Absolutely, not to mention Eth just rolled out a major update last week. This rambling, bizarre article boils down to a few very basic, extremely played out arguments.
Argument 1: Proof of stake concentrates wealth more than proof of work.
You can make that argument, but POS advocates have for a long time argued that proof of work mining has more economies of scale than proof of stake and therefore the opposite is actually true. Equating proof of work miners to the working class & stakers or developers as wealthy elites or rulers is so massively cringe it's tough to even read.
Argument 2: Ethereum is in active development, is planning to switch to proof of stake, has things like difficulty bombs, and therefore is somehow dishonest.
Decentralized blockchain communities come to consensus around different values and philosophies. Eth has for a long time been a community which values consistent iteration and improvement around fundamental aspects of the protocol. The transition to proof of stake has been known for years and years. There's nothing dishonest about any of this. If anything the community has been asking for faster iteration to solve high transaction fees and improve usability. Bitcoin's development stagnation works fine for bitcoin. Ethereum is clearly making the right move in continuing to improve the base protocol. Which as you mention is a huge, extremely complicated undertaking.
The article goes on to some cognitive dissonance about how Ethereum doesn't deliver on promises despite the fact that it just delivered a major protocol update last week... might as well throw in the dao hack and icos and whatever else in there and see if anything sticks. I guess with nothing to develop or build, bitcoin maxi's have a lot of time to ramble incoherently about Ethereum. And they probably always will.
While reading the article all I could think about was that it sounded like it was written by a bitcoin maximalist, so many things were framed in bad faith that it makes it difficult to take for granted that it is an honest attempt at discussing the issues surrounding Ethereum, especially when it is basically rehashing things that have been discussed many times before. It makes me wonder how this got to the top of HN, maybe an enemy of an enemy is a cryptocurrency skeptic's friend or something.
Thank you for taking the time to type this. The topic of PoW vs PoS is very misunderstood and I see a lot of dishonesty in online forums.
I am very optimistic about Ethereum. It is not perfect but it is massively and consistently improving. The past few years, all crypto innovation was incubated within the Ethereum community.
I'll preface that I somewhat dislike how Ethereum has established their PoS consensus. The lack of first class support for delegated staking poses a problem IMHO as it requires handing control of your coins over to a third party considering this is the only option for people without 32ETH(102k USD) that they can tie up. I also have opinions on locking periods but until we see some extended battle tests proving where the sweet spot is (I'm for no-lock staking personally), I won't consider this a major issue. These aren't criticism of PoS itself but rather critiques of this particular implementation.
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Now that that is out of the way, I don't necessarily believe that Argument 1 is inherently true (I know you aren't necessarily supporting it but I figured I'd throw my 2p in).
Ultimately Proof of Stake is just moving from a system with an external resource to one with an internal resource. This theoretically allows you to largely divorce the system from the harsh realities of the outside world (whose rules those external resources are bound to). By isolating the system you can better structure the rules of the game (from a game theory perspective) without being influenced or bound to rules from the outside system. Of course this isolation is only as strong as the network (larger market cap makes attacks harder) but generally once the network reaches scale it is largely independent of the outside world.
How a system influences the distribution of wealth ultimately depends on those rules in the system and by PoS largely granting the system the ability to decide those rules for itself, you can theoretically design a system with an expected steady state at or around the middle class at which the system can help lift those with less wealth up and weigh those with more wealth down. Balance it incorrectly and you run into issues one way (concentration of wealth) or another (lack of staking support opening up risks for attack) but theoretically it can be done right.
One of the key features of that balance is that wealth is worth the same whether it is held by many people or one person. It should be just as viable for a thousand people to lend 100 dollars as it is for a firm or wealthy individual to lend 100k with both groups exposed to the same amount of risk all other things the same.
Various mechanisms of the network including staking (including delegation), access to a democratically controlled treasury, first class support for governance primitives, and other such features are essential for making such a system work. Proof of Stake on its own may generally provide an accrual of wealth but in combination with the other forces on the network it should be perfectly viable to create a network that promotes distribution towards a reasonable steady state (with deviations due to merit of the individuals or just outright luck and not maintaining such deviations long term).
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/rant
I'm generally pretty cynical but no matter how hard I dig into it, I can't find a reason why PoS shouldn't be one of the last pieces of the puzzle to produce such a system and if it's even just a chance I think it's exceptionally valuable that we pursue it. Or maybe I'm just a crazy Crypto-LibSoc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>The lack of first class support for delegated staking poses a problem IMHO as it requires handing control of your coins over to a third party considering this is the only option for people without 32ETH(102k USD) that they can tie up.
You should take a look at RocketPool. It is a project that will introduce decentralized staking pools allowing people with >0.01 ETH to trustlessly stake (except for smart contract risk, of course).
Support for delegated staking is already here, it's just not widely used yet. The trick is that you specify a contract address as your validator's exit address, and that contract keeps track of who has partial "ownership" of the validator and thus is allowed to withdraw their fraction of the stake after the validator exits.
