Proof of stake isn’t a good thing actually. Especially in a private cryptocurrency. Monero will remain PoW for its censorship resistance. We can’t have stake oligopolies taking control.
I'm not sure I get your argument, staking takes significantly less powerful hardware so its very accessible.
Staking pools also have a "saturation point" to encourage decentralization. That way not all 80 Billion dollars worth of ADA goes to one staking pool.
Very hard to see how oligopolies can arise in this scenario when compared to mining operations that are unprofitable to most users (and of course bad for the environment).
How? The only way I can think of that staking oligopolies can exclude new entrants is if they somehow manage to remove the crypto from markets. Basically killing their stake.
It is far easier for me to buy some crypto and stake it than it is to buy mining hardware and mine.
Mining hardware just means commodity electronics; the guys with ASICs may be faster but they can't shut you out entirely, and the miners don't generally control the people who make hardware (even the specialised ASICs). Whereas the stakers inherently control the supply of the crypto in question (and they can can e.g. cut off people who sell large amounts to outsiders, in a way that they couldn't cut off hardware makers), and there are generally only a few points where you can exchange that crypto for something commoditised - usually exchanges that do strict identity verification, may only be available to people in certain countries, etc..
In theory couldn’t they exclude any transactions made by an ‘exile’ from the chain? I’m not sure how much that differs from doing the same thing on a PoW coin. It is harder to start as a PoS miner but to have the kind of iron control over a coins distribution means you’d have to make it effectively worthless because only the current owners could be ‘trusted’ to be the receivers of transactions. So while it’s theoretically possible for a miners cabal to lock out a new entrant it seems pretty opposed to the value of their own holdings so it’s left to something like a country that wants to shut it down through throwing money at the problem then I guess?
> In theory couldn’t they exclude any transactions made by an ‘exile’ from the chain? I’m not sure how much that differs from doing the same thing on a PoW coin.
That is also my thinking, that there basically isn't any difference between staking and mining oligopolies.
> So while it’s theoretically possible for a miners cabal to lock out a new entrant it seems pretty opposed to the value of their own holdings so it’s left to something like a country that wants to shut it down through throwing money at the problem then I guess?
In theory, if the stakers are anonymous, this make PoS more resistant to nation state attacks since it would be easier for a nation state to find the mining equipment producers and direct all hardware production to themselves until they acquire 51% of hash rate than it is to find the stakers and take their keys.
Looking forward to lmm explaining how we are wrong.
There are records of every coin purchased that is staked. Unless you were able to get someone to anonymously sell you a stake worth, staking is very far from anonymous.
In practice, most are going to be using staking providers or delegated proof of stake, and these are corporations that will absolutely be corrupted by states.
> There are records of every coin purchased that is staked.
This would be true if the only way to get the coins is through exchanges with KYC. You can get coins in other ways so this point of yours is moot.
> In practice, most are going to be using staking providers or delegated proof of stake, and these are corporations that will absolutely be corrupted by states.
We are talking about staking oligopolies not about someone buying 10 dollars worth of coins which makes this point of yours moot.
> Mining is anonymous and portable.
You should read more carefully. I did not mention miners but producers of mining equipment. Also, a nation state can produce mining equipment themselves, they can't create new coins.
Edit: To add, big miners really aren't that portable or anonymous.
What guarantees that this continues to be true? Yes coins that can't be sold are worthless, but coins that can only be sold with KYC aren't.
> We are talking about staking oligopolies not about someone buying 10 dollars worth of coins
The staking providers or delegatees are the (potential) oligopolies
> I did not mention miners but producers of mining equipment.
Those are also anonymous and, if not completely portable, fungible with general electronic manufacturing equipment that's widely possessed.
> Also, a nation state can produce mining equipment themselves, they can't create new coins.
Which supports my point - the capability to exclude a nation state also allows the staking cabals to exclude people they don't like. Given that a staking cabal by its very nature controls the chain, they can stop other people getting or making coins. But a mining cabal can't stop other people getting or making mining equipment.
> What guarantees that this continues to be true? Yes coins that can't be sold are worthless, but coins that can only be sold with KYC aren't.
This applies to PoW coins too. Miners can't be anonymous if they want to sell their coins. Why would anybody mine for nothing?
> The staking providers or delegatees are the (potential) oligopolies
Yes, and miners mine in pools. Why are you not considering pools as (potential) oligopolies? What is the difference?
> Those are also anonymous and, if not completely portable, fungible with general electronic manufacturing equipment that's widely possessed.
They need physical locations with people physically present with physical inputs and outputs. The idea that it is easier for miners and hardware manufacturers to be anonymous than a guy spinning some software on some server is... stupid. To think that it is easier for miners and hardware producers to change location than a guy moving private keys from one server to another is just... retarded.
