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Proof-of-Work vs Proof-of-Stake

Any discussion of proof-of-work vs proof-of-stake brings the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s to mind. Not only were they great dressers, but each side carried their convictions loaded for action.

Proof-of-Work Fundamentalists

But what is the proof-of-work (PoW) vs proof-of-stake (PoS) feud all about? The video below is a great, balanced overview of the feud to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each model.

One sentence from the video sums the entire difference:

Proof-of-work is inherently money like, proof-of-stake is inherently equity like

Yungfi Video

More specifically, PoW models distribute power between miners, developers and individual nodes to create a co-equal configuration like the US government. The benefit is that no single person or entity can take over the bitcoin network.

For PoS models, there needs to be some governance to manage the network since not some individuals have more power than others. This reduces PoW decentralization for the benefit of faster decision making.

Watch the video below for more details on these points.