[DINKDINK]

>Proof-of-work is simply not sustainable (energy-wise), IMO, for the foundation of a global system.

What have you found that is cheaper to proof-of-work that works on a global system?[1]

[1] "Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work" http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/

[andrewstuart2]

Centralized authority. With the obvious tradeoffs. :-/

Maybe there's a happy medium where trustworthiness of central authorities is appropriately distributed, but common operations are quicker and less wasteful.

[lordnacho]

The happy medium has been found already. Would people trust Visa and MasterCard if they allowed double spending? I'm guessing not. So by virtue of having a very large investment in their corporate brands, the old economy already came up with a solution to the trust problem.

Heck, everywhere you look there's a solution to the trust problem; it's fundamental to human interactions.

- There are courts. If you try to screw me, I can drag you into one. Nothing's perfect and there's probably a minimum amount I'd not bother Judge Judy for, but it's a solution a LOT of people rely on. And I can tack all sorts of things on to this like warranties and insurances.

- Brands. Look, we burn all this money on getting sports stars to pose for pictures. And there's reviews of our product in papers. If we did something stupid, you'd know. Again, it ain't perfect.

- Escrow. Don't trust me? Trust this guy.

[andrewstuart2]

True, and funny too how technology "disrupts" only to eventually repeat history.

    What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
    there is nothing new under the sun.

[runeks]

> Maybe there's a happy medium where trustworthiness of central authorities is appropriately distributed, but common operations are quicker and less wasteful.

I’m working on this. It’s an implementation of a protocol called Stroem, which uses payment channels to transfer bitcoins from consumers to so-called issuers, who issue payments in exchange which consumers then send to merchants. Then merchants collect these off-chain payments from issuers, and redeem them into bitcoins on the blockchain when they wish.

This system compromises with the security of the payment receivers only (the merchants). Everything is trustlessness for the payment sender/consumer, while merchants need to trust issuers. But, if desired, the merchant-issuer trust can be reduced to almost nothing by the merchant redeeming very often (at the cost of higher fees).

And, importantly, the open nature of the protocol will ensure competition between issuers, since anyone can join the network.

[DINKDINK]

>Centralized authority.

Centralized authority isn't cheaper. It trades proof of work for violence or denial of liberty.

[meepmorp]

>(energy-wise)

Correct or not, your point is orthogonal to the issue mentioned.

[srdev]

You're assuming that a global system must be trustless. This is not really a requirement. Heck, in most cases its not even desirable.

[jethro_tell]

It's funny that proof of work still doesn't seem to protect from people loosing 31MM a while ago, or the Mt.Gox hack. I can't remember the last time my bank fucked up like that. That problem may be more solved then we are letting on. I know, I know, fuck the man.

[xyzzyz]

If there's nothing cheaper solution to cryptocurrency than proof of work, it seems to me that we just have to ban cryptocurrency altogether at the legislature level.

[devrandomguy]

Or, you could fund nuclear fusion research. That has better odds of success.

[jstanley]

If you ban it in your country, your country will fall behind.

Cryptocurrency is backed entirely by free market incentives. You can fight the market if you want, but you will lose.

[dogecoinbase]

Countries won't ban it -- countries love it. It's perfectly traceable non-anonymous currency. What they'll do is centralize it so they get the citizen-control benefits (and, of course, the ability to create and destroy it -- imagine EO6102 where they can remotely seize your gold!) without the unsustainable energy expenditure.