"Zcash please consider switching to PoS", this proposal from the community is a bit bold

In recent days, a proposal from the Zcash community has sparked an incentive discussion between users, developers, and stakeholders. A community member named rebekah31 submitted a ZIP (Zcash Improvement Proposal), suggesting that developers begin to investigate the switch from the current PoW to the PoS mechanism.

Rebekah31 said:

"Since PoS is more mature, Zcash's shielded transaction will also advance by leaps and bounds. We should switch from PoW to PoS without letting developers deviate too much from other protocol improvements."

Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, CEO of Zcash Development's Electric Coin Company (ECC), forwarded the proposal on Twitter. Although it did not comment, it caused controversy because of the direction of Zcash and the cryptocurrency model. .

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Most people are skeptical that this is too complicated for the privacy currency. Some netizens raised four questions:

“1. Will the ECC and Zcash Foundations become nodes? Because they hold relatively high amounts of tokens.

2. How can I make a token allocation to create a smooth PoS network?

3. Does anyone know how a node uses a Zcash address?

4. Will the circulation be reduced? ”
Rebekah31 proposed a switching consensus mechanism, the main reason for which is that PoW needs to consume energy and has an impact on the environment. It even pointed out in the proposal that “do not want to destroy the earth to become a prominent achievement of Zcash”.

Interestingly, rebekah31 also submitted a ZIP before, suggesting that Zcash will use part of the development fund to reduce carbon. The specific way is to algorithmically allocate part of the SGD of each block to a fund, which will be donated to the community-selected carbon reduction company.

Can PoS be tested?

The impact of the PoW algorithm on the environment – ​​a typical example of bitcoin – has been a hot topic since the end of 2018, a debate that continues throughout the industry. On the other hand, people still have doubts about the operation of the PoS system. Since its birth, Ethereum has indicated that it will switch to the PoS mechanism in the future, but the progress has been slow. Until recently, we have waited for the " Servenity " upgrade (the iconic step of Ethereum 2.0), which will be launched early next year.

However, behind the questioning is the firm belief of many members of the cryptocurrency community who believe that PoW is both an economic model and an embodiment of intrinsic value. Serenity's problems in entering the main network and in Ethereum's creation of a usable beacon chain seem to contradict the notion that PoS is a mature technology and are likely to be in the Zcash community. Raise more doubts.

Last year, Wilcox-O'Hearn said on Twitter that he was impressed with the work done by Ethereum developers on the Casper PoS system. But he still believes that PoS stays in the experimental stage and is an untested technology.

At the time, many Zcash users also believed that PoW was the most reliable model to support Zcash security, and the ECC and Zcash Foundation should concentrate on this. Therefore, this view is unlikely to change too much.

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