bitcoin

Bitcoin's Perilous Journey: Chapter 3 of 50 - POW vs POS

Meme Monday - Best Bitcoin Meme Gets 25,000 Sats

![7a3c9bf1-0f7d-486b-8879-c0b4c88c58b7.webp](https://m.stacker.news/5416)

Chapter 1 - The Looming Threat - https://stacker.news/items/316534

Chapter 2 - Scaling Solution - https://stacker.news/items/319672

**Chapter 3 - POW vs POS**

Bitcoin had emerged from the turbulent scaling debates still largely intact, though risks and divisions still lingered. With the looming quantum computing threat and transaction throughput crises averted for the moment, Bitcoin's price had soared to new all-time highs as adoption grew. But even amidst this rosy big picture view, an increasingly bitter civil war was simmering behind the scenes, threatening to tear the Bitcoin community apart from within. 

The core powder keg issue at the heart of this raging conflict was the debate between proof-of-work (POW) versus proof-of-stake (POS) as the consensus mechanism underpinning the Bitcoin protocol. 

Bitcoin's revolutionary consensus model since inception had been proof-of-work - a system in which miners expend enormous computing power to solve complex cryptographic hash puzzles and verify transaction blocks on the chain. The brilliance of Satoshi's POW invention was how elegantly it aligned economic incentives and sybil resistance by imposing unavoidable real-world costs in the form of energy and specialized mining hardware. But an increasingly concerning consequence of POW was the enormous energy consumption required, with mining operations often relying on cheap and dirty fossil fuel sources lacking environmental regulations.

As the Bitcoin network's collective hashrate and value grew into the trillions, POW mining was coming under fire for generating staggeringly high carbon emissions on par with small countries while consuming vast amounts of electricity. "This unchecked environmental harm risks our social license to operate going forward," warned reform advocates like Steve Davis. The eccentric billionaire had invested heavily in Bitcoin's early days and now used that influencer status to lobby for progressive changes to the protocol's core consensus mechanism.

At the annual Bitcoin developer summit held this year in neutral Switzerland, Steve gave an impassioned speech surrounded by alpine grandeur. "Proof-of-work was sheer genius when Satoshi proposed it, bootstrapping Bitcoin's distributed trust and massive value with no pre-mine or centralized chokepoints," he acknowledged. 

"But now, the exponential sprawl of mining threatens to undermine Bitcoin's future growth and legitimacy. For the good of the network, we simply must transition to proof-of-stake to go green!"

In contrast to electricity-burning POW, proof-of-stake would replace mining with a much more energy-efficient system where node operators stake existing cryptocurrency holdings to earn the right to validate transactions and forge new blocks. By allocating influence based on verifiable crypto capital rather than pure brute hashrate, POS aimed to foster wider decentralized participation while doing away with hardware arms races and resource-intensive mining. No more blowing up mountains for coal or filling landfills with discarded mining electronics.

But not everyone in the Bitcoin community shared Steve's progressive outlook. The outspoken POW maximalists argued that despite its profligate energy usage, proof-of-work remained the only battle-tested means to prevent dangerous concentration of power over the network in the hands of a few mega-wealthy players. 

"POS hands too much control to the whale investors and banks!" bellowed Marcia Pinto, the vocal CEO of Genesis Block Mining, one of the largest Bitcoin mining operators in the world. The fiery Brazilian had built her company from humble backyard shed beginnings into an industrial mining giant, etching Genesis Block's logo onto the rich Bitcoin narrative. Now Marcia was leading the manic maximalists in vociferously opposing changes to Bitcoin's core POW consensus model, which she saw as integral to its censorship-resistant soul.

The counterargument made by POS proponents - that staked crypto collateral could be slashed for provable malicious behavior - did not satisfy Marcia's camp. "Our existing POW miners have invested billions in real-world assets like hardware and energy projects which cannot simply be confiscated digitally or rendered obsolete overnight," she argued. 

Marcia claimed that abruptly switching to POS now would essentially wipe away much of that tangible capital investment sunk into POW mining infrastructure, turning expensive ASIC rigs into worthless scrap overnight. The resulting resentment over this "theft" of miner livelihoods would likely spawn a bitter chain split, with diehard POW purists forcing a fork to keep the old Bitcoin protocol alive.

