I think the issue most have with the "no external stake" is that there was a common misunderstanding regarding Bitcoin value propagated for a while - that is, the cost of the consensus mechanism (compute + electricity) defines the price of Bitcoin. In reality it just sets a floor on the price of Bitcoin. The value of the dollar is not set by the cost of paper. So the "self-referential" nature of stake value and attack value just means that asset value is not pegged to the consensus mechanism in as strong a way as in PoW. As long as asset value is driven by other factors (e.g. utility) that is not really a major concern.In practice social networks form a cornerstone of all of the unstated assumption of all consensus mechanisms. I'm more worried about supply chain compromise in wallet code than I am about an eclipse attack on a new node. At that point we know our models are too simple to make real world security comparisons.
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