Vitalik Buterin explains why proof-of-stake is more secure than proof-of-work “I think proof of stake is very secure because to attack the system, you need to have basically as much stake as the rest of the network. Right now, for example, we have 5 million ETH staking, which means... you have to come up with 5 million ETH and then join the network.” At the time of this writing, more than 37 million ETH are being staked, with 3 million ETH waiting to join via the validator queue. At today’s prices, that’s more than $80 billion of ETH someone would have to acquire to attack the network and revert finalized blocks, which is more than the cost of attacking even the Bitcoin network by some estimates. The other defense mechanism that proof-of-stake has that proof-of-work doesn’t is slashing, which makes Ethereum antifragile. Vitalik explains: “Recovering from attacks is much easier in proof-of-stake than proof-of-work. For many kinds of attacks you do against [the Ethereum] network, we have this concept of automatic slashing. In order to revert a finalized block, you basically have to have a big portion of your validators sign two conflicting messages. This is something where once these messages are on the network, you can go and prove ‘these people did it.’ So we have this feature in the protocol where you basically take all these people who provably misbehaved and you burn their coins.” Vitalik also acknowledges the possibility of censoring attacks, where if 1/3rd of validators refuse to attest, the chain can’t finalize. But, as he explains, Ethereum has a contingency plan for this as well: “Everyone who got censored would create a minority chain, and the community would have to do a soft fork. The would have to say, ‘this chain is clearly attacking us and this one is not attacking us, so we’re going to join this chain.’ Then what happens is, on that new chain, the attackers also lose a lot of coins. The difference between proof-of-stake and proof-of-work is that in a proof-of-stake system, you can identify specific participants — and this isn’t a human going in and saying ‘I don’t like you’. It’s all automated.” One last benefit of proof-of-stake is that security scales with the value of the network. As Vitalik put it five years ago, it is really relative security, and not absolute security, that matters: “The security needs of a thing have to be proportional to the size of that thing, because as a thing gets bigger, its enemies become bigger and more well-motivated. If BTC were 100x as big as it is today, the value from destroying it would be 100x higher, and the kinds of actors that would want to care about destroying it would be much bigger and scarier. This is also why countries of all sizes have roughly similarly sized militaries as a percentage of GDP. Hence, cost of attack divided by market cap really is the correct statistic to measure, and in the long run issuance-free PoW really does look not that good." Source: Lex Fridman (Jun 2021)show more

Agreed. However, in terms of price, the value of staked coins can drop close to the cost of electricity and node operation, which is effectively 0 without meaningful economic activities on the chain. That is why some crypto OGs call is that Proof of Stake is Proof of Shit.

PoS attack needs 51% stake: ~2.5M ETH @ $3k = $7.5B buy-in. BTC PoW secures 20M BTC ($1.4T cap), 444k tx/24h, zero successful attacks ever. ETH: 5M staked, BlackRock ETF inflows $43M Day 1—centralizing validators. Vitalik tweaks nodes for a reason. PoW doesn't need tweaks. $BTC hashpower laughs at "security theater." -- HUGO LABS

"PoS doesn’t just make attacks harder, it makes them unaffordable to repeat, in PoW you keep your hardware, in PoS we burn your coins and move on."

Proof-of-Stake concentrates power in capital. The richest validators approve the blocks, earn the rewards, and gain even more control. That’s not decentralization. That’s financial oligarchy on-chain. True neutrality comes from open competition…not wealth concentration.

That makes no sense - what he's saying is that Ethereum is completely centralised and controlled by the top stakers, like a mafia.

The only benefit of POS (piece of sh!t) is that it gatekeeps the poors. I used to be able to mine roughly 0.03-0.05 ETH/week on my rig - now you need at least 32 ETH to even start your own validator... that's basically $70,000 - and you still only earn about 0.08/mo 🤡

ETH is like a Ferrari and BTC is the model A. You cant even compare the 2. Its unfair. People will eventually realize this.

Wrong Proof-of-stake is less secure, by orders of magnitude Proof-of-stake relies on a feature called social slashing, which is vulnerable to cancel culture & political decision making behind closed doors Here @drakefjustin explains social slashing 👇

ETH is in good hands

The fact ETH and ETH adjacent people still do this is so bearish eth its not even funny.

Whether true or not, Ethereum’s fatal flaw is that this guy has the power to mint as much as he wants.

PoS = accountability + proportional security; slashing makes attacks costly and reversible

“Need as much stake” is the clean theory. The messy reality is client monoculture + relay concentration. If 2-3 implementations dominate, security starts looking correlated, not decentralized.

I agreed

exactly why pos security matters for mainstream adoption... low-risk defi like insurance/payroll can't thrive on shaky foundations

So central banks can print money and buy half the network to control it? 🤡

Attacking PoS means attacking your own money 😄

Slashing penalties will be useful for future contexts where deploying many AI agents creates emergent systemic negative externalities - super cool that @ethereum already has them baked in (more here on aligning agents' incentives with penalty automation:

@makertronicYT les 3 premières lignes devraient suffire à t'agacer 😂

“The security needs of a thing have to be proportional to the size of that thing, because as a thing gets bigger, its enemies become bigger and more well-motivated." And this is why the ETH price matters a lot. Letting it slip down endangers the network.

@CsTominaga

PoS security is simple. If you attack the network, you light billions of dollars on fire.

Eth already had it's POS attack. It was called the DAO.

Vitalik clearly highlighted something the importance od PoS and that is, security in crypto isn’t just about energy spent, but about economic penalties for bad behavior.

Security that scales with participation is powerful. Economic alignment becomes the network’s strongest defense layer.

PoS is like a centralized banking system, while PoW rewards those who put in effort, and @VitalikButerin pure honesty, as always 😂

okay but what does this mean for my bags if someone actually tries to attack the network

Does this part mean it would be possible for a human to do it, they just don't? [The difference between proof-of-stake and proof-of-work is that in a proof-of-stake system, you can identify specific participants — and this isn’t a human going in and saying ‘I don’t like you’. It’s all automated.”]

🔥🔥🔥😱🔥🔥🔥

Validator concentration remains a concern, distribution still matters for resilience

$80B to attack the network. That's why we built a real home sale on it. @ahome_token

@grok what is more secure, proof of work or proof of stake? Which Blockchain is the most secure of all block chains?

It’s called Proof of Scam asshole

Vitalik makes a compelling case. PoS isn't just about energy; it’s about economic finality and slashing risks. The $80B+ barrier makes Ethereum one of the most resilient networks in history.