Current events around the globe kept stoking the raging debate's flames higher. With climate change impact intensifying yearly, carbon emissions regulations were being enacted worldwide. There was increasing political and social pressure on lawmakers and corporations to crack down harshly on energy usage and pollution. Powerful mining lobbies now faced their existential reckoning.

Disturbing rumors had also spread through crypto forums of Bitcoin miners bribing officials in developing countries for preferential treatment in order to tap into inexpensive electricity from fossil fuel plants, hydroelectric dams, and other controversial sources lacking oversight.

"This has gone too far!" fumed Carlos Ruiz, an environmental executive whose town's water supply in rural Ecuador was drying up due to a greedy new Bitcoin mining operation guzzling up their community's hydropower reserves. Carlos took to the media calling for lawmakers worldwide to ban POW before the exponentially spreading industry consumed even more lands and critical resources.

Within cloistered mining enclaves, resentment brewed at what they saw as cultural elites turning against them. "These anti-mining zealots just don't understand our plight," complained Ahmad, a young electrical engineer at Marcia Pinto's Genesis Block mining facilities. 

For many economically depressed regions, Bitcoin mining provided steady high-tech jobs, specialized skills training, and an influx of investment that would have been unfathomable just years earlier. Marcia's fiery libertarian speeches at conferences preaching the virtues of POW fostered a bunker mentality among these mining communities. 

To them, any switch to POS smelled like a corrupt plot by globalist financiers and technocratic utopians to completely reshape Bitcoin's fundamental character in their own sanitized image. "You eggheads want us to burn the dreams and livelihoods we built from blood and sweat?" Marcia would exclaim to thunderous applause. "You'll have to pry my ASICs from my cold dead hands first!"

But mere angry words alone could not cool this raging climate clash indefinitely. As social and political pressure against POW mining mounted day by day and earnest proposals for managed transition to POS gathered steam, Marcia and the mining industry faced their decisive watershed moment. 

With Bitcoin's very soul and direction in the balance, a key question loomed - could some compromise path forward be found that would satisfy both the reform-hungry POW critics and POW purists? Or were their positions too irreconcilable, risking this divide fracturing Bitcoin's delicate consensus permanently?

The stakes for Bitcoin's future could not be higher. As Marcia pondered her next move, the community awaited her decision with bated breath. Everything hung in the balance between evolution and revolution. With wisdom and compromise, perhaps disaster could be averted - but the powder keg was primed, with fuse already lit...

1 to 1000 Taproot UTXO Explosion. Why?

antic

![binance1.png](https://m.stacker.news/5207)

![binance2.png](https://m.stacker.news/5206)

![binance3.png](https://m.stacker.news/5205)

tech

deleted by author

Zepasta

I wonder if Brave Browser would be able to get around that?

Sam Altman: if I start going off, board should go after me for my shares

OpenAI fires Sam Altman for not being "consistently candid"

k00b

I thought this was a Bitcoin Bugle post at first. Got me again!

Bitcoin Surpasses Ethereum in Fees First Time in Years

0xbitcoiner

![Screenshot 2023-11-17 102433.png](https://m.stacker.news/5149)

It is reaching January 11-12 2018 levels.

**Chapter 1** - https://stacker.news/items/316534

 **Chapter 2 - Scaling Solution**

The storm clouds of the looming quantum threat had finally passed, at least for now. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Bitcoin developers like Eric Murray and others at blockchain research firms, new quantum-resistant cryptography had been implemented to shield the Bitcoin network from potential attacks for the foreseeable future. But even as the existential danger of quantum computing receded, Bitcoin now faced another crisis - the challenge of scaling up to meet soaring demand and skyrocketing transaction volumes on the network.

The Bitcoin protocol in its original form could only process a small number of transactions per second, far less than the tens of thousands that major credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard handled with ease. This severely limited transaction capacity was leading to increasingly sluggish transaction confirmation times and dramatic spikes in fees on the Bitcoin network that made it impractical for small everyday purchases. Solving this urgent scaling dilemma was widely seen as absolutely crucial for Bitcoin to achieve its true potential as a mainstream digital currency used for common transactions, and not just a slow and costly speculative store of value. 

