That’s a valid question, while the supply is uncapped I appreciate the burn functions. I haven’t read any whitepaper in full but Bitcoin being capped is a strong bull case in of itself.
Discussion
Yes, it is interesting, Ethereum has constant issuance which in combination with burn mechanisms will lead to an equillibrum. Also, when looking at PoS itself, it does make it easier for solo people to mine.
One bet that also exists is simply the following: besides the ideal case factor, realistic cases also exist. People die, and this means their belongigs get stolen / destroyed / pass on / get split up.
In a similar way, one could have analyzed the historical data of how Ethereum has been distributed, then draw conclusions based on that. Humans are not perfect.
Also to note is, in the case of BTC (not XMR (currently), which I prefer and consider superior, but possibly in some future), the problem also comes from the following: when it comes to hash power in comparison to held amounts of stake, it is easier for cartels to sustain high hash power, while it is harder to do this for solo miners.
Especially when considering state threats, mining is very obvious and makes you a target simply based on energy usage (at least if you are doing it for some decent profit, a small mining device won't help you).
When validating on ETH, your network traffic is more to blame, but unlike energy networks, internet traffic may be obfuscated, and at the same time, with very low energy usage miners, you can stake large amounts of ETH.
So for me it seems that it is probabilistic tradeoffs vs definite guarantees, and then whoever wins. Note that right now probably 16% as far as I've check ETH is staked. If it is to be assumed that the largest stakeholders are not staking right now, this helps the distribution.
This is one of the reasons while we'll also soon be adding LSD anonymity pools :]
I do want to emphasize that tradeoffs for this come with all of the economic considerations of PoS. This was just an advocate type reply to bring into context additional factors. People should think stuff deeply through and align themselves with what they most agree on. Most recently, Vitalik himself has said that he has no idea whether ETH will be around in 5 or 10 years. Do respect his honesty.
You seriously get it, PoS obviously isn’t the answer in 2023 but I do enjoy the way the chain operates (except when gwei is insanely high) but it’s true that we don’t know the longevity of said chain. BTC has been around since 2008 and is the most widely adopted crypto. Food for thought.
When all this plays out, I don’t see how ETH survives. There isn’t a case to be made for a second form of digital money, especially one that lacks true scarcity and decentralization, where the founder is a known individual who is actively steering its direction, and most of the staking validators are controlled by early insiders. Anyone who has a significant portion of their net worth staked and still feels comfortable after seeing this clip should have a real “come to Satoshi” moment before it’s too late.
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