This is interesting. There’s a lot here, I agree with some but not all of it, and I’m not presently going to comment on most of it (mostly for time reasons.) I am a Bitcoin user and developer, and have looked briefly at Cardano in the past. One thing I’d specifically like to comment on:
“but we already know proof of stake works, this isn’t necessary”
We really don’t, though. We know for sure that the original proof of stake algorithm was badly broken, in multiple ways. There are now a number of different successors that go by the name “proof of stake”. I have no specific reason to believe that Cardano’s is not broken in some way. They appear to use a PoS system called “Ouroboros” that they developed themselves, starting in 2017, according to https://iohk.io/en/research/library/authors/aggelos-kiayias/ . It looks like the original 2017 paper claims that the system is “provably secure”, but judging by the list of papers it’s also undergone a number of iterations since then. (That doesn’t necessarily imply anything bad, but neither does having “provably secure” in a paper title really prove anything good. I haven’t read the paper.) I’ve been meaning to specifically investigate the ETH 2.0 version of PoS, to see what I think about it, since Vitalik has written about its design at some length; I may have to add this one to the reading list.
There are now a number of different successors that go by the name “proof of stake”. I have no specific reason to believe that Cardano’s is not broken in some way.
On the other hand we do know that Bitcoin is broken in that 70% of the hashing power is controlled by China. If China choses to attack it, Bitcoin would need a fork.
That’s similar to how Cardano would need a fork if someone successfully attacks it.
This is interesting. There’s a lot here, I agree with some but not all of it, and I’m not presently going to comment on most of it (mostly for time reasons.) I am a Bitcoin user and developer, and have looked briefly at Cardano in the past. One thing I’d specifically like to comment on:
“but we already know proof of stake works, this isn’t necessary”
We really don’t, though. We know for sure that the original proof of stake algorithm was badly broken, in multiple ways. There are now a number of different successors that go by the name “proof of stake”. I have no specific reason to believe that Cardano’s is not broken in some way. They appear to use a PoS system called “Ouroboros” that they developed themselves, starting in 2017, according to https://iohk.io/en/research/library/authors/aggelos-kiayias/ . It looks like the original 2017 paper claims that the system is “provably secure”, but judging by the list of papers it’s also undergone a number of iterations since then. (That doesn’t necessarily imply anything bad, but neither does having “provably secure” in a paper title really prove anything good. I haven’t read the paper.) I’ve been meaning to specifically investigate the ETH 2.0 version of PoS, to see what I think about it, since Vitalik has written about its design at some length; I may have to add this one to the reading list.
On the other hand we do know that Bitcoin is broken in that 70% of the hashing power is controlled by China. If China choses to attack it, Bitcoin would need a fork.
That’s similar to how Cardano would need a fork if someone successfully attacks it.