Motion: POS will overtake POW (Kevin Sekniqi vs. Tarun Chitra)

03/25/20 • 101 min

Guests:
Kevin Sekniqi (@kevinsekniqi) - debating FOR the motion
Tarun Chitra (@tarunchitra) - debating AGAINST the motion
Host:
Richard Yan (@gentso09)
Today’s motion is “POS will overtake POW.”
This is an important topic for a few reasons. First, from an investor’s perspective, this is another angle of evaluating BTC vs its challengers, which by and large are POS, or moving to POS. Second, this provides guidance to architects of new protocols in making design decisions.
If we were to measure the dominance of POW via market cap, of the top 20 coins on CMC, coins with a POW mechanism (with no serious plans to migrate to something else), take up 74% of the share of market cap.
The two guests we have for this episode are: a builder of a highly anticipated POS-based protocol; and a creator of an extremely interesting business that simulates protocol behavior, to help protocol designers make more sound decisions.
I want to note that, about 70 minutes into the debate, the discussion shifted to a general conversation about money characteristics of bitcoin, and this goes on for about 25 minutes. This was not directly relevant to the motion, but I kept it in nonetheless, for the insights it shed.
Make sure to check out our previous episodes too, on Bitcoin’s store of value status, tokenization and smart contracts, DeFi, bitcoin halvening, and China’s future in blockchain.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate:

Paul Sztorc article "Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work": http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/
Hash rate derivatives: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currencies-derivatives/with-hashes-and-hedges-power-hungry-crypto-miners-court-investors-idUSKBN1YE0KA
Digital currency as a Veblen good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Paul Sztorc article "Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work": http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/
Hash rate derivatives: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currencies-derivatives/with-hashes-and-hedges-power-hungry-crypto-miners-court-investors-idUSKBN1YE0KA
Digital currency as a Veblen good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

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#5. Motion: China Will Lead the World in Blockchain Innovation (Matthew Graham vs. Avichal Garg)

Next Episode

Motion: The future of blockchain will be an oligopoly of public blockchains (Illia Polosukhin vs. Zaki Manian)

Guests:
Illia Polosukhin (@ilblackdragon) - debating FOR the motion
Zaki Manian (@zmanian) - debating AGAINST the motion
Host:
Richard Yan (@gentso09)
In a world where decentralized applications proliferate, will these applications be built on top of a few or many public blockchains? Exploration of this topic would help us understand the merits of the coexistence of many protocols. On the extreme, each dapp can have its own chain, so that the developers/community for each app can have maximal control over the full stack of their product.
The guests we have for this episode have essentially voted on their position with their feet. The oligopoly advocate is cofounder of a layer-1 protocol, and the multiplicity supporter is a major contributor to one of the earliest, if not the earliest, blockchains designed with interoperability in mind.
Be sure to also check out our previous episodes too, on Bitcoin’s store of value status, tokenization and smart contracts, DeFi, bitcoin halvening, China’s future in blockchain, and POW vs POS.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate:

Inter-Blockchain Communication: https://cosmos.network/ibc/
Near protocol: https://nearprotocol.com/

The Blockchain Debate Podcast - Motion: POS will overtake POW (Kevin Sekniqi vs. Tarun Chitra)

Transcript

Richard00:00:08.460

Welcome to another episode of the Blockchain Debate Podcast, where consensus is optional, but proof of thought is required. I'm your host, Richard Yan. Today's motion is: POS will overtake POW. This is an important topic for a few reasons. First, from an investor's perspective, this is another angle of evaluating BTC versus its challengers, which by and large are POS, or moving to POS. Second, this provides guidance to architects of new protocols i