Hey mate. Chains are secured in different ways. The big one is Proof of Work (PoW), that's how bitcoin and ethereum work. It uses computer processing cycles to secure the network. That uses a lot of energy.
Chains like Hive use a different method. Proof of Stake/Delegated proof of stake.
PoS/DPos doesn't use energy intensive computer cycles to secure the network; so uses dramatically less power. Somewhere around 1-3%.
Considering crypto is at this point inevitable, supporting chains which use Dpos is arguably more environmentally friendly than not using chains at all. (and letting PoW become the default standard.
Hope that helps. Happy to clarify if need be.
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Thanks. That makes sense. So, does proof of stake not involve mining, or does it involve it still but it's just not as energy intensive? I guess either way, from what you've described, chains using proof of stake would not only use less power, but also likely produce less waste in terms of computer components that get "worn out" from typical mining (and I guess also not contribute as much to the issue of availability of graphics cards for that matter).
Thanks for the info
It's all about avoiding collaboration. So PoW uses mining to randomise who can publish the next official block/record in the chain. If there were a schedule of which miners would be publishing, in what order, they could collude or be threatened to falsify the data over multiple blocks; causing all sorts of problems.
Because the next block could be mined by anyone; its incredibly hard to co-ordinate fraud or attack the network.
DPoS doesn't use mining like that, it uses trust instead. So our miners (witnesses) are voted into their positions, and publish blocks in a known order. It's stake weighted, so the more HP you have, the more important your vote is.
The community votes for witnesses who have backups, and who hide their identity/location etc. It's generally considered somewhat less safe than PoW, but it's much more environmentally friendly, as computers aren't doing work, just to prove they did work.
So the witness votes are weighted just like our upvotes on content on Hive are. Interesting.
Yes, and you can choose another account to be your proxy for witness voting. So @holoz0r decides which witnesses my stake is voting for. Delegated delegated proof of stake.
https://hiveblocks.com/@mattclarke