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Why Proof of Stake (Nov 2020)

vitalik.eth.limo · 1,857 words · saved by 1 readers

The easiest way to see this is to put proof of stake and proof of work side by side, and look at how much it costs to attack a network per $1 per day in block rewards. You can rent GPUs cheaply, so the cost of attacking the network is simply the cost of renting enough GPU power to outrun the existing miners. For every $1 of block rewards, the existing miners should be spending close to $1 in costs (if they're spending more, miners will drop out due to being unprofitable, if they're spending less, new miners can join in and take high profits). Hence, attacking the network just requires temporarily spending more than $1 per day, and only for a few hours. Total cost of attack: ~$0.26 (assuming 6-hour attack), potentially reduced to zero as the attacker receives block rewards ASICs are a capital cost: you buy an ASIC once and you can expect it to be useful for ~2 years before it wears out and/or is obsoleted by newer and better hardware. If a chain gets 51% attacked, the community will lik

Dark Mode Toggle Why Proof of Stake (Nov 2020) 2020 Nov 06 See all posts Why Proof of Stake (Nov 2020) There are three key reasons why PoS is a superior blockchain security mechanism compared to PoW. PoS offers more security for the same cost The easiest way to see this is to put proof of stake and proof of work side by side, and look at how much it costs to attack a network per $1 per day in block rewards . GPU-based proof of work You can rent GPUs cheaply, so the cost of attacking the network is simply the cost of renting enough GPU power to outrun the existing miners. For every $1 of block

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