No, the argument I was making does indeed fully generalize to the entire category of Proof of Stake solutions. The goal is to create a dynamic membership set signature, meaning that people can come and go by some mechanism. But that requirement enables simulations because if the future membership set can’t be predicted, then neither can alternative past histories be differentiated. Then no matter the construct used, with enough sybil identities anyone can grind variations on history until one is found which benefits the one doing the work. In this way any proof of stake system devolves into proof of work, only with worse properties (since if you’re going to have proof of work anyway, double-SHA256 is about as good as it gets).
Furthermore, because the incentives are structured such that grinding histories is profitable behavior (and it needs to be for the system to be secure, since it is the same incentive that protects proof of stake when people follow the rules), you can be assured that unscrupulous people will grind histories, and others will too because the alternative is losing out. So proof of stake is NOT any less expensive than proof of work, because any proof of stake system becomes proof of work.
The solution to the mining centralization issue has nothing to do with proof of work algorithms or ASICs. The solution is things like smart property miners, coinbase-only mining, and delegated transaction selection. These are being worked on.
No, the argument I was making does indeed fully generalize to the entire category of Proof of Stake solutions. The goal is to create a dynamic membership set signature, meaning that people can come and go by some mechanism. But that requirement enables simulations because if the future membership set can’t be predicted, then neither can alternative past histories be differentiated. Then no matter the construct used, with enough sybil identities anyone can grind variations on history until one is found which benefits the one doing the work. In this way any proof of stake system devolves into proof of work, only with worse properties (since if you’re going to have proof of work anyway, double-SHA256 is about as good as it gets).
Furthermore, because the incentives are structured such that grinding histories is profitable behavior (and it needs to be for the system to be secure, since it is the same incentive that protects proof of stake when people follow the rules), you can be assured that unscrupulous people will grind histories, and others will too because the alternative is losing out. So proof of stake is NOT any less expensive than proof of work, because any proof of stake system becomes proof of work.
The solution to the mining centralization issue has nothing to do with proof of work algorithms or ASICs. The solution is things like smart property miners, coinbase-only mining, and delegated transaction selection. These are being worked on.