> PoW is obviously wasteful and it would be nice to improve on that.
PoW is only wasteful if either a) you consider distributed consensus worthless or b) there’s a cheaper way to achieve the same result. I think we all agree that distributed consensus is not worthless, and you spend the rest of your post arguing that there is currently no known way to achieve the same result while consuming fewer resources. So how can we say it’s wasteful?
In many areas of work, human beings spend time and energy to produce valuable information, which they later sell (that’s what consultants do, basically). A proof of work spent is also valuable information, because it can be used to prevent double spending, and miners sell these proofs in exchange for bitcoins.
If consultants spend a month on producing information that is later sold at a price that exceeds what they spent on producing it, we say they have provided value. I would argue that, likewise, when a miner spends a day to produce information that is later sold at a profit (in bitcoins), it has provided value to the market — otherwise there’d be no one willing to pay for this information.
PoW is only wasteful if either a) you consider distributed consensus worthless or b) there’s a cheaper way to achieve the same result. I think we all agree that distributed consensus is not worthless, and you spend the rest of your post arguing that there is currently no known way to achieve the same result while consuming fewer resources. So how can we say it’s wasteful?
In many areas of work, human beings spend time and energy to produce valuable information, which they later sell (that’s what consultants do, basically). A proof of work spent is also valuable information, because it can be used to prevent double spending, and miners sell these proofs in exchange for bitcoins.
If consultants spend a month on producing information that is later sold at a price that exceeds what they spent on producing it, we say they have provided value. I would argue that, likewise, when a miner spends a day to produce information that is later sold at a profit (in bitcoins), it has provided value to the market — otherwise there’d be no one willing to pay for this information.