Re:Smart contracts on Bitcoin
by cocktailpeanuts on Thursday January 14, 2021 @09:00PM
(#25786005)
see my comment in sibling thread. with proof of work, it's not just about money. proof of work mining forces miners to invest through future commitment, which means you can't just bring some one time money and gain influence. For proof of stake it's only about the present.
When you buy mining power you are bringing money in to gain influence. There's literally no difference so I'm led to believe there's a bias making you think there is.
Re:Smart contracts on Bitcoin
by inter_netuser on Friday January 15, 2021 @12:54PM
(#25793769)
what influence do miners have?
> it's in their interest to maintain that value by preventing things from going wrong
It's also in their interest to never sell anyone enough tokens that they could become rival stakers, which makes the system vulnerable to node or network failures. Fewer stakers means fewer nodes to disrupt to trigger consensus failure.
> The whole system could collapse overnight like a domino if something goes wrong
IMO, these two things are one of the main points of tension which PoS uses to operate. The stakers have put up a significant amount of value, and it's in their interest to maintain that value by preventing things from going wrong.
Not only that, but they are actively pitted against each other -- it's in their interest to find any node that tries to violate the rules, and submit an attestation slashing the offender's stake for bad behavior.
There are also a number of incentives (such as the upcoming EIP-1559 upgrade) which are designed to align incentives so that cartel members are encouraged to break away for their own advantage.