Among the core group of developers working on the Bitcoin protocol, Anya Novikova had emerged as one of the leading voices calling for urgent action to increase capacity and scale Bitcoin in a responsible way. A brilliant cryptographer born in Moscow and now residing in San Francisco, Anya had been drawn to Bitcoin years earlier because of its elegant fusion of groundbreaking technology and liberating economic freedom. She eagerly joined Blockstream, a fast-rising company developing ambitious improvements to the Bitcoin protocol through sophisticated techniques like sidechains and layer-2 solutions.

After countless long nights spent filling chalkboards with advanced mathematical equations and poring over thousands of lines of dense code, Anya spearheaded the creation of an innovative new scaling solution tailored to Bitcoin's specific needs - the Lightning Network. Lightning was designed as a decentralized web of payment channels that would allow users to make rapid Bitcoin micropayments outside of the main blockchain. By settling only final net balances on the slower main chain, Anya's protocol aimed to achieve tremendous scalability and throughput for Bitcoin transactions while still retaining its unparalleled security and decentralization.

Early prototypes and demonstrations of Lightning showed very promising capability, with stress tests achieving hundreds of transactions per second - a massive improvement over Bitcoin's current single-digit throughput. Anya proudly presented these exciting results at numerous blockchain industry conferences and in in-depth technical discussions with other Bitcoin Core developers.

But over time, she grew increasingly frustrated at the slow pace of real-world Lightning Network adoption and integration. The technology clearly held enormous potential to help Bitcoin scale, if only it could move beyond the initial experimentation phase with tech savvy early adopters and into widespread common usage.

"We have the core technology working smoothly in controlled testing environments, we just need to make it much easier and safer for the average user to actually adopt Lightning," Anya lamented one evening over drinks with her coworkers at their office after a long day of frustratingly incremental progress.

"Lightning still needs more intuitive wallet interfaces, simple merchant plugins, user-friendly APIs, comprehensive educational resources - it won't smoothly scale from just whitepapers and proofs-of-concept to global adoption. Real people have to be able to use it seamlessly in their daily lives!"

Her colleagues wearily nodded along in agreement as they sipped their beers. They had been grinding away on researching, testing, and promoting Lightning adoption for years now with Anya. But bringing such a complex new system to production-grade robustness and security was no small feat. And not everyone in the fractious Bitcoin community agreed on Lightning as the best path forward for scaling.

Fierce debates still raged between advocates of bigger blocks versus layer-2 solutions like Lightning or sidechains. Scalability had become a contentious mess splitting Bitcoiners into opposing camps. Anya stayed studiously out of politics, keeping her head down and focusing only on relentlessly improving the Lightning technology and user experience.

However, Jack McAfee, the brash young serial entrepreneur from Australia, quickly grew impatient at the slow process of incremental improvements to Bitcoin through extensive peer review and testing. He had made his fortune taking companies public during the frenzied dot-com boom of the 1990s. Jack got into Bitcoin very early as an investor and now led Blockstream, Anya's employer.

But Jack splintered off from Blockstream and launched his own controversial sidechain called Liquid Network, promising faster Bitcoin transactions and rapid settlement between exchanges. Powerful trading firms and exchanges eagerly adopted Liquid, lured by its speed. Adoption of Liquid soared as Jack poached some of Anya's colleagues from Blockstream to come work on his splashy new project instead.

Anya was glad Jack shared her sense of urgency at scaling Bitcoin to keep up with growing adoption. But she worried Liquid's approach sacrificed too much of Bitcoin's core decentralization compared to her Lightning Network.

"We must scale responsibly and diligently," she gently cautioned Blockstream CEO Adam Back. "If we rush into solutions without extensive testing and peer review, we risk fatally compromising Bitcoin's decentralized nature and core values."

But the impatient Jack McAfee and his followers dismissed Anya's thoughtful critiques. "Quit dreaming and wasting time with perfection - we need real scalable solutions now!" he angrily fired back on Twitter. Jack even went as far as to publicly call Lightning a "failed project" and "academic pipe dream" at a major blockchain conference, drawing gasps.

A livid Anya kept her frustrations private, but resolved to prove Jack wrong by making Lightning Network a polished and practical reality for real-world Bitcoin users. Public feuds served no one, though the attention-seeking Jack seemed to relish controversy and bombast.

Clearly, the technical battle of the scaling solutions for Bitcoin had only just begun in earnest. Anya knew Bitcoin's future mass adoption depended heavily on her winning this race.

