:D ja, things like this happen but are more sound logic heuristics than predictions I guess.
Stake is subject to centralization because its input follows pareto. But proof-of-stake is a distribution-agnostic oracle while dPOS is a consensus mechnism. Proof-of-Stake can be implemented in a consensus mechanism which is resistant against centralization. See the Casper FFG Paper or Avalanche?
I have read those papers but they have an essential problem.
They're wrong.
Or less succinctly, they fall prey to the "I can make shit up, too" fallacy, which to be fair is a very common state of affairs in the cryptocommodity space.
Proof of stake is not a distribution agnostic Oracle. Proof of stake doesn't actually prove anything as a second order function. It demonstrates what entities have the most interest in the further existence of the means of establishing their stake, that part's true, but it's not actually oracular unless you assume that the future will always be exactly the same as the past. The same concerns, the same resources, and just as importantly as every other element – the same players.
That's just not so and will never be so.
The whole pressure that proof of stake generates is toward centralization. It is against individuation. If the more resources you have, the more say you have and how resources are generated and distributed, and you actually care about how resources are generated and distributed (no matter how someone else may judge how/why you care), then you are going to act to get more of those resources. The very process of doing so means that consensus is less about population intent and more about your intent. That is the nature of the architecture.
In order to implement the consensus mechanism rooted in proof of stake you have to invalidate either the proof of stake or consensus. These things don't travel in the same basket. No amount of math, no amount of jiggling code around, will change that essential underlying fact.
The real solution is to move philosophically away from a top-down expectation of "oracular" wisdom and toward a system which builds individual representations and gateways and content from the individual out. To stop confusing the actions of crowds with the wisdom of crowds.
I don't expect to see that taking off around here anytime soon, unfortunately.
wow, one of the best comments I have read here since month. I almost lost hope that people here are actually into logic of distributed consensus.
maybe a grassroots movement from the community. I´m no expert in distributed consensus but I feel that there are some smart users lurking around here.
When I understand you right, your assumption is that there is either no collusion-resistant oracle OR sharding/super linear curves do not force consolidation of stake AND that we need proof-of-life to extract the action of the crowd instead of polling the "wise"-crowd.
Predicition markets like futarchy are not perfect - true. They are practically collusion resistant. Proving individuals, --> needs a mechanism which averages out the user behind n accounts/sock puppets. You can average out by choosing some form of economic- or ecologic proof. When you go against economic proof, you remove stake... hmm now whats left? Attention? ID/bio-metrics? ...there are not that many smart proxies for uniqueness. One can analyse networking and connectivity - but this requires either semi-centralization/checkpoints/mods or a few users providing hard-proof/giving up anonymity.