Lido for example, a staking provider, already keeps their new deposits in custody of a contract like this.
But hasn't dPOS shown that people don't care that much about governance and will just hand their coins to someone, anyone who promises to reward them? The current crop of dPOS coins leaves a very stale taste in my mouth as they all seem to be run by an oligarchy of validators who conspire to let no one else in.
Staking services like RocketPool just bring the idea to ETH but if you were early, you can stake on your own.
Not to mention the US government recently sent $1,200 to a huge swath of the country and Alaska has had a similarly sized UBI-like fund for years. If we want we can chop it up and give it to ourselves each month and call it a $100 UBI (somewhat means tested). Alongside smaller, more direct comparisons like this study, I think we already have a fairly good sense of what a small to moderate UBI would look like.
Nothing would go crazy. People would have more money. They’d work the same amount except select groups (students, disabled, elderly) and be slightly/moderately happier at least in the short term. We’d either have higher deficits or taxes, probably both.
Wrong. They are using blockchain to generate hype. Internally it might as well be an Excel spreadsheet instead of blockchain and it wouldn't make a difference to the end user.
The shifting goalposts of this argument have been interesting to watch over the last 3-4 years.
Stablecoins: I remember plenty of commenters being quite certain that volatility made cryptocurrency unusable. And yet a short time later we have successful decentralized stable coins.
DeFi: Just in the past months Uniswap has rivaled centralized exchange volume as a decentralized exchange. It's permissionless composability appears to be spinning off an interesting group of experimental financial instruments.
These are a couple huge concrete examples of successes that make the ~show me something real~ argument difficult for me to accept. Nobody has built skyscrapers yet, but skyscrapers aren't built in a day. We have some pretty solid architecture going up it seems.
And if you've been following the space long enough most of this article is tedious and inconsequential:
1) "For instance, hundreds of links to child pornography and revenge porn were placed in the bitcoin blockchain by malicious users."
2) "Also, in a blockchain you aren’t anonymous, but “pseudonymous”: your identity is linked to a number, and if someone can link your name to that number, you’re screwed. Everything you got up to on that blockchain is visible to everyone."
Blockchains have many different properties. Some have more stringent privacy measures than others. Many HN readers are likely familiar with privacy coins employing things like zero-knowledge proofs or ring signatures. Not to mention the burgeoning research into the implementations of homomorphic encryption. How about Harvard putting your genome on the blockchain in such a way where you retain full control over it's rights? Doesn't sound completely useless to me: https://nebula.org/whole-genome-sequencing/
3) "The fact that no one is in charge and nothing can be modified also means that mistakes cannot be corrected. A bank can reverse a payment request. This is impossible for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. So anything that has been stolen will stay stolen."
First of all huge amounts of digital theft occurs today that goes unreversed. Also infrastructure reducing errors in cryptocurrency is being improved all the time. Transaction finality has cons but also pros and can be modified. And one can also imagine insurance for these types of losses becoming commonplace.
4) "And then there’s the environmental problem."
This is probably the most legitimate concern so far. All I can say is I hope we get serious about investing in clean energy production as a country/globe. Many things use energy, including cryptocurrency, and that isn't stopping anytime soon whether we like it or not.
5) His complaint that a specific project is not using the blockchain correctly and individuals couldn't explain the blockchain well isn't very convincing.
Of course lots of experimentation will fail. Pets.com didn't make the internet wrong. And even the experts have trouble describing possibilities that don't exist yet. If that isn't reminiscent of the early days of the internet then I don't know what is. If you've seen Bill Gates get mocked by Letterman while trying to describe the early internet then you understand this difficulty.
It's worth remembering that this area is still incredibly young. If you can't at least see the potential then maybe you aren't looking in the right places. Like here: https://a16z.com/2018/02/10/crypto-readings-resources/
The DeFi thing has finally pushed me to look at crypto again, which turned me on to metamask (via Brave), and after experiencing the UX, it's glaringly obvious that this is the next big thing. Nobody even talks about it, but the fact that I can "sign in" to my "brokerage account" simply by visiting dydx or unisawp and authenticating securely with my browser is pretty incredible.
People are claiming to be excited about DeFi because everyone loves unregulated derivatives and lending at insane APYs, but I think the real reason this has taken off is because the UX makes the future feel so real and achievable.
I'm just scratching at the surface now, but it's clear we've come a long way since bitcoin. I won't be shocked if it turns out bitcoin becomes seen as worthless old technology, but blockchains will never go away.
> Nobody even talks about it, but the fact that I can "sign in" to my "brokerage account" simply by visiting dydx or unisawp and authenticating securely with my browser is pretty incredible.
There's an experimental browser that provides this functionality for all kinds of websites, not just financial ones. You set up an account once when you install the browser, and then you can use it for one-click logins.
It's made by Alphabet Inc, but I can't seem to remember what it's called. Vanadium? Manganese? Ultron? Something like that anyway...
Go install Brave and visit https://trade.dydx.exchange/. Congratulations, you can now trade leveraged derivatives. No signup required.
