this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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:
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.
And I'm not particularly pleased to be accused of lying when I'm willing to cite sources and the guy I'm debating with refuses to even address my responses. But you don't see me YELLING IN ALL CAPS about it.