> This argument honestly seems a little silly, though, since under Proof of Work, the more money you have to invest in mining equipment, the more money you can make there as well. I’m not sure why this is any different.
It's not the same; PoW is actually worse at this, especially non-ASIC-resistant PoW. You need more capital to get going, and you lock it into otherwise-useless hardware. Accessibility situation is like buying real estate (PoW) vs buying ETFs (PoS).
Hi Nat! Thanks for the article. Agree that the merge is the biggest thing to happen to crypto in the past few years--probably even more so than Bitcoin halvings.
Just a couple of questions:
1) I don't quite get why POS is more accessible now. Most folks still have to go to staking pools, even if it's 16ETH we're talking about, correct? I'm assuming that a comparison is being made with POW, but mining pools exist there, too.
2) What do you think about the "POW promotes clean energy and therefore using more energy isn't necessarily a bad thing" argument?
3) Are you concerned about centralization if staking pools/ lending protocols offer interest rates higher than the return via direct staking?
4) Aren't attestations very crucial to network security via decentralization, and can anyone do attestations? The Ethereum blockchain is huge, so not sure how many normal folks can participate.
> This argument honestly seems a little silly, though, since under Proof of Work, the more money you have to invest in mining equipment, the more money you can make there as well. I’m not sure why this is any different.
It's not the same; PoW is actually worse at this, especially non-ASIC-resistant PoW. You need more capital to get going, and you lock it into otherwise-useless hardware. Accessibility situation is like buying real estate (PoW) vs buying ETFs (PoS).
Stupid comment re: US Dollar and Gold
Everything else - awesome post
thanks for this awesome summary, best fair no hype take i've seen
Hi Nat! Thanks for the article. Agree that the merge is the biggest thing to happen to crypto in the past few years--probably even more so than Bitcoin halvings.
Just a couple of questions:
1) I don't quite get why POS is more accessible now. Most folks still have to go to staking pools, even if it's 16ETH we're talking about, correct? I'm assuming that a comparison is being made with POW, but mining pools exist there, too.
2) What do you think about the "POW promotes clean energy and therefore using more energy isn't necessarily a bad thing" argument?
3) Are you concerned about centralization if staking pools/ lending protocols offer interest rates higher than the return via direct staking?
4) Aren't attestations very crucial to network security via decentralization, and can anyone do attestations? The Ethereum blockchain is huge, so not sure how many normal folks can participate.
Cheers!