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by kanzure 3835 days ago
> "Proof-of-work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote." - Nakamoto

Yes this is one of the things that Satoshi got wrong. "1 CPU = 1 vote" is wrong. Turns out that Proof-of-Work is unrelated to the physical quantity of CPUs, rather it's more about computation and hashrate. Also it's a stretch to call Proof-of-Work a vote ..... it's not an election, it's more like a random lottery or something.

1 comments

He stated PoW was _essentially_ one-CPU-one-vote. It's clear that the intent is to mean hashrate, or CPU power as he phrases it multiple times in the same paper.

> it's not an election, it's more like a random lottery or something.

A random lottery where your odds of winning directly correlate with your CPU power / hashrate. The more you win the more influence you have over the state of the network. Comparing it to a vote is a reasonable analogy.