If they share a whitepaper with you then they have no idea what they are selling
Someone who if trying to get others to adopt a blockchain technology should be able to answer simple questions about supply and how the network is kept secure, this hasn't been my experience with anyone selling anything PoS.
You may think I'm paranoid but I couldn't care less, I know what inspired my trust in blockchains and it certainly wasn't that a person could buy influence into a company with fiat, how is that different compared to the way the world works now?
This is the creator of Ethereum trying to make a case for PoS:
The “one-sentence philosophy” of proof of stake is thus not “security comes from burning energy”, but rather “security comes from putting up economic value-at-loss”
One could say that the way PoW goes about security can and has initially benefited those who have more access to energy like electricity companies, it gives advantages to those with the know-how and the equipment to mine. However, with PoS anyone can throw money at the "blockchain" and buy a vote. I don't think this is as problematic when it happens with energy as when it happens around fiat.
People have access to energy, it's all around us. PoW may even push us to employ different ways of gathering energy, more efficient and cleaner ways. But PoS is simply a green light for the people who print unlimited money to take over.
For someone who is known for his brains, Vitalik is making a huge mistake that I honestly can't see anyone who understands this technology and how it has come to be would make. Maybe they offered him more money than he could reject, or perhaps he has been infiltrating the circles interested in this technology from day one. I'm sorry if he's a regular guy who is just confused, I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt but this is absurd.
Banks are not risking anything if they buy into Ethereum because they make the money, however much they want to print, and they don't even have to make new money but they can use our own money to try to sell PoS to us.
I too was excited about ETH but now that I know that not only are they openly dealing with Microsoft and JP Morgan, but they are going to stop mining all together, it makes no sense to invest in that trickery unless with the intention to dump on the banks every time they pump because they want to keep speculators interested.
“security comes from putting up economic value-at-loss”
That's bogus. No economy can survive for very long without making a profit.
Run away, run away fast and far, from anyone saying otherwise.
If I'm the one making the money, printing however much I want, and that's what we consider to have value and provide security. Then why not just stick with the fiat I am printing? Why not just say trust the banks and be over with it? This is insane!
fiat is another word of 'debt'.
debt is not money.
I hope Ripplers are reading this...
I watch the btc price in Canadian and it's gone from 250-1200 in the blink of an eye. Now it's 1500+ and it's gonna easily blast through 3000 to 5000+ before anyone realizes what happened. I see the rise of the altcoins like Dash and Ether, but truly groundbreaking stuff like Steemit will take a bit longer because it's not going to be mainstream for a while.
I understand Steem is now PoS, this bothers me but at least here people work to earn the rewards too. The service that Steem provides is valuable, if it's true that they can maintain security without PoW.