She buckled down and organized collaborative workshops and hackathons, intent on honing Lightning into a smooth and easy-to-use consumer product with enthusiastic decentralized support from the grassroots Bitcoin community. Lightning would need that organic groundswell from passionate users to eventually catch up and overtake the slick top-down corporate pitch of Jack's Liquid Network.

Fortunately, Anya never shied away from an uphill climb, no matter how steep. Whether it was looming quantum threats, contentious scaling debates, or clashing egos, she remained focused on solutions. For the sake of Bitcoin's future, she would help guide it step-by-step through this next treacherous trial of growth and evolution, relying on meticulous code and steady rational conviction to see it through.

Bitcoin's Perilous Journey: Chapter 2 of 50 - Scaling Solution

@4's bio

Bitcoin's Perilous Journey: Chapter 1 of 50 - The Looming Threat

Are 100k UTXOs to small? When do you consider consolidating?

kepford

I will post one chapter a week.

Chapter 1 - The Looming Threat

Deep within a remote, heavily guarded scientific facility in the Ural Mountains of Russia, Vadim Petrov hunched over the glowing screen of his computer, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He barely noticed the cold bite of the stale bunker air or the crumpled energy drink cans littering his workspace. All his focus was directed toward the lines of code marching down the monitor, his life's work laid bare before him in beautiful minimalist logic. 

With a final keystroke, Vadim compiled the program. A hint of a smile tugged at his cracked lips. It was done - his quantum computing masterpiece was ready. Soon, very soon, he would put it to use, cracking open the virtual vaults of Bitcoin once and for all. 

Vadim leaned back, his chair creaking, as he reflected on the long road leading to this moment. He had dedicated over a decade of brilliance and obsession to reach this point. As a young PhD student at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in the late 2010s, Vadim excelled in quantum research, blazing ahead of his peers. The emerging field held incredible promise to revolutionize computing, smashing through limitations faced by even the most powerful supercomputers of the era. Quantum's exponential scale held the potential to reshape medicine, cryptography, energy, space exploration - the very structure of knowledge itself.

When he first heard of Bitcoin, the mysterious digital currency created by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, Vadim instantly saw how quantum power could be its undoing - or its savior. This so-called "digital gold" seemed foolish to him at first, bits pretending to be as valuable as precious metal and national currencies. But as Bitcoin grew, finding an enthusiastic niche among techno-libertarians and cyberpunks seeking an alternative economy, Vadim paid ever more notice. 

In 2013, still early days for Bitcoin, the price crossed $1000 briefly before crashing back down. But four years later, the cryptocurrency exploded into mainstream consciousness by reaching parabolic heights of nearly $20,000. Soon even governments were debating regulation and financial elites argued whether Bitcoin could revolutionize - or destroy - the monetary order.

As a central player in quantum research, Vadim understood before most that this rising cryptocurrency built on cryptography was ultimately vulnerable. Quantum computers' exponential power could easily crack the public-private key encryption which secured Bitcoin wallets and transactions. At a stroke, quantum supremacy over classical silicon computing meant game over for Bitcoin's security paradigm. 

But observing Bitcoin's ascent, Vadim felt not warning, but jealous loathing. That such a presumptuous invention dared accrue billions in supposed value offended his sense of the natural order. "Who are these cowboy coders challenging state authorities by creating magic internet money from thin air?" he lamented. The veneer of technological genius concealing base greed and anarchism disgusted him.

He vividly remembered the day years back when an American investor tried convincing Vadim, already an elite researcher, to work on Bitcoin security applications for quantum tech. Vadim refused brusquely, judging the field as unserious pop science.

"You will look foolish when governments shut this down and prosecute these scam artists," Vadim insisted. The American just laughed and made a fortune when Bitcoin's price kept rising. That gloating smile haunted Vadim, even as Bitcoin became too influential to simply ban outright.

His disgust slowly gave way to an ambitious vision. When quantum supremacy definitively arrived, he would be ready. He would craft the world's most powerful quantum computing instrument specifically to destroy Bitcoin's security. Not to extort ransoms, but to prove a point - that this inflated bubble of algorithmic make-believe money was hopelessly fragile against raw hyper-accelerated calculation power.

To Vadim, Bitcoin represented not promise, but hubris. By exposing it as mathematically flawed at its core, he could reveal the hypocrisy and weakness of its pseudo-populist rhetoric. The world would thank him for liberating it from this viral delusion that threatened real economic stability.