> Which supports my point - the capability to exclude a nation state also allows the staking cabals to exclude people they don't like.
I've asked you already how would a staking cabal exclude people they don't like and for some reason you are not answering that question. I'm guessing you are avoiding it because your answer, as all you've written so far in this thread, also applies to mining cabals.
> Given that a staking cabal by its very nature controls the chain, they can stop other people getting or making coins. But a mining cabal can't stop other people getting or making mining equipment.
No they can't make them stop making mining equipment, why do you think that that is relevant? The mining cabal can produce their own hardware and prevent anybody using any different hardware from joining the network, could they not?
Can you please try to clearly answer the original question. What makes mining oligopolies better than staking oligopolies? If you are sticking with your answer that it is harder to create mining oligopolies then please explain how? And before you press reply could you please stop for a minute and thing how what you wrote is applicable to mining oligopolies and not to staking oligopolies or vice versa.
As I've said repeatedly, it's different because staking means that the same people control both the current coin supply and the means of creating new ones.
A mining cabal can't stop other people from mining, because you don't need anything (other than commodity hardware and an internet connection) to mine. But a staking cabal controls both staking and current coins (by the nature of how staking works), and new entrants need to have coins to stake, so such a cabal can stop other people from staking.
> As I've said repeatedly, it's different because staking means that the same people control both the current coin supply and the means of creating new ones.
This is the first time you are saying that, and you aren't explaining how that is relevant to PoS oligopolies. What was said by me and by rtkwe, on this matter, is that due to this characteristic of PoS coins the only way, we can think of (you've ignored both of our posts on this subject so I'm assuming that you agree?), a staking oligopoly can remain oligopoly is by controlling the majority of coins and not selling those coins which in effect means that a PoS oligopolies don't make any money from being oligopolies. In fact maintaining a staking oligopoly would destroy all the money that was invested in creating it.
In my opinion, and I would love to hear yours if you ever read and parse this, that discourages creation of oligopolies since there is no profit in them.
> A mining cabal can't stop other people from mining
They can't stop them from running their machines but they can stop them from producing any blocks that are accepted in to the chain making it unprofitable for anybody not part of the oligopoly to mine. Unlike with staking this doesn't prevent the mining oligopolies from making a profit since it requires no manipulation of the markets to retain their position as an oligopoly.
> a staking oligopoly can remain oligopoly is by controlling the majority of coins and not selling those coins which in effect means that a PoS oligopolies don't make any money from being oligopolies. In fact maintaining a staking oligopoly would destroy all the money that was invested in creating it.
Eh, maybe. I think there's a lot of middle ground between selling freely/anonymously to anyone and not selling at all.
> They can't stop them from running their machines but they can stop them from producing any blocks that are accepted in to the chain making it unprofitable for anybody not part of the oligopoly to mine.
I think/hope that would destroy whatever coin that was, and far more quickly, because there's no way to be subtle about that one - everyone can see blocks being broadcast and ignored. Whereas if every time an outsider tries to buy some coins, their name didn't quite match for KYC and they need to resubmit their documents, or someone else bought them first, or the exchange suddenly needs to freeze all transactions to investigate an issue, you can maintain the illusion of an active market for quite some time.
> I think/hope that would destroy whatever coin that was, and far more quickly, because there's no way to be subtle about that one - everyone can see blocks being broadcast and ignored.
This also applies to staking oligopolies. Either all the coins are owned by the oligopoly rendering them valueless or they need to ignore blocks from others. Again, it seems that staking oligopolies are "better" than mining ones.
> Whereas if every time an outsider tries to buy some coins, their name didn't quite match for KYC and they need to resubmit their documents, or someone else bought them first, or the exchange suddenly needs to freeze all transactions to investigate an issue, you can maintain the illusion of an active market for quite some time.
This assumes that the exchanges are the oligopoly and ignores that the coins that the vast majority of coins that exchanges stake are owned by someone else and can be pulled. And no, if you freeze all transactions for whatever reason you can't maintain the illusion of an active market for quite some time.
You don't have to freeze all transactions, just the ones being made by outsiders. Who would know, or care? Just make sure the subreddit mod is an insider, toss a few coins to any of the crypto press (who are all on the take) and you're good.
GPU and CPU miners are roughly equal in mining utility on the Monero chain. FPGAs and ASICS are disadvantaged by the memory bandwidth requirements of the RandomX algorithm
Since posting I poked around on Reddit and it seems many are mining other currencies to trade for monero (cross-mining?), and that mining monero directly may already be close to break even on electrical costs.
