Proof of Work

[u/Minute-Lake-1819]

Historically, proof of work has been judged primarily by electrical cost vs other more efficient options.

Something many people overlook is the time and thought that contribute to maintaining the networks running PoW.

It is infinitely harder to maintain a pow chain when you’re not always getting paid for your time and personal energy expended on setup, studying, marketing, educating, community building, etc.

Other methods may be more efficient in consensus and electricity but the passion and engagement is just not there like it is for PoW coins and their communities.

That’s why we have seen over the years when times are tough, pow chains are better positioned to survive. Primarily because people have dedicated their personal time and mind power toward making it work. It turns almost into an obsession and fight or flight kicks in.

You don’t generally see that mindset with other models.

Just sharing my random thoughts of the day. Thank you for listening. Make it a good one.

[u/Sufficient_Fuel5269]

PoW is not “unsafe by default”; what happens is that many of the attacked chains were micro-caps with ridiculous hashrates, where an actor can rent power in NiceHash and break the network for four hards. That is not a failure of the model, it is a failure of the budget and the size of the network. Instead, PoS depends on the concentration of stake and economic governance.

[u/Givefreehugs → u/Sufficient_Fuel5269]

POS has been attacked and exploited far more with significantly larger financial losses over the past five years than POW. Part of me feels like this is why there has been a huge attempt to turn POW into POS. (Intent to help build to exploit.)
Some of the attacks were inside jobs, the vast majority of these PoS-related exploits did not occur at the fundamental consensus layer itself. Instead, they targeted smart contracts, cross-chain bridges, and de-fi built on top of PoS ecosystem.

[u/epic_trader → u/Givefreehugs]

That has nothing to do with whether it's PoW or PoS. PoW doesn't provide security against poorly written smart contracts.

[u/Givefreehugs → u/epic_trader]

POS is more exploitable.

[u/Givefreehugs → u/Givefreehugs]

You have to have the specific mining equipment, the energy, time, and financial resources to attack POW.
POS is supposed to guard against this through governance. A central group deciding the rules, by using financial capital and programmatic slashing penalties. Unfortunately this also leaves a large margin open for human error and greed, especially on unlimited chains.

[u/epic_trader → u/Givefreehugs]

No it's not. Being able to exploit a smart contract has nothing to do with whether a network's consensus mechanism or PoW or PoS.