Utter secrecy was essential as over years Vadim assembled a team of elite researchers and siphoned funding into his covert Bitcoin breaking project. Russia's security apparatus gave tacit support in hopes of gaining future quantum advantage over Western rivals. But only Vadim's innermost circle knew his full vision of bathing Bitcoin's precious blockchain in the firepower of quantum-enabled cryptanalysis - watching it burn brightly and then fade to ash.

Vadim called his creation the Venus Prototype, after the Morning Star that heralds the sun's arrival. And like that celestial body, his machine would break the endless digital night of Bitcoin's golden age, exposing it as a false idol. No longer would its porous cryptography conceal inflated speculation from deserved ruin. By quantum might, he would cast light on Bitcoin's weaknesses, melting its shiny veneer to reveal the clay feet of a false god.

And now Venus was alive, humming with otherworldly might in its cradle beneath the mountains. As Vadim initiated the startup sequence, the bunker vibrated with thrumming power. Lights flickered in awe of this digital beast's birth. Vadim watched transfixed as raw calculation potential that could model whole universes now came under his command. An almost religious ecstasy seized him, sensing destiny at hand. The hour had come at last to implement his vision. All that remained was choosing the perfect moment to strike...

Meanwhile across the world, sunny California seemed a different universe from Vadim's subterranean lab. In a nondescript San Francisco office, a group of developers were hard at work on Bitcoin software. Eric Hughes, grey-bearded veteran of the cypherpunk movement of activists who pioneered cryptography and online privacy, led the Bitcoin Core team in maintaining the protocol's code. 

After over a decade of meteoric growth, disruptive potential, and no shortage of controversy, Bitcoin was now worth trillions and shaking the foundations of the financial system. But from their humble workspace, the task at hand for Eric and his Brilliant but overworked colleagues was just keeping the network running smoothly. He often repeated the mantra “First, do no harm” when considering potential code changes, reflecting the enormous responsibility of these stewards to an open-source project that had taken on a life of its own. With so many vested interests, keeping stakeholders aligned was as much politics as programming.

While reviewing some proposed efficiency improvements, Eric came across a strange message on the project's public developer forum, posted anonymously:

"Beware the coming storm, when the quantum tempest shall rage. What is built strong today will soon lie broken tomorrow, unless the wise prepare in time..."

Puzzled, Eric read the cryptic warning again. Was it some clueless amateur speculating, or something more? The reference to quantum hinted at specialized knowledge. Gathering a few lead developers, Eric asked them if they knew anything about the message. They all shrugged, as perplexed as him.

Still, Eric felt a nameless unease. The specter of quantum computing loomed over every cryptographer's thoughts, though the capability remained confined to laboratories for the foreseeable future. But if someone had made a significant, secret breakthrough, Bitcoin's current encryption would become obsolete overnight. Usually cautious voices in the developer forums were already arguing quantum resistance should be built into the protocol.

"This reeks of foolish alarmism to me," said Zhao, a skeptical cryptographer trained in China. "Our Shanghai lab would know if anyone had achieved meaningful quantum advantage. This is petty fearmongering."

"Perhaps," said Eric slowly. "Or perhaps it's a friendly warning. In any case, accelerating our quantum-resistant cryptography initiatives seems wise. The very least we should do some threat modeling around a hypothetical quantum attack vector. Things may look very different sooner than we think..."

A tense silence settled around the room. Bitcoin's rise had sparked no shortage of doomsday predictions, but some threats had more weight than others. Primal fear of the unknown gripped them as developers entrusted with securing a multi-trillion dollar network.

Finally Eric spoke again, resolve steeling his voice: "Let's get to work. We'll redouble our efforts on quantum-proofing. Whoever this anonymous watchdog is, they're right about one thing - we must do all we can to prepare while there's time. And if the storm does come howling at our door, threatening to blow down Bitcoin's fortress of cryptography..."

He tightened his fist as if grasping an imaginary sword.

"We'll be ready to weather it."

The battle was not yet joined, but the first ripples hinted at gathering forces. As Vadim prepared to unleash his weapon and Eric girded for defense, the epochal quantum clash over Bitcoin's future was set in motion. Two worlds racing toward collision at the crossroads of cryptography and quantum physics. The storm could no longer be stopped. It could only be survived - if the wise prepared in time...