Quote from: pac on May 13, 2014, 11:48:01 AM

Ok, let us defend PoS for a change Wink

:
PoW: I have to buy mining equipment to mine a coin, thereby securing the network
PoS: I can just buy the coins directly and secure the network by keeping my wallet open (note that a short minting time will be needed to make people keep their wallets open)

Buying mining equipment is definitely more diverse, you can mine different coins as you please. PoS has the advantage of being energy efficient, safer (no need to pool for instance) and cheaper. Both of them give a reward for securing the network, with PoS being a clear winner in this department in terms of network security. PoW being more fair or giving a better distribution is nonsense in our case when the PoW has been going on for 5 months, in the case of a shift to PoS in July.

Why do people keep burying their head in the sand when our network security is at stake? Are you guys really so naïve to think attacks and blackmailing wont happen? By the end of June asics will be here and our block reward will be down to 35k. Our network hashrate will drop to 100-150 and anyone with for example a knc titan will act like a sword of Damocles dangling over our Karma network.
A shift to a different algorithm would just postpone a decision. Merged mining could be a long-term solution and so can PoS. I personally would go for a shift to PoS, but I would applaud a merged mining solution as well. I dont give a ^%$$ about a higher price right now, our network and all the great projects are depending on decisive action. People are worried and careful when discussing a change, and rightfully so. Im much more worried about not changing. Our price could soar and asics could be a blessing for our network but Im hoping we will not take that chance.

sure feel free to chime in...

nobody is burying their head in the sand regarding security... PoS is not more secure than PoW. All you are doing is swapping one problem (centralized workers ) for another (centralized coin supply) and then introducing a whole bunch of other technical problems while you transition from PoW to PoS...

take a coin like NXT or Ripple for example... if one of the founders of those coins had a gun put to their head or their computer hacked for the keys to their wallet what do you think that would do to the network?

Remember when Gox collapsed and a whole bunch of coins got stolen? mt gox lost 400,000 bitcoins.. that's out of about 11 million or so total coins..
so potentially 3.6% of the entire coins in circulation got stolen.. as a direct result of that, the price of Bitcon dropped 23% which wiped billions of dollars off the Bitcoin Market cap.
the price still has not recovered...

now the reason I am boring you with statistics.. is the simple fact that PoS encourages centralization of coin supply and slows down distribution.

could you imagine if Ripple or NXT founder wallets got hacked and even 50% of their coins got stolen.. that kind of event would destroy the coins economy completely.
and don't say that it couldn't happen.. because it could.. no matter how sophisticated you make security systems and how many layers you put on top of them any wallet, or persons controlling the wallet, can be compromised and by putting control of the coin supply into fewer hands all you are doing is increasing the honey pot for thieves, hackers or rogue agencies/governments.

Granted switching Karma to PoS is not quite as centralized as coins that started their life as PoS... so the effects would not be so bad in the case of Karma

In some ways Karma Shares is a lot like PoS while keeping the PoW part open so that coins can be still be generated even if the Karma Shares holdings are stolen or destroyed.
This threat alone is the reason why I'm glad that KarmaShares doesn't soak up more of the coin supply... because while people may trust Kosmost... nobody can trust what he might do if someone put a gun to his head etc...

Now when you compare that kind of risk to either a 51% attack which only allows a double spend for a few blocks.. or a time-warp attack which only allows attackers to spend newly mined coins for a few hours.. Centralized coin supply is by far the greater risk to both the trust in the network AND its future longevity.

the other thing to consider also is the problems it will cause with exchanges... Hard forks can and do result in transactions and coins being lost especially with such a large portion of Karma being held on exchanges.

Anways... just food for thought to those who think PoS is more secure...

I personally would like to see merge mining or a change to the proof of work happen with PoS being last on my list....

Proof of coin is pretty much PoS anyways just without structural changes to the Karma network and codebase, so I don't think doing essentially the same thing twice is going to help the coin price in any way or make it more secure in the long run.