[vasilipupkin]

Biggest owner can steal smaller owners money, maybe, depending on the POS design. But that would make no sense. I mean the biggest owners have the biggest stake in the integrity of the network, no? supply and demand can clear at X and at 0.5X, so that doesn't answer the question for me.

[Frogolocalypse]

Then you fail to understand the incentive structure. The only game-theory outcome to a PoS system is a monopoly. That's the reason why there aren't any successful ones. Because they require trust.

[vasilipupkin]

Agree, I fail to understand what you mean. If I'm a large owner of a POS coin, why would I want to steal smaller owners' coins ? Don't I want them to trust the system and keep buying more coins ?

[erkkie]

What about a hybrid PoS/PoW system? In reality, bitcoin as PoW is also near monopoly, more like oligopoly, still requiring trust.

[Frogolocalypse]

If you think this you don't understand the technology, and therefore don't understand its value.

[erkkie]

Elaborate? I mean mining pools in China with the oligopoly bit. Are you saying that's not a problem? I would say the current bitcoin PoW scheme is inherently seeking to end up in a few actors having most of the power due to the higher and higher barriers of entry to mining on custom silicon. ELI5 why I'm wrong?

[Frogolocalypse]

Nodes define and police consensus in bitcoin, not miners. Miners have a single choice : mine for bitcoin according to node consensus rules, or don't. That is the only power they have.

[vasilipupkin]

in theory. But in practice, if tomorrow fork XYZ comes out and miners decide to mine that fork, instead of the current one, the current one is finished. So, don't they hold all the power in practice ?