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by crispyambulance
2879 days ago
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> The PoW is the only way to equitably mint new currency.
I think this statement needs some proof.Why can't exchange of goods or services substitute for proof of work? Why does proof of work _have_ to be power-hungry number crunching? |
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I should have made it explicit that I meant "trustless + equitable" with respect to minting new currency.
> Why can't exchange of goods or services substitute for proof of work?
'exchange of goods or services' can't be used to mint new currency. When you want to issue new money, you have to give it to someone. If you take goods or services, who should get those? Let's say you come up with a method to solve that, equitably. How could you prove to everyone who got those, and how could they trust your claim?
> Why does proof of work _have_ to be power-hungry number crunching?
It might not have to be number crunching (I didn't say it did), it just happens to be the most popular. However I think that 'Work' here is the physics sense of the word -- the proof-of-work is evidence that you consumed energy.
Another mechanism is to just delete the "trustless" requirement. Just issue the currency via some trust-the-individual(s)-who-created-the-coin mechanism, like some DPoS coins do (e.g. Nano). They can use a fountain with a CAPTCHA, and we have to trust that the fountain is indeed fair. This coin is popular for the sake that it does not require PoW for minting and has no inflation.