Vitalik Buterin Mystifies with “I Don’t Trust Proof of Work” Statement

[Ozark]

The co-founder of Ethereum replied in a Twitter thread, causing comments on when mining would become obsolete for the network.

Proof-of-work was seen as one of the basic tenets of digital assets, ensuring immutability and a barrier to attacking a network, while achieving trustless consensus. But Vitalik Buterin has reiterated his preference for proof-of-stake, which has long been envisioned as the next stage for Ethereum (ETH). In a Twitter thread, he replied shortly, causing multiple comments:

https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1077548790272405504

The Ethereum network currently relies on mining or PoW, and there is no knowing when the Casper update would do away with mining, if at all. The Ethereum network has also seen a significant withdrawal of miners lately, despite the production of dedicated ASIC and the decision not to hard fork to disable the machines.

Currently, the Casper update still shows that PoW will have a place in the Ethereum network. This is one of the reasons why Buterin’s statement is mystifying.

The debate between PoW and PoS proponents is relatively old in the cryptocurrency space. Mining was seen as secure, at least until attempted attacks could achieve double-spending, as in the case of Bitcoin Gold (BTG). More lately, the Bitcoin Cash network saw “hash wars”, which did not lead to a winner, but to a split into two new assets.

Staking coins have their own set of problems, as some see those network as forms of oligarchy. Owners of large amounts of coins may have more control over the network. On the other hand, some form of staking discourages attacks.

“In PoS, the network can delete the attacker’s stake and prevent repeated attacks,” explained Jon Choi in a recent blog post on PoS in Casper.

However, this type of control over digital assets, which can be locked away or banned from staking, is also ushering in a form of control and centralization which cannot affect miners. No one can be banned from mining on a PoW network, while staking design can exclude bad actors.

There is still no certain structure of how much ETH would be needed to stake on the network. With volatile ETH prices, staking may also fluctuate in profitability, much more so than mining. ETH traded at $135.46 on Wednesday, down from the $160 level after the Christmas Day sell-off.

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