If energy was unlimited and free, if every human had access to this energy and could use it in any way they wanted, what would the world look like?
I'm sure things would be a lot different. Consider for a moment that most of the cost in pretty much any item comes from the energy that has to be spent in order to manufacture and ship it. Oil dependency alone has shaped the world today so we would indeed live in a different planet and society if energy wasn't a concern.
How would free energy affect cryptocurrencies?
All cryptocurrencies would work differently if energy was unlimited, free and available for everyone. But those running on PoW (Proof of Work) would be the ones that would probably be made obsolete.
It would be impossible for any of us to make accurate predictions about how life would look like in such a world, but the impact of having unlimited energy resources in blockchain technology has taken over my thoughts lately.
Much of the reason I've been thinking about this is because I've seen how people like Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum, and Dan Larimer who happened to write Steem up, refer to mining or PoW as a waste of energy.
I have to be honest, hearing and reading people as they refer to Proof of Work as just burning energy drives me absolutely crazy. Why? When I was first able to wrap my head around Bitcoin which I became aware of when it was $32, I understood mining to be the binding force of it all. In addition to that, mining in my mind has always been the way to maintain the information integral.
Of course, it's not just about mining. It's important that we have some level of decentralization too if security is something that we are after. But to this day I simply can't understand how a blockchain is kept secure without the machines looking after the information as they cross references.
Is PoS safe?
In the spirit of transparency, which I am hoping people still care about given that's one of the main ideas behind the Bitcoin protocol, I have to say I am not a programmer. I can't read or write code and thus I am into this technology basing myself on the promises that were born with it. Transparency has been a big promise, security is another.
One of the reasons I'm into blockchain ideals is because having a technology that allows us to value things as we see fit, to automate, to keep information safe, could really make a difference when it comes to our quality of life. Moreover, having the opportunity to do commerce on a person to person basis just seems like dream, utopia.
I've been using Steem for over a year and haven't had many issues with it, perhaps that's why it's so difficult for me to write against PoS. Put simply, in fitting terms for this website...to manipulate the content of it a person would only have to buy enough Steem Power which is the staking force for the Steem blockchain.
I tell myself all the time that even if some entities did this, bought a bunch of Steem Power to manipulate what we see (upvotes) or don't see (flags), we would at least be able to know about it. So one could say Steem is transparent but can we really say it is secure?
The problem with PoS
The problem with Proof of Stake is a simple one which currently is not present when it comes to Proof of Work. We do have unlimited fiat printed, often unsupervised, but we don't have unlimited energy.
That means that spending energy can be taken as a sacrifice but spending fiat means nothing, at least to some people, enough people to make a difference.
Cash for you and I may be worth something, after all we use it right now in order to be able to buy food and take care of other needs as it is widely accepted as a medium of exchange. But cash is not worth anything, fiat is not worth anything. It's just paper, it's just numbers on weak bank databases. It's made up numbers, unlike currencies born from Proof of Work which were subjected to an energy investment and mathematical verification of authenticity.
Another problem that I have with Steem, which doesn't apply PoW, a problem that I don't have with Bitcoin or Dash to name a few, is that Steem is not limited in supply which begs the question of its worth for the currency is not rare.Energy is rare and useful, fiat today is not rare or useful.
Fiat money can still be used, of course, but only because people will accept it. When we think about how easy it is to counterfeit, steal or outright destroy, we realize that fiat is not useful as a medium of exchange presently which in a logical world given that we already have alternatives would drive its value to zero.
But sadly we don't live in a logical world, we live in a world of emotions where fear is the dominant one.
Fear of missing out, which is also fear of living in poverty, lacking the means to continue living, is much of what drives the crypto space today.
How does it make sense to give preference when it comes to verifications, the security of the blockchain, to people with the most fiat money?
Some will argue that in order to get anything using PoW you still need to have money, you need to be able to pay for the equipment and energy.
Some will argue that mining doesn't help when it comes to decentralization which translates to security too, they will say that certain companies already have a monopoly on energy and because of that already have advantages over the average person.
What I wish to say to these people is simple, but before I do I wish to make it clear that I understand how PoW can't handle all the security for one of these networks so I am not advocating for PoW-only but PoW-included instead.
Do you not think that by making energy yet more valuable, as if it's not already the most valuable resource we have, we'd be incentivizing adoption of renewable/sustainable energy? Do you not see how by stressing the importance of this power we could make humanity prioritize it? What if PoW is what we need to discover a way of making energy free for everyone? Should we not do it because then we'll be outgrowing this way of verifying transactions?
For all we know the technology for free energy may already exist and I'm not sure whether that would be the best or worst scenario.
If it does exist it means we have been denied progress but there is still hope for us to tap into it and benefit from it, it also means all these efforts to use energy as means of security may be in vain and we are opening ourselves to be sabotaged.