Hi steemians,welcome to season4 of the beginner's fixed task, hope we are doing good. Indeed @sapwood's lecture on consensus mechanism was really educative,have really learnt a lot about pow and pos which i will be sharing my knowledge of understanding based on the assignment tasks question below.

Task6 season4 questions

• what is the difference between pow and pos?
• Advantage and disadvantages of pow and pos?
• which is better in scaling capacity?example.

what is the difference between PoW and PoS?

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Firstly,before i state the differences between PoW and PoS let me briefly explain what the both means so we can understand better:

PoW:- PoW which is an abbreviation for proof-of-work which is a decentralized censensus mechanism that requires members of a blockchain to make effort in solving the complex mathematical puzzle to prevent anyone from altering any aspect of the blockchain. One fact about proof-of-work is that it will require more effort and energy as more miners join the blockchain.

Proof-of-work is mainly uses in cryptocurrency mining which,helps in activating transaction and mining of new tokens.

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PoS:-pos which is an abbreviation for proof of stake,can simply means that a validator can mine or validate block transaction depending on how many coins the validator has or hold.
In other words, it allows coins owners to put up their coins as collateral, hoping to get control over the coins in proportion to the amount the stake and also hoping to get more coins as time goes on through reward mechanism,newly minted token and network fee etc.
Note that the more coins or tokens a validator has the more mining power the have.

Difference between PoW and PoS.

S/N	POW	POS
1.	in proof of work, large amount of energy is required. in other words,energy consumption is high.	in proof of stake, power is given to validators base on the amount of coins the validators has.
2.	it requires miner's to generate a correct result to the mathematical problem or solving a mathematical problem to produce new blocks.	The amount of coin a validator staked determines the chance of him being selected as the next block producer.
3.	it has a lot of scalability issues,in other words, scaling capacity is poor	proof of stake has good scaling capacity.
4.	in pow, rewards are given to first miner's that solve the crytographic puzzle of a new block	while in pos validators are reward with network fee,newly minted tokens etc.

Advantage and disadvantages of pow and pos

Advantage of proof-of-work

• proof of work has a high security level which prevent fraudulent act and independent data processors from lying about transaction. generally,it's cannot be easily hack.

• It ensures a better degree of decentralization which selection of miners are done randomly.

• There do not need a lot of requirements like KYC verification, it all about being ready to work and understanding the system. In general, it's smart and easy to join.

Disadvantages of proof-of-work.

• This system waste energy,in a way that it requires a computer to perform a great deal of work, so with such electricity is extremely use which may lead to lot of electricity consumption.

• There are a lot of complex mathematical problems or puzzle to be solve which requires a lot of effort and may be stressful.

• Reward are only given to miners which are first to solve the complex cryptographic puzzles.

Advantages of proof-of-stake.

• less energy is required,that is to say you don't need much energy to validate block or make the system to be prove trustworthiness.

• Cost of spending is less because of the less amount of energy required.

• This system does not require much time, as it is smart and easy to operate.

• in proof-of- stake,there is no much barriers to entry, it reduces requirements of having the capacity of creating new blocks.

• in proof-of-stake,a structure of compensation is given to validators incase of attack on the system,so the validators does not stand a chance of losing much if the system is attack or tempered on.

Disadvantages of proof-of-stake.

• in proof-of-stake,there is a certain limits of transactions that can be process simultaneously. that is to say if you exceed the limit of transaction in a day you can't perform transaction again.

• once a token is stake,you can't sell that particular token again until the staking period elapses.

• It not easy for individuals to participate.in that,there is a limitation as per the number of individuals that should be involved.

• lastly,cause of low level of security level it can be easily attack, which may cause fear of losing fund to scammers.

which is better in scaling capacity?

In terms of scaling capacity,i think proof of stake has more better scaling capacity than proof-of-work cause it is less complicated and it does not need sophisticated computing tool,you just need a wallet with a lot of coin in it. In general it is cheaper,easily understood,has more energy efficiency when compare to proof-of-work which requires more effort to solve a mathematical algorithm,proof-of-stake simply deals with staking and buying of coins.

Examples of coins operating under POW system.

• Bitcoin(btc)
• litecoin(LTC)
• Ethereum(ETH)
• Dogecoin(Doge)

Example of coins operating under POS system.

• NXTcoin
• Polkadot
• Binance(BNB)
• Cardona(ADA).

Once again am happy to join the steemit cryptoacademy beginner's tasks season 4 having met requires, am hoping to join the the beginner's weekly assignment soon by the grace of God. Thanks to professor @sapwood for the well explanatory lectures, it was fun going through this tasks as am hoping to see a better outcome.