Just published "Nakamoto Consensus Requires Social Coordination and Subjectivity"
TL;DR Nakamoto Consensus, contrary to popular belief, is not objective. It has a subjective component, just like the weak subjectivity assumption required in PoS protocols.
talk.lazyledger.io/t/nakamoto-con…
We've been told for years now by Bitcoin maximalists that PoS protocols require *fundamentally* stronger trust assumptions than PoW, in the form of weak subjectivity (asking a trusted third-party for a checkpoint if you've been offline for a while). We've been told a lie.
It's not that PoS protocols do not require social coordination; rather, it is that Nakamoto Consensus does require social coordination!
How so? It's all in the incentives.
Nakamoto Consensus doesn't work without the Nakamoto Incentive (NI): if majority of hashrate attacks the network with a re-org, a penalty is applied. And the NI does not work objectively: you cannot prove cryptographically that a re-org happened. You must be online to detect it!
For a full write-up, see the post linked in the OP. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more blockchain analysis coming soon!
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.