56
votes
What's the difference between proof of stake and proof of work?
Let us start by what they have in common: they are both algorithms for reaching consensus on the blockchain.
Without going into too much details, we need consensus because anyone can create a block; ...
- 1,404
55
votes
Accepted
What proof of work function does Ethereum use?
The PoW algorithm used in Frontier and Homestead is called Ethash, and it was created specifically for Ethereum.
The primary reason for constructing a new proof of work function instead of using an ...
- 21.7k
45
votes
Accepted
What is the total supply of Ether?
From reddit post
60 million + 12 million + 18million = ~90million
60 million - is the Pre-sale.
12 million - is the dev fund, 0.2coins per 1 coin sold in the crowdsale.
~18 million - 1 million coins ...
- 9,583
33
votes
Accepted
What's the difference between proof of stake and proof of work?
The goal of a consensus algorithm in a public blockchain network is to let many different users agree on the current state of the blockchain even though they don't trust each other or any central ...
- 21.7k
25
votes
What is the total supply of Ether?
The issuance model is not fixed yet. It is an ongoing discussion whether or not the costs for the consensus needs to be financed by inflation that basically taxes every coin holder or if transaction ...
- 7,456
22
votes
Accepted
Is Ethereum ASIC resistant?
According to the Ethereum white paper:
The current intent at Ethereum is to use a mining algorithm where miners are required to fetch random data from the state, compute some randomly selected ...
- 1,172
18
votes
Accepted
Can Proof of Stake (PoS) improve the number of Transactions per Second?
Block time in Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake system (called Casper) is being conservatively targeted at around four seconds. Vlad Zamfir of the Ethereum Foundation believes the block time will ultimately ...
- 496
16
votes
What is the total supply of Ether?
From StephanTaul on the Ethereum Forums on September, 2014:
There is no maximum. 60,102,216 ethers were created during the sale, plus 2x pools of 9.9% each. 26% of 60,102,216 will be created through ...
- 15.8k
13
votes
What's the difference between proof of stake and proof of work?
Short version - POW requires miners or physical computer to be turned on and processing the transaction. This can be inefficient since better computers are created and optimized for mining which may ...
- 4,716
12
votes
Accepted
What kind of hardware is required to mine on Ethereum?
You can mine ether using your computers graphics card(s) (GPU) as long as it has enough memory to hold and access the DAG efficiently. To be efficient and competitive you should select a card with ...
- 1,510
12
votes
Will a higher stake make more money in PoS?
It's counterintuitive but PoS is fairer than PoW (as we know it).
Economies of scale: a proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/...
- 11.4k
11
votes
What is the total supply of Ether?
EDIT: August 2022
Total ETH supply: ~119,300,000 ETH (as of Q2 2022)
With Proof of Stake, the annual issuance rate will be ~0.49% (with 13 million ETH staked)).
This is a daily issuance of ~1,600 ETH.
...
eth♦
- 83.3k
10
votes
What is the total supply of Ether?
At the point of writing this the supply of ether is still "infinite". Every 15 seconds two new Ether are generated.
Currently we are at 107,682,753.47 Ether.
These are from:
Genesis (60M Crowdsale ...
- 3,452
10
votes
Accepted
Are miners eliminated in Proof of Authority?
It's a joke.
However, Ethereum does eventually plan to move to Proof of Stake, which is intended to replace mining.
- 16.7k
9
votes
What's the difference between proof of stake and proof of work?
the_truth = Agreed data structure (Block) containing valid future state of the ethereum virtual machine (and related information) as calculated by me using the rules set out in the yellow paper.
rand ...
- 8,288
8
votes
What is the total supply of Ether?
After the implementation of Casper, I believe the rate is expected to be fixed and miners will earn from both mining fees and fees offered up in other on-chain tokens or currencies/assets.
However, ...
- 4,716
8
votes
What proof of work function does Ethereum use?
The PoW algorithm used at the moment is the Ethash algorithm. In this wiki you can find the description of the algorithm and here you can see what was the design rationale behind Ethash.
- 250
8
votes
How to check if a transaction is still in the blockchain?
No, there is no difference in this case-- they are essentially equivalent. If the tx is orphaned, they should return null, but you should still check the block number because it may have been added to ...
- 36.2k
6
votes
Accepted
How does Ethereum avoid mining pool centralization?
There are two primary ways that the existing PoW based consensus algorithm combats mining centralisation.
The first is by reducing losses due to orphaned blocks, which independent miners are more ...
- 21.7k
6
votes
Is it possible to issue an Ethereum token with its own proof of work algorithm?
A token on Ethereum is basically a balance in an Ethereum contract. A contract could be programmed to issue tokens when it receives its own proof of work. (double sha256
is readily available, since ...
eth♦
- 83.3k
6
votes
With POS, will Ether stay be a necessary fuel to run the network?
It is absolutely necessary, because any form of Proof of ... requires those who secure the network to be rewarded.
The goal of any consensus form is to attract many nodes to a game like roulette. The ...
- 11.4k
6
votes
Accepted
What algorithm Ethereum use POS(proof of shake) or POW(proof of work)?
Ethereum currently uses a Proof of Work algorithm called Ethash, implementation details of which can be found on the wiki.
The plan is to move to a Proof of Stake algorithm called Casper at some ...
- 37.2k
6
votes
Accepted
PoS, how will it prevent 51% attack?
Wouldn't it be possible for a government seeking to destroy the
blockchain just "print out" the money for getting 51%?
Possible? Yes.
But then this isn't any different to the current situation ...
- 37.2k
6
votes
Accepted
How is the Two Generals Problem solved with proof of work?
Proof of Work like proposed by Satoshi doesn't solve the Two Generals Problem or the more generic Byzantine Generals Problem. It's a probabilistic solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem, which ...
- 7,459
5
votes
What kind of hardware is required to mine on Ethereum?
You will need at least a 2GB RAM on your GPU to actually mine. CPU will be extremely hard to make any money unless you use a pool. Here's some resources:
https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/guides/...
- 4,716
5
votes
Accepted
Why does Ethereum POW work fine in spite of short confirmation time?
Ethereum uses the GHOST (Greedy Heaviest Observed Subtree) protocol to combat the problem generally associated with short block times.
Stale blocks
With lower block times the amount of blocks found ...
- 1,805
5
votes
Accepted
Can the PoW problem be changed without a hard fork?
In the future there will be move to a proof of stake algorithm called Casper, which will require a hard fork because such changes are not backwards compatible.
There has already been a hard fork: ...
- 1,308
5
votes
With POS, will Ether stay be a necessary fuel to run the network?
It's necessary, because the miners or "validators" put some money on stake. Here is a description of the finality circle by V Butterin, which gives some good explaination of how it works :
http://...
- 1,242
5
votes
How is the Two Generals Problem solved with proof of work?
PoW (or in fact any consensus algorithm) can't solve the Two Generals/Byzantine Generals Problem. It can only provide a very high and easily verifiable certainty of a transaction being correct.
A few ...
- 392
5
votes
Accepted
Can't we incentivize miners to include more transactions in their block?
Blocks that are fuller, and contain more transactions, both propagate around the network more slowly and take more time for other nodes to validate1. Both of these things increase the chance of a ...
- 37.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible