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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Crypto was invented as a fully decentralized form of keeping and spending money, not as an "investment" (really, gambling) instrument as it is used now, so I fully agree crypto isn't evil, it's how it's currently used that's a problem. Proof-of-work though is evil, due to its energy requirements. Thankfully some coins (e.g. ethereum) are switching to proof-of-stake which doesn't waste energy for nothing.
Proof of stake is making the crypto centralized by the stake holders, also the ethereum blockchain size is huge compared to Bitcoin, making it even more centralized because less people are willing to volunteer except the stake holders.
I'm not sure about the social dynamics with proof of stake, you might be right but, why aren't people willing to volounteer? Is there a limit to how many stakeholders there are? or a minimum (large) stake, meaning you must be rich?
Anyways, one thing I can say for sure: these dynamics already exist with proof-of-work: miners started using specialized hardware, raising the barrier to entry for the "small guys", so instead, people join large mining pools which are becoming more and more centralized.
So at least proof-of-stake is not worse in this respect.
People aren't willing to volunteer because of the hardware requirements for running a full Ethereum node and 32 ETH for staking. There are centralized staking pools which everyone uses, where people trusting those pools with there money.
And if a Bitcoin mining pool starts doing something suspicious, the miners can quickly switch to another pool. The miners have a choice in this case.