Individual Pirate
2 min readSep 3, 2021

Filling up the blocks — a dilemma for proof of stake platforms

Is there “work” to do also in Proof of Stake networks?
Is there “work” to do also in Proof of Stake networks?

I don’t know how many times I’ve read about PoW (Proof of Work — BTC and ETH) systems use of huge energy and how PoS (Proof of Stake) systems solves this problem and is able to add the much necessary capacity of huge transaction loads.

But so far PoS systems haven’t had much success even though it has all the advantages and is much more useful due to cost efficiency. So what’s holding it back? I mostly see two reasons that nobody ever talks about.

  1. The major thing holding it back is that centralized exchanges keep on using Ethereum even though there has been better alternatives around for ages. Likely so that they can boost and protect their already large ETH holdings.
  2. With so many alternatives to choose from, it’s tough to agree on which one to go with. Only recently there seems to be some level of adoption for alternative networks (BSC, Polygon and Fantom have been pretty successful here). And this probably only happened because at times ETH tx costs have gone so crazy it’s beyond any form of reason for anyone.

So, once we face the fact that the most powerful crypto forces are somewhat unwilling to see a cheap to use network be widely adopted it becomes apparent that many networks will be largely unused well below their capacities. Ironically there’s probably even an inverse relationship between a networks capacity and how much it’s actually used.

This is one of the reasons I have created the FREEMOON faucet, to see if there's a way to fight this trend by giving direct value to transacting on a Proof of Stake network. I’ve done it on Fusion, because this is where I see all the great things coming from and starting out although many are doing their best to ignore it.

The idea here is that you can get 1 FREE, by performing a tx and therefore 1 tx is always worth 1 FREE. Those who want a lot of FREE can just transact more. Thus there is value in using the capacity of the network. In fact use as much of it as you can until the cost starts to go up and it may not be worth it any more.

If you will this becomes the PoW of a PoS system that makes sure it’s actually used. Always.

Some might consider it a way to insentivise spam — but it’s really not — it’s just making sure what isn’t already used to get used, and I would actually encourage other PoS or PoA systems to copy the idea so that they too are starting to use their capacity.

Want to try it out have a look at freemoonfaucet.xyz

Individual Pirate

IndividualPirate became interested in the Fusion Blockchain around the time it launched mainnet. Deeply interested in governance and liquidity. fusionite.info