Post
Topic
Board Speculation
Re: Results of your attempts to inform/promote [btc]. (Yeah how did that work out?)
by
r0ach
on 11/06/2016, 19:32:16 UTC
or how there are new 'Crypto 2.0s' that do a better job of pretty much everything, but which at this moment in time, are a very distant 2nd to Bitcoin in terms of liquidity and Market Cap.

No altcoin has improved on Bitcoin whatsoever.  Proof of stake is not even a decentralized currency, it's a permissioned ledger.

Why proof of stake has no value:

Since Satoshi did not solve the Byzantine generals problem, this means confirmations are completely arbitrary.  So why are two confirmations more useful in Bitcoin (PoW) than one?  Because it's an open entropy system where over a period of time, it's either unlikely or statistically impossible for someone to maintain a monopoly on block validation when there's no upper limit to confirmations.  (your confirmation will eventually transition from arbitrary/subjective, to a somewhat objective state - not the case with PoS)

Recursive systems like proof of stake tend to permanently monopolize block validation by design, with no real fault or state recovery to fix it once it goes off the rails.  The act of introducing interest compounds this problem even more.  This makes a proof of stake confirmation essentially worthless due to being a bounded entropy system.

On top of being worthless, proof of stake is also a permissioned ledger.  The purpose of mining in Bitcoin is to create a permanent decentralized exchange peg, which thus results in a permissionless system.