civilization has made available, who gets to decide what's allowed? We already legislate different pricing for different applications. Household electricity has a different price than industrial usage. A 1000x price of electricity for certain applications is just a small extension of what we currently have.

In the UK electricity costs are essentially the same for all users with discounts applied for volume and time/ demand. Is this not the case elsewhere?

That is very much not the case here, no, nor in most of the world.

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#499

Post by kitkat_new » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #474

gefhfff wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"small" 6 months can be a tipping point happening or not. Additionally, each produced ton of green house gases is contributing to climate change right now The more electricity to decarbonize the more difficult.

edit: deleting the comment because I misunderstood the context

which scientific sources contradict the existence of tipping points?

Re: Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus

#500

Post by pibechorro » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #375

sandworm101 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rapidly-growing 1% problem, one that has the potential to nullify other costly gains. Such problems need to die young, before they grow into 5/10/50% problems.

No, like others have stated, the climate challenge is switching our entire energy production (plus other fossile fuel end-uses) to net-zero or net-negative emissions. If Bitcoin disappeared tomorrow, it would give a small reduction in energy use, but at best it buys you 6 months extra to decarbonize electricity production.

Not to mention pow mining is not location or resource specific. It encourages cheap and efficient use of energy. Miners preffer low cost, surplus energy and will relocate wherever that may be. Pow can use nuclear, thermal, wind, solar and alsoo dirty fuels, just like a Tesla. If you have an issue with the use of dirty fuels, then campaign against that specifically, throwing pow under the bus entirely is short sighted.

Also what does btc and crypto replace? The carbon footprint of traditional finance, banking and the military actions to preserve it are massive polluters. Even at its infancy, pow crypto is already a good direction to improve sustainability.