give them ten years. i think one shelf gets a lot longer than the other.
let me set it up. every money network that runs without a company in charge needs someone to write the shared record of who paid whom. that record is called the ledger. the network has to choose who writes the next page, and it pays whoever does.
there are two main ways to choose.
the first way is by work. you plug in a machine, it burns electricity solving a puzzle, and the winner writes the page. this is called mining, and the system is called proof of work. the pay arrives in coins. the power bill arrives in dollars, every month, from a utility that has never heard of the network.
the second way is by holdings. you lock up coins you already own, and the more you lock, the more often you get picked. this is called staking, and the system is called proof of stake. the pay arrives in coins too, and the monthly bill is tiny.
so follow the pay. a miner has to sell part of what she earns to keep the lights on, and those coins go back out to strangers. a staker can add nearly all of his pay to the pile that earns the next round. one design keeps sending its rewards outward. the other lets them stack up where they already sit.
the pushback is strong and i take it seriously. mining concentrates too. a handful of companies make the chips, the cheapest power goes to the biggest buyers, and most machines point at a few pools, which are groups that combine their effort and split the pay. by some measures that is tighter than the holdings of the largest stakers.
what would show me wrong: a staking network where the number of independent operators keeps growing through a full boom and bust, while mining keeps narrowing over the same years.
bitcoin chose the monthly bill in 2009. it is an expensive choice, and every miner i know complains about it. it also means the record gets written by whoever paid this month's bill, and yesterday's winnings buy no extra turns.
if the two bakers made this easier to hold, Zap ⚡