Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: The Bitcoin consensus mechanism is incorrectly labeled Proof of Work
by
smooth
on 11/09/2015, 18:39:39 UTC
The argument against my statement, is that as long as you can opt out of delegation, even only one person out of six billion choosing to solo mine with a trivial hashrate, then my statement would be false.

Since you posted on the other thread that this is a reply to my comment, I'll point out that was not my argument. My argument was that as long as the option to opt out of delegation exists, the power of pools is limited, even if no one solo mines in practice.

Consider the analogy of a parking garage in a very convenient location (say right next to a popular theater) when there is free parking available a short to moderate distance away compared to the situation with the same garage but no free parking available at all. In the first case, the garage may charge only a nominal fee and nearly everyone (or conceivably everyone) might pay it for more convenient access to the theater. In the second case, the garage will charge the maximum fee possible until people stop going to the theater at all.

As for your naming idea, I'd agree with Delegatable PoW. Since the protocol does not require or enforce the delegation (nor does it prohibit it) of block creation, that is the more correct form of the word.