PoS replaces the PoW tide, but some domestic mine pools have heard the sound of boycott

But if, in the near future, PoS replaces PoW as the mainstream, whose interests will be damaged?

Undoubtedly, the first to bear the brunt is the miners and mines.

Tian Xin said in the image of the meeting, "In the mining circle, another machine called the printing machine to do the printing machine, this is not to say that it is very profitable, its ability is the ability to continue to have."

Once the public chain consensus mechanism is converted into PoS, it means that mining does not need mining, a large number of mining machines will be scrapped, and those miners and large mines that have invested a lot of money to mine will face huge losses.

Secondly, a large number of mining machine manufacturers, represented by Bit Continental, etc., will withdraw from the historical stage along with the mining industry under the impact of the PoS transformation.

Finally, the interests of the public chain itself and community users will inevitably suffer losses. The change of a public-chain consensus mechanism from PoW to PoS will inevitably lead to a joint boycott of the miners, which will not only cause division of the community, but also the public chain itself will face a fork, and it will not be able to escape the fate of being split into two chains.

Therefore, the public chain consensus mechanism shifts from PoW to PoS, not just as simple as the technical route iteration, but also involves multi-party interest games.

As the first Ethereum to move from PoW to the PoS consensus mechanism, it has to face this risk.

In order to avoid the above situation, Ethereum adjusted the algorithm during the upgrade process and added the difficulty bomb factor. Under the effect of the difficulty bomb, as the height of the block increases, the difficulty of mining increases exponentially. It is difficult for miners to dig out the block and can only be “forced” to agree to transfer to the PoS mechanism.

However, the conversion of the Ethereum consensus mechanism was not as smooth as expected. PoW still encountered many problems in the process of converting PoS, which led to two delays in the difficulty bomb. At present, Ethereum has launched a PoW/PoS hybrid consensus mechanism Casper the Friendly Finality Gadget ("FFG") – aka "Vitalik's Casper", and this is still only the first step of the Ethereum consensus mechanism from PoW to PoS.

Not a substitute but a coexistence, the two will continue to love each other

From the perspective of the upgrade of Ethereum, the consensus mechanism to convert PoS from PoW is a long process, so will PoS eventually replace PoW?

According to Yang Guang, research director of Conflux, PoW has three major shortcomings: one is higher energy consumption; the other is that the Pow consensus controls the lone block rate to ensure the security design, the delay is high, the confirmation speed is slow, and the throughput is low. The third problem is the governance problem caused by the PoW consensus mechanism. The interests between miners, users and developers are difficult to balance. The PoS consensus mechanism can perfectly solve all the shortcomings of the PoW consensus.

"Under the premise that the security of the PoS consensus can meet the needs of the application scenario, using PoS consensus instead of PoW consensus is more beneficial than harm." Yang Guang pointed out that another additional benefit of PoW turning to PoS is to avoid the PoS consensus. The problem of too much currency in the initial public release of the public chain.

However, Zhu Yin, co-founder of the coin-printing pool, has a different view. "PoS will not replace PoW, because the PoW-related mining business itself is profitable, PoS will certainly not be killed by PoW', it is still very Strong vitality, instead of reviewing the history of PoS, it will almost rise in every cycle of the bulls and bears, but will not eventually replace PoW."

In the ant mine pool co-founder Tian Xin, PoW and PoS will eventually merge, and both are ways to understand the blockchain. No one kills anyone. "Why POS is so hot, because the POW threshold is very high, POS has a lower threshold than it. In my opinion, PoW and PoS are two routes for the development of blockchain. Kill coexistence."

The head of the OK mine pool, Alina, also believes that PoS and PoW are not substitutes. The development of PoS in recent years is an iterative in the blockchain field. It is impossible to predict the future trend of PoS and PoW, because the blockchain industry is just getting started. An emerging consensus mechanism is also coming, and which kind of consensus can be recognized by users, still need time to prove.

In fact, at present, there is no known PoS consensus mechanism that can safely replace existing PoWs in the public world. Ethereum is also very aware of this, so since V God first proposed the plan to switch to the PoS consensus at the end of 2015, the PoS protocol designed by Ethereum upgrade has undergone repeated discussions and iterations of multiple versions, and it is currently planned to adopt PoW first. /PoS Mixed Consensus Casper FFG, then transition to the pure PoS consensus Casper CBC upgrade route.

Even though the Staking mechanism, which was accompanied by the Ethereum consensus change, is an optimized version of PoS mining, while reducing the participation of a large number of accounting nodes, while taking into account the interests of miners and mining pools, at present, Staking is also far developing. Not as expected.

Therefore, although the current public domain has set off a wave of PoS to replace the PoS consensus mechanism, whether the two are alternatives still needs time and market verification. Before this, the two consensus mechanisms of PoW and PoS will remain long-term. Coexist in the world of the public chain.

Text | Interlink Pulse Editor

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