Author: yanmaani at cock.li 2021-06-25 00:29:19
Published on: 2021-06-25T00:29:19+00:00
Proof of Stake (PoS) is not capable of producing consensus and global agreement on the state of the blockchain, as it sacrifices global consensus for 'weak subjectivity', meaning that each node has its own notion of when a certain block arrived. This differs from the consensus provided by Proof of Work (PoW), which uses the "longest chain" rule to determine the state of the blockchain. In PoS, each node has its own idea of what happened, which can lead to inconsistencies in the state of the blockchain between different nodes. To solve this problem, the timestamp issue needs to be addressed, but PoS does not provide a consensus system to achieve this. To implement Initial Block Download (IBD), PoW uses the "longest chain" rule, where nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone. However, it is unclear whether PoS has this property. Even if all incentive issues are solved, PoS is still constitutionally incapable of producing a consensus because of its weak subjectivity.Some argue that PoS could be used as a consensus system once bitcoin's existing consensus is used to maintain it using references to prior state. This would require limiting reorgs to not go back before PoW was abandoned in favor of PoS/PoB. Once PoW has been used to bootstrap the system, the work can be recycled. However, this approach misses the fact that PoS is still constitutionally incapable of producing consensus.In PoS, permission is needed from the previous owner of a token for you to have it via transfer or sale. This barrier to entry is higher than PoW's entry barrier, which requires hardware and energy, which, although expensive, is permissionless and exists all over the universe. The idea that PoS is not permissionless is invalid, as participation in any decentralized system requires the permission of at least one user in that system. In conclusion, PoS is not suitable for use as a consensus system because it is constitutionally incapable of producing a consensus. While it does have some advantages over PoW, such as a lower entry barrier, it sacrifices global consensus for weak subjectivity, which can lead to inconsistencies in the state of the blockchain between different nodes.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T20:44:58.956632+00:00