Proof of Stake
A consensus mechanism where validators lock up the network's asset as a bond and are chosen to propose blocks in proportion to their stake.
- glossary
Proof of Stake (PoS) is a consensus mechanism in which validators lock up — stake — the network's native asset as an economic bond, and the protocol pseudo-randomly selects a validator to propose each new block, with other validators attesting to its validity. Dishonest behavior, such as proposing conflicting blocks, is punished by slashing, where the protocol destroys part of the offending validator's stake, giving validators a direct financial reason to follow the rules. Because no computational race is involved, PoS uses dramatically less energy than Proof of Work — Ethereum's 2022 switch to PoS, known as The Merge, cut its annualized electricity consumption by more than 99.988%. Ethereum, Cardano, and Polkadot are among the major chains securing their blockchain with PoS today, and PoS's lower transaction costs make it the more common foundation for minting and transferring on-chain assets, including tokenized domains.
Related keywords
- proof of stake
- pos
- staking
- validator
- slashing
- ethereum merge
Contributors
Namefi is a collective of engineers, designers, and operators who obsess over building tools that make managing your onchain domain names effortless.
Victor Zhou is a technology founder and standards editor focused on digital identity and trust. He founded Namefi, edits Ethereum Improvement Proposals, and previously led smart-contract architecture work at Google Labs.
His work sits at the intersection of naming, ownership, and the systems people use to establish identity online. That perspective makes him especially interested in the way names move between personal meaning, public recognition, and digital infrastructure.
For Namefi, Victor edits and writes about domains as durable digital identity: how names become ownable onchain assets, how tokenization changes custody and trust, and what naming can learn from the systems people use to establish identity online.