Seriously, go see what the process looks like. Just by not being full of A/B tested bullshit and free of regulation, you can get a glimpse of the future.
It feels powerful in a way that registering a Google account doesn't.
>2 How about Harvard putting your genome on the blockchain in such a way where you retain full control over it's rights?
I've never understood how the argument of putting private data on the blockchain is "good". To me this has seemed to be one of the worst ideas that is constantly pushed. It makes one strong assumption: the security of the network is and will always be unable to be decrypted. This seems naive. I am much less concerned with a centralized database where encryption of my data can be updated as new standards are adopted.
> Stablecoins
At the rare times I see people accept crypto as payment the options I see are: Bitcoin and Ether (and maybe bitcoin cash). I've never seen stable coin. Never seen stable. So not only is it not in practice but you're also illustrating my point about
>> You can talk all you want about solutions to some of the (minor) problems addressed here (ignoring the rest of the problems) but unless it is in use then the article's commentary still stands.
Great, you checked off one of the many boxes and created a coin that no one uses. Personally I don't count that as a success. (We can say the same thing about ZKP coins. I've never seen it accepted as payment anywhere) You need to check off ALL the (major) boxes in a single coin.
> 3
Is your comment seriously that "stealing happens, so it doesn't matter if we make it easier?" Seriously? Many people I know, including myself have had CC info stolen (often not our fault, other sites get hacked and dumped). Getting that fixed is pretty simple with a centralized source. I couldn't imagine having a significant chunk of my savings in an account that could be removed and not returned. The FDIC guarantees I'm safe with at least $250k and I'm pretty confident I'm practically safer than that. I get a lot of safety, stability, security, and privacy with fiat currencies. None of those are perfect, but cryptocurrencies need to check all the boxes here (plus fast transactions) to replace it. Better in a single aspect but worse in others does not warrant replacement and that's why we see it.
> 4
Please stop with the lemmings arguments. You also have to consider the utility of the electricity use. Cryptocurrencies aren't providing much utility. They aren't saving lives. The AC in your house has more utility.
> 6 (not a typo)
You ignored one of the most important arguments. Time. That has been a killer feature of cryptocurrencies since the beginning and people have been shouting that it will be solved with POS, POB, whatever. It is still non-viable unless the transaction times are brought down to at least a few seconds.
> It's worth remembering that this area is still incredibly young.
It is, but it is also very much hyped. Many technologies get hyped when young and go bust. In fact, this is more common than the other way around. So read my comment as asking for compelling reasons to think blockchain isn't one of them. Your argument has just been assuming I don't know about all the things you listed. Sorry to break it to you, but I already did. I feel confident many other HN users did as well.
You realize you’re talking about likely more than a million life years lost already? Potentially much more damage when you consider dalys
due to long term sequilae as well.
How much more can we expect if things simply “get back to normal”. Hard to say but obviously a gigantic loss. I’m also highly skeptical of claims that #1 suicide, crime, violence have increased significantly. Source? Poverty/economic disruption is obviously a massive damage that cannot be understated either.
But I’m highly highly skeptical that countries who try to ignore the problem like Brazil, USA will end up economically more successful than countries with strong countermeasures like South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, and many others. Beat the virus to fix the economy.
At some point there is an inflection point where it makes sense to “give up” and accept that countermeasures are more costly than the benefit they provide. Clearly every day we delay and have high rates of infection, and the longer the vaccine takes, we move closer to the “give up” side of the calculation. I’m not at all convinced we’ve reached that point yet and we certainly hadn’t reached it at the point the federal administration gave up.
This is a classic pre-distribution versus redistribution debate. I’d just note that they are not mutually exclusive strategies and can both be undertaken simultaneously.
You can see Sweden has been able to do so but countries like US, France, Germany, UK all have similar levels of inequality before redistribution.
The US inequality compared to those countries is primarily due to lack of redistribution:
Exactly. It was the epidemiological modeling equivalent of suggesting we all inject disinfectant. Only it was worse because it was politically motivated instead of solely stupid.
If an analysis is making a reasonable effort to use the best or even some sort of relevant methodology in the field maybe. There is an entire field built around the learnings and failures of previous work that informs how we do things now.
In this circumstance the economist came in with no understanding or desire to understand any of that and through some random excel function at the problem to get the answer out they wanted for political expediency.
Not to mention the prediction was ridiculously stupid and anyone with common sense let alone an epidemiology degree could see it was going to be wildly incorrect within days.
THAT is the model being talked about at the highest levels of government when you have the entire field of the world class epidemiologists at your fingertips.
Trying to “both sides” this one because scientists who have spent their whole lives trying working on this got a little snarky is just missing the boat.
There are plenty of other places where epi Twitter is having productive cordial discussions.
Yes, the prediction was clearly stupid. No one is arguing that. But claiming it was the "worst day in the history of the CEA," or words to that effect, amounted to a long and pointless distraction that could have been avoided, and both sides were clearly guilty of it. The whole exchange would have been rightly flagged into oblivion if it appeared on HN.
