[pfraze]

I absolutely do respond to alternatives to proof of work in my post, thank you very much! And I agree that they may be valuable, but I'm skeptical, and you can reread my post to see why. And, by the by, the DDOS argument is a strawman, because we already survive DDOSes in services every day.

[EGreg]

You're right, you do mention proof of stake and dismiss it quickly. There is also delegated proof of stake, where validators can elect a leader without needing a proof of work arms race.

But you should really look at Ripple's consensus and study it:

https://ripple.com/build/xrp-ledger-consensus-process/

As well as HashGraph. Both of these do NOT require proof of work!

But in any case I think consensus is the wrong long term goal for technology powering currencies and other things. See my other comment in this thread regarding that (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15646385)