This looks pretty bad for BTC.
In the long run Eth and Polygon are the winners. JMO
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The idea of consuming energy (via computing) for basically no other purpose than creating virtual money makes no sense in a world that has most every government jumping up and down over how to combat climate change. Show me a cryptocurrency that uses less resources to conduct transactions electronically and I could be in favor of it.
And, no, mining via solar panels or near a large (cheap) hydro plant doesn’t count because that power could have been used to eliminate a fossil fuel plant somewhere instead.
Mike
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How about using Natural Gas that they were just flaring?
Cryptominers turn to flared natural gas for the power they need | Texas Standard.
Andy
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Any energy-intensive crypto mining will be targeted. Are Eth and Polygon free from energy-intensive mining?
Wendy
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The article alluded to the difference. The difference is Proof of Work v Proof of Stake. The number of nodes, read computers, checking to see if the transactions are honest is greatly reduced in Proof of Stake, PoS. The difference for Eth in going to PoS has been a 99% decrease in how much energy is used. BTC has no plans I know of in leaving PoW. BTC really is that outrageous. The EU is looking at a scheme to reduce BTC usage.
Polygon rides on Ethereum. It was PoS already.
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Leap is correct. The energy required for Bitcoin (or anything using PoW) is significantly higher than the energy requirement for Ethereum (or anything PoS). I am led to believe, however, that there is greater security in the PoW formula. In other words, a PoW Blockchain is harder to falsify than a PoS Blockchain would be. But I’m not positive of that.
Blockchain’s CAN be modified. Its just really, really hard and very expensive to do so. It claims to be an immutable data base, but in reality it is just very difficult to mutate it.
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BJ,
You are right.
The PoS security is extremely good. It is not slouching. LOL
At a hundred times the energy cost PoW costs too much.
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Most crypto is owned by a small number of speculators. Proof of stake is a scheme to concentrate the power in the hands of the wealthiest.
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Syke,
I believe the buy in or stake is 32 eth. Roughly $42k. If you wanted to open a restaurant it would cost more.
The PoW model allows anyone with a computer is it “mint”? That is the nft term.
The problem though is in how many machines make sure the blockchain accounting is verified. PoW is a larger number than PoS where the winner of solving the puzzle does the accounting instead of a larger number of machines in PoW.
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The sooner the EU decides the sooner Eth takes off and the sooner BTC sinks. Right now the two are in holding patterns.
What if someone with 32000 ETH creates 1000 wallets each with 32 ETH in it? Do they then have 1000 times as much “power” to validate transactions.
If they invested $41M in ethereum then yeah I’d say they would have 1,000X the power to validate transactions.
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Yes but counter groups are forming.
The way I understand it the more you stake the better the chances you will become a validator. Let’s say you stake 10,000 eth and another stakes 32 eth, Well the guy with 10,000 will win out because the theory is the more you are in the less chance you will try to degrade the network. Yes it could happen but it would take alot of stakers to do it.
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Yes there are even odds per stake but if your consortium puts together more stakes your adding up your odds in the numerator as I understand it.
There is more to it. Your hardware plays a role in how fast your machines are working. Your software might play a role but that I have not read about.
Don’t forget the other side of that virtual coin. The more you are in, the more incentive you have to degrade the network in your favor.
And if the “stakers” all have a big stake, they all have the same incentive.
—Peter
This is actually where it shows up in your linked artcle
“Annualized interest rates and an inverse square root function are used to calculate rewards in ETH 2.0. In layman’s terms, this means that the lower the overall amount of ETH staked, the lower the incentives for each validator will be.”
You invest less you get paid less.
Right Peter but if you get enough stakers together to take over the network, The Theory is that you will lose more than the network. They are thinking it doesn’t pay to spend a dollar to make 80 cents.
Andy
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You’re still not thinking like a JC.
Collude with the other big stake holders in the network to basically steal from the smaller guys. For example, transactions of less than 0.00001 coins will be dropped. Any account balances less than 0.00001 coins are too small to manage, so they will be forfeited. Things like that.
The risks to small stake holders are real and significant if only large stake holders can make all of the decisions about how the network operates.
–Peter
Have you studied the Ether network Peter? Is that a real risk or is it something that you are suggesting could be a risk?
Andy