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Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's actually more true for proof-of-work mining than it is for proof-of-stake. PoW mining has strong economies of scale, a professional miner with a warehouse full of mining rigs and a special deal with an industrial electricity supplier can churn out hashes more cheaply than a home miner can. Whereas the hardware needed for PoS is negligible so there's nowhere near that disparity between small and large miners.

Also, under Ethereum at least (the largest proof-of-stake chain and the one I'm most familiar with the workings of), stakers don't "dominate" the network. They have no decision-making power over what the consensus rules are. If the users decide to upgrade to a new version and the stakers refuse to go along with that or try to push an upgrade that the users don't want then those stakers lose their stake after the resulting fork.

[+] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I went Googling for sources, and what I found says the opposite. Ethereum was becoming increasingly centralized under PoW but after the switch to PoS it became significantly more decentralized.

in order to stake to a pool, you need to lock your tokens away, making them impossible to spend for a specified time period.

This is exactly the point of proof-of-stake. You can't prove you've staked some coins if you don't actually stake them. If you've retained control over your tokens then they're not staked. I'm not sure how you think it could work otherwise.

most of the criticisms I have of ETH are more damming of the way they went about the transition between two radically different consensus algorithms than about Proof of Stake itself.

The transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake has been on Ethereum's roadmap since the beginning. It was rolled out in stages over the course of years. What was "damning" about the transition?

[+] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I googled "zero lock staking" and I'm not finding anything that contradicts what I said. There are systems that allow for delegated staking, where you hold transferable tokens that represent a share in a staking pool - rETH, for example. But there's still locked stake in that case. And this Quora response lists various proof-of-stake systems where you can unstake immediately, including Cardano and Polkadot, but those don't give you rewards while your tokens aren't staked - the token still needs to be locked during the staking itself.

I asked for clarification on what you found "damning" about the transition to proof of stake, I don't see how asking for clarification is "misinformation."

I presented a source for Ethereum's centralization trends. Got any of your own?

[+] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wow, you went from zero to furious at the drop of a hat. And I'm not a "bagholder", as I've said in other comments, I'm just interested in the tech.

I haven't argued any of these facts. "How TF else should they do it?!" could be my line here, except that I'm trying to remain civil so I wouldn't have worded it that way. This ultimately comes from your statement:

Another damning aspect of their staking tech is that, in order to stake to a pool, you need to lock your tokens away, making them impossible to spend for a specified time period.

Which I still don't see as "damning" because - as you just said - how else would they do it? Cardano and Polkadot do it the same way, they've just changed the value of what that "specified time period" is.

I specifically mentioned Rocket Pool's rETH as an example of delegated staking that would let you sell your staked tokens more quickly, that's on Ethereum so if the exit queue is too long for you there you can try that instead.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is exactly the point of proof-of-stake. You can't prove you've staked some coins if you don't actually stake them. If you've retained control over your tokens then they're not staked. I'm not sure how you think it could work otherwise.

WOW. Straight up wrong.

I'm guessing you have a YUGE bag of ETH staked. 🤣

Since you're so wrong, it's clear that you are absolutely guessing here while anon is spitting facts, being intellectually honest about which drawbacks actually exist in the world for proof of stake. Take the L, dude. haha

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

You're guessing wrong, I'm not a "bagholder." I'm just interested in the tech.

it’s clear that you are absolutely guessing here while anon is spitting facts

I've provided specific examples and links to references. Anon's not done any of that, he's just got mad. Like you, too. Calm down.