BROADCASTS.com

Location: New York
Date: Sunday 5th December
Project: Ethereum
Role: Core Developer

The Proof of Work (PoW) consensus protocol is under relentless attack.\xa0

Earlier this month The House of Representatives held a hearing on digital assets. Rashida Tlaib dismissively questioned Proof of Work PoW, quoting erroneous Bitcoin transaction energy cost data. In response Stellar\u2019s CEO Denelle Dixon implicitly agreed PoW was energy intensive, and that \u201cwe all need to focus on minimizing the energy consumption as much as possible\u201d.

The next day Ripple\u2019s co-founder Chairman Chris Larsen published a medium article that stated \u201cBitcoin\u2019s code needs to be changed to a low energy consensus algorithm like those used by nearly all other major crypto protocols.\u201d\xa0

Last week CNBC interviewed the CEOs of 2 wealth management firms. One stated the following:

\u201cBitcoin operates on PoW: that\u2019s the older technology, it\u2019s slower, it\u2019s really a drain on energy. Proof of Stake (PoS) is the newer system, it\u2019s where I\u2019d want my money going. It\u2019s less energy intensive. It\u2019s faster. It\u2019s more secure."

In potentially the biggest change to any blockchain ever implemented, Ethereum is planning to move from PoW to PoS. PoS has been argued by its proponents (most notably Vitalik Buterin) to not only be less energy intensive than PoW, but to also provide significantly much cheaper security, and greater decentralization.

But, the arguments dismissing PoW and recommending PoS are fundamentally flawed.

In this interview, I talk to the former Ethereum Core Developer Lane Rettig, who now works as a core developer for Spacemesh. We discuss the history and logic behind PoW, the drivers for developing new consensus protocols, how PoS is set to work within Ethereum, and the significant flaws and risks this proposed change entails.\xa0