Chris Larsen, co-founder and president of Ripple, is calling on Bitcoin miners to switch from the current Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
He did so in a post on his personal blog aimed at mining companies.
Why Bitcoin should switch to Proof-of-Stake
The real chances of Larsen being able to convince the Bitcoin community to replace the current consensus algorithm are very slim, so the post is purely hypothetical. Furthermore, as president of Ripple, whose cryptocurrency is based on a type of PoS, he is not an unbiased source on the matter.
Larsen believes that the share prices of Bitcoin mining companies could rise if PoW is replaced. However, miners have no power to change Bitcoin’s algorithm, so all they can do is adapt to the community’s choices.
The pollution problem
According to Ripple’s president, the worsening climate crisis is expected to challenge PoW because of its huge energy consumption.
Just this year, China, where most of Bitcoin’s hashrate was located, decided to ban mining in order to reduce energy consumption in the country. This has led to a significant increase in crypto mining activity in the US, which is why Larsen says he is concerned.
He writes:
“The emerging solution among climate experts is that Bitcoin’s code needs to be changed to a low energy consensus algorithm like those used by nearly all other major crypto protocols”.
However, it sounds very strange that climate experts would propose a technological solution for Bitcoin, arguably without knowing in detail how it actually works. It would be a bit like Satoshi Nakamoto proposing a solution to curb global warming.
Larsen further writes:
“One challenge of making such a code change is the assumed opposition by bitcoin miners — especially given the enormous and growing investment in US mining operations”.
A proposal destined to fall
In fact, miners would be the main beneficiaries of the PoW replacement, as they would see their costs drastically reduced. One would almost think that Larsen does not know the real workings of Bitcoin very well.
Ripple’s chairman also tries to convince the shareholders of American mining companies to demand the abandonment of PoW, but they have absolutely no power whatsoever over the Bitcoin protocol.
The solution he proposes must therefore be reduced to mere mental speculation, with a real probability of success very close to zero.
The post Bitcoin: Ripple’s president proposes Proof-of-Stake appeared first on The Cryptonomist.
