Re: [bitcoin-dev] Opinion on proof of stake in future

[Karl <gmkarl@gmail.com>]

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Bitcoin would get better mainstream public reputation if the block reward
were reduced to reduce mining.  This would quickly and easily reduce energy
expenditure.

A system would be needed to do that with consensus, to make it political.
For example, making a norm of extending the block reward termination
farther into the future, spreading the remaining coins out more thinly, but
never doing the opposite.

PoS can be made to work but it's hard to do so amid such disagreement.  It
is so hard to express one's relevant information concisely and effectively.

I recommended earlier finding or hiring an experienced facilitator who
could make sure all concerns around the chain are included by engaging all
the dialog more productively.  Somebody would need to be available to do
the work of finding such a person and any compensation they might need.

On Fri, May 7, 2021, 7:05 PM Eric Voskuil via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-Fallacy
>

This wiki states things as impossible but does not at all demonstrate them
to be so.

The assumption that something is impossible always relies on many other
assumptions, and the reader may have different ones from the author.

Quote from Proof-of-Stake-Fallacy
> In Other Means Principle it is shown that censorship resistance depends
on people paying miners to overpower the censor.
> Overcoming censorship is not possible in a PoS system, as the censor has
acquired majority stake and cannot be unseated.

If the link in that text is followed you get,

Quote from Other Means Principle:
> Given that mining is necessarily anonymous, there is no way for the
economy to prevent state participation in mining.

The article then goes on to assume this, but "no way" is a circular link
back to Proof-of-Stake-Fallacy!

Never is it demonstrated that a censor will always be able to have majority
stake.  In a PoS system, they would have to be able to form false chain
histories to do that.  In a PoW system, they would have to outcompete the
work.

These are not inherent limitations.  The whole world is open.  Consider a
proof of work algorithm that requires the freeing of prisoners: a state a
very different state if it does this.  Or a communication protocol that
already cannot be intercepted.  These things are exotically hard, but not
impossible, and show that the logic of the articles is not valid.

Another random idea: incentivising out-of-band channels, for example.
Mining blocks based on finding and uniting illegitimate forks.  Now a chain
functions by defeating its own censorship.

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