Chris Larsen of Ripple is going to run a $5 million dollar Ad Campaign to try to change the governance system of Bitcoin from POW (proof of work) to POS (proof of stake) and he will use environmental concerns to advocate to compromise Bitcoin's POW model.
Art from pixabay.
Chris Larson's campaign will run ads in major publications over simplifying the power consumption issue to gain support for the idea that POW is harmful.
While most agree that the campaign will not be successful, I think there is a not-so-subtle undertone in the message which is really targeted at creating the illusion that Bitcoin takes more power than other Web projects. When consumers are fed one piece of information without a balanced understanding of where the power comes from or how much power is consumed by other commonly accepted practices it becomes a smear campaign, easily digested by consumers.
One of the best responses in my opinion came from Noelle Acheson
Which points out any attempt to change Bitcoins Code would result in a fork of the chain thus creating a new chain vs. eliminating the POW chain, she also guesses, most would stick with the POW model, and I tend to agree.
However Larson's campaign will certainly bring awareness to Ripple and for those who are easily impacted by climate virtue signalling it is likely to create some discussion. Hopefully, the best outcome is that Bitcoin POW miners continue to strive for more efficient power sources to run their miners.
Brace yourself for the surge of non-bitcoin experts suddenly hating the power consumption of Bitcoin though. In actuality creative intelligent solutions are revolutionizing how mining is done and it's consumption of energy, pushing cleaner energy models forward at breakneck speeds.
My view of cryptocurrency is that all projects have lessons to teach us about this emerging technology and if a POS version of Bitcoin ends up emerging in the next year or so I would not be surprised. However, it would be an entirely different beast than the current POW BTC and while I wouldn't consider it an upgrade, I do believe the good old Bitcoin Standard would remain and we would have yet another experiment to learn from. I take the Free Market approach and applaud those who are tweaking projects and if they hold value to consumers that will be obvious on exchanges and in the Markets.
What are your thoughts on how important POW is to Bitcoin?