A New Understanding of Ethereum Proof-of-Stake (PoS)

The shift in Ethereum's consensus mechanism from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) has always been a point I didn't quite understand. The earliest explanation I saw for this change came from Vitalik himself, essentially stating that the shift was for environmental protection and energy conservation... Back then, I thought this explanation wasn't entirely without merit, but it sounded more like a viewpoint catering to Western left-wing political correctness. Therefore, my attitude towards it was rather weak. However, recently, with the exponential growth in energy consumption from AI applications, coupled with my strengthened belief in Ethereum's "use value," I'm increasingly inclined to believe that this shift in Ethereum is correct and necessary. The energy consumption of artificial intelligence applications is growing exponentially, a fact that I believe most readers have already obtained substantial evidence of from various information channels. Among this evidence, what impressed me most was a recent interview with Microsoft's CEO: Microsoft currently has a large number of Nvidia GPUs sitting unusable in warehouses due to inadequate power supply. Furthermore, the increasing investment by major US tech giants in building their own small nuclear power plants to ensure energy supply for data centers is another undeniable driving force. Clearly, the bottleneck for AI applications is gradually shifting from GPUs to the energy sector. In addition, another interesting piece of information is emerging in the industry: More and more Bitcoin mining farms are transitioning to data center operations. I believe this business transformation shouldn't be viewed simply as a commercial phenomenon, but rather we should focus on a potential risk it hides: What would it mean if, at some point in the future (or perhaps it's already happening?), the revenue from Bitcoin mining couldn't keep up with the revenue from data center operations? It would mean that more and more miners would convert their mining farms into data centers, more and more miners would withdraw from maintaining the Bitcoin network, and the energy-dependent security barrier of Bitcoin would be eroded and weakened by artificial intelligence applications. Such a risk simply did not exist in Satoshi Nakamoto's time, because artificial intelligence was not as widely applied as it is now, nor did it possess the exponential growth potential it exhibits today. Of course, this risk is merely my current conjecture. I lack accurate data to compare the break-even points and business switching thresholds between mining and operating data centers, so I cannot definitively determine whether this risk exists or, if so, under what circumstances it might arise. