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Because it’s not external referencing. It’s all on chain, and any external price of tokens is all in humans minds. Of course, true of Bitcoin too. However, ener

Because it’s not external referencing. It’s all on chain, and any external price of tokens is all in humans minds. Of course, true of Bitcoin too. However, energy is the external thing that links time and computation to the chain data. Really, Bitcoin PoW is an amazing discovery. Proof of Stake is self serving self referencial database. Bitcoin through Proof of Work is a global computational one-way valve for a ledger, which enables a fuzzy decentralized time, by which we can enforce digital scarcity! The ledger record becomes the digital commodity. What an age! Proof of stake ends up as chain where 26 dudes in discord can freeze accounts, lock the chain, etc, etc. it’s not really different than 26 banks doing the same. And really you have to ask yourself about the purpose of any of this if you are trading 26 banks for 26 dudes in a discord.

keeganpoppen 1y ago
Bitcoin proof of work is both the sine qua non and the ne plus ultra of the entire sphere… and i say this as an enjoyer of all the fancy math et al. in the space. it is genuinely a monumental achievement… one whose value… is indeterminate (at best; and worst). and i wouldn’t dare opine on that point, because i’m “from Switzerland” on this. but that it opened a mathemeatical pandora’s box is undeniable. when i read the original Bitcoin paper (about a year after publication) i was suffused with the feeling that something fundamental was “discovered” in a way i’ve only felt a handful of times in my entire life… (and then i spent all my BTC on drugs)
- mistercheph 1y ago
  +1 blockchains and cryptocurrencies are super interesting and valuable IMO outside of the present speculative lotteries people are playing. But I suspect even more interesting things than the current applications will come out of the opening of a bridge between pure computation and the material world over the next decades/centuries/millenia.
throwaway290 1y ago
PoW is supported by two things, belief that waste of energy is valuable and criminals using it to workaround sanctions.
- proxynoproxy 1y ago
  It’s more that waste energy allows one way process, which is valuable. Valves. Diodes. One doesn’t complain about waste heat from computation in general, if that computation has value. And the second part - you won’t understand because you prefer authority to set monetary policy. The history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    It's a waste because the energy is not spent creating real value. If energy spend's goal is to make energy spend valuable and nothing else, it's a waste and evolutionary deadend. Your example is wrong because in diodes and valves waste heat is a byproduct of getting real value not the goal (when heating is the goal and provides actual value of people not dying from cold that is again real value). > And the second part - you won’t understand because you prefer authority to set monetary policy You will discover that monetary policy is always set by someone one way or another. Choose if you want it to be democratically elected to serve you government or randos who happen to have a bunch of BTC from selling drugs to kids on black market or scamming and ransomwaring people (this is it's biggest use case).
    - proxynoproxy 1y ago
      It’s not wrong, you just don’t like it, don’t get it. It’s ok; you will eventually. Everyone does. In the scenario I trust the later more than the former! And that’s fine, we have different perspectives. You wanna shut us down, I want you to ignore us, See the difference?
      - throwaway290 1y ago
        > In the scenario I trust the later more than the former You made your choice, that's fine, just don't pretend it's virtuous.
everfree 1y ago
> Proof of Stake is self serving self referencial database. Proof of Work is much more self-serving than Proof of Stake, as it demands external expenditures to keep itself running. PoS can perform the same job (running a blockchain) without demanding that the world drop what it's doing to contribute electricity to one massive global tragedy of the commons. Being self-referential is a beneficial feature, not a bug. > Proof of stake ends up as chain where 26 dudes in discord can freeze accounts, lock the chain, etc, etc. That's where Proof of Work ends up, not Proof of Stake. PoW's economies of scale always eventually result in a network controlled by a handful of massive mining operations running at razor-thin margins. The "26 dudes in discord" that people talk about are the CEOs of large mining warehouses with custom chips that make it impossible for home miners to break even. In contrast, with a well-designed Proof of Stake system, people can contribute by staking at home and running mini-PCs in closets at edge locations. It has the potential to remain a much more grassroots network with less concentration of wealth, if the initial distribution is relatively fair. There is no economy of scale and ideally no concentration of wealth over time - as everyone earns the same percent returns in staking.
- proxynoproxy 1y ago
  Haha, no. Like in sui where the validators halted and froze? Or Solana where dishonest stalkers rigged the delegated staking auction and stole from other stakers? What you are repeating is the same PoS nonsense. Get out of here. Eth drove off a cliff when it went PoS. It’s going to zero vs Bitcoin, like every other PoS (or alt) coin. It’s all just PoS cartels. Meanwhile, many people have their “edge” BitAxe earning Bitcoin. nb: PoS can never really be fairly distributed. It’s printed out of nothing to enrich the founders. The billionaires were dumping Sol on retail last cycle. It can never escape this. Eth was “premined”.
  - kinakomochidayo 1y ago
    Ethereum is doing just fine after going PoS, in fact, it’s much more secure than when it was PoW from a security budget standpoint while achieving less inflation compared to Bitcoin, and will continue to remain secure compared to Bitcoin’s critical security budget issue as block rewards go down. It’s also special compared to other chains in that it started out as PoW for at least 7 years. Bitcoin has ASIC monopoly and conflicts of interest with core devs connected to companies dipping into mining. Solana and other chains are VC fueled crap though, I agree.

keeganpoppen 1y ago

Bitcoin proof of work is both the sine qua non and the ne plus ultra of the entire sphere… and i say this as an enjoyer of all the fancy math et al. in the space. it is genuinely a monumental achievement… one whose value… is indeterminate (at best; and worst). and i wouldn’t dare opine on that point, because i’m “from Switzerland” on this. but that it opened a mathemeatical pandora’s box is undeniable. when i read the original Bitcoin paper (about a year after publication) i was suffused with the feeling that something fundamental was “discovered” in a way i’ve only felt a handful of times in my entire life… (and then i spent all my BTC on drugs)

mistercheph 1y ago
+1 blockchains and cryptocurrencies are super interesting and valuable IMO outside of the present speculative lotteries people are playing. But I suspect even more interesting things than the current applications will come out of the opening of a bridge between pure computation and the material world over the next decades/centuries/millenia.

throwaway290 1y ago

PoW is supported by two things, belief that waste of energy is valuable and criminals using it to workaround sanctions.

proxynoproxy 1y ago
It’s more that waste energy allows one way process, which is valuable. Valves. Diodes. One doesn’t complain about waste heat from computation in general, if that computation has value. And the second part - you won’t understand because you prefer authority to set monetary policy. The history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.
- throwaway290 1y ago
  It's a waste because the energy is not spent creating real value. If energy spend's goal is to make energy spend valuable and nothing else, it's a waste and evolutionary deadend. Your example is wrong because in diodes and valves waste heat is a byproduct of getting real value not the goal (when heating is the goal and provides actual value of people not dying from cold that is again real value). > And the second part - you won’t understand because you prefer authority to set monetary policy You will discover that monetary policy is always set by someone one way or another. Choose if you want it to be democratically elected to serve you government or randos who happen to have a bunch of BTC from selling drugs to kids on black market or scamming and ransomwaring people (this is it's biggest use case).
  - proxynoproxy 1y ago
    It’s not wrong, you just don’t like it, don’t get it. It’s ok; you will eventually. Everyone does. In the scenario I trust the later more than the former! And that’s fine, we have different perspectives. You wanna shut us down, I want you to ignore us, See the difference?
    - throwaway290 1y ago
      > In the scenario I trust the later more than the former You made your choice, that's fine, just don't pretend it's virtuous.

everfree 1y ago

> Proof of Stake is self serving self referencial database. Proof of Work is much more self-serving than Proof of Stake, as it demands external expenditures to keep itself running. PoS can perform the same job (running a blockchain) without demanding that the world drop what it's doing to contribute electricity to one massive global tragedy of the commons. Being self-referential is a beneficial feature, not a bug. > Proof of stake ends up as chain where 26 dudes in discord can freeze accounts, lock the chain, etc, etc. That's where Proof of Work ends up, not Proof of Stake. PoW's economies of scale always eventually result in a network controlled by a handful of massive mining operations running at razor-thin margins. The "26 dudes in discord" that people talk about are the CEOs of large mining warehouses with custom chips that make it impossible for home miners to break even. In contrast, with a well-designed Proof of Stake system, people can contribute by staking at home and running mini-PCs in closets at edge locations. It has the potential to remain a much more grassroots network with less concentration of wealth, if the initial distribution is relatively fair. There is no economy of scale and ideally no concentration of wealth over time - as everyone earns the same percent returns in staking.

proxynoproxy 1y ago
Haha, no. Like in sui where the validators halted and froze? Or Solana where dishonest stalkers rigged the delegated staking auction and stole from other stakers? What you are repeating is the same PoS nonsense. Get out of here. Eth drove off a cliff when it went PoS. It’s going to zero vs Bitcoin, like every other PoS (or alt) coin. It’s all just PoS cartels. Meanwhile, many people have their “edge” BitAxe earning Bitcoin. nb: PoS can never really be fairly distributed. It’s printed out of nothing to enrich the founders. The billionaires were dumping Sol on retail last cycle. It can never escape this. Eth was “premined”.
- kinakomochidayo 1y ago
  Ethereum is doing just fine after going PoS, in fact, it’s much more secure than when it was PoW from a security budget standpoint while achieving less inflation compared to Bitcoin, and will continue to remain secure compared to Bitcoin’s critical security budget issue as block rewards go down. It’s also special compared to other chains in that it started out as PoW for at least 7 years. Bitcoin has ASIC monopoly and conflicts of interest with core devs connected to companies dipping into mining. Solana and other chains are VC fueled crap though, I agree.