Proponents of PoS argue that staking one’s coins is enough cost to encourage honest participation, but some contrarian arguments exist.

“Basically, PoS relies on circular logic, where the largest coin holders determine the state of the ledger and the state of the ledger determines who the largest coin holders are,” Alden said at the panel.

“PoS is just a fancy way of referring to shareholder governance or a stakeholder-led system where effectively your ownership of the system determines your authority of the system,” Carter said. “That’s how SWIFT works, how PayPal works. That’s how banks work. Those are all PoS systems.”