Nice going to listen to this. While I don't agree with what Vitalik says in some areas I do value his input greatly. The "many node" argument is a fallacy and has proven time and time again to have the same results. PoS leads to staking pools, which is just a very inefficient way to do DPoS. Also, token distribution is far more important than node count. While more nodes is overall better in DPoS, (having many backups ready) there is a point where it exhausts. PoS, having lots of nodes means having lots of low quality nodes. It's chaos where there does not need to be.
I'll give the podcast a listen see if I learn anything new.
I agree for API nodes and validating nodes. dPOS has 20 validators, but it is entirely possible and affordable to run a hive node to read and write without being a top 20 witness.
So the argument doesn't even attack hive, it just attacks a bad version of dPOS that existed with EOS.
It wasn't very interesting, his paper went more in depth.
Ah I understand now. He was referring to full nodes. Hive is one of the most efficient and cheapest full nodes to run. So you're right that isn't a knock on Hive, mostly for layers ones that have smart contracts baked in, that's why layer two smart contracts are better.
Validators, you'll see a handful of staking pools on PoS, DPoS forces decentralization in node count on the free market, which is good you need parameters, you see it elsewhere IE BTC 1mb blocksize etc.
I'm waiting for the announcement that he puts funds into bridging to Hive and using it as a layer2 for payments on ETH. I don't think rollups will be enough alone, and centralized layer twos are about to be "regulated"
Yes exactly. It's unlucky that Vitalik was proved right about voting cartels forming on EOS, now the bad rep for dPOS stuck... In the end time and adoption solve everything, people will slowly change their mind about dPOS if they see hive doing well over and over again.
Definitely agree about layer 2s being regulated. I still don't fully understand zk rollups. People seem to assume that ZK rollups don't compromise decentralization, which is weird. How would that be even possible?
From Eth Hub :
Cons:
The initial set up of ZK-Rollups promotes a centralized scheme (see Security Considerations)
The security scheme assumes a level of unverifiable trust
Unless I fundamentally misunderstand something, the second point is a killer. Saying ZK rollups make no compromise for scalability is like saying the lightning network has the same security and decentralization as Bitcoin.
It doesn't make sense, otherwise the layer 2 wouldn't even need to exist. But the reputation sticks again.
From my non dev understanding, the ZK rollup (vitaliks favorite kind) takes the data, breaks it down to the "answer," and gives a proof which is very tiny, 16MB or something like that, because it just gives the answer without the question itself needed. That's why it's called zero-knowledge proof because you're trusting that they are giving you the right answer. Vitalik alls this "magic," so if it's magic to him, it might as well be some alien to me.
However, you're right; these do not promote decentralization directly. One could say that adding less data to the chain makes it eth more decentralized in terms of being able to run a full node easier etc. But the kicker is to do a zk proof is more comp intensive than just making the smart contract outright. So you'll have onramps with their own native tokens (sigh, more premines), and you'll need to pay them in said token to do that proof for you because no one is giving out free resources. It will still have a glass fee to post to the chain.
Thank you, great explanation!
Exactly, that's my point, you still need another layer of consensus, so ZK rollups are not really that magical solution that has no compromise. The consensus is not as secure or decentralized as ETH itself, it has the same disadvantages as other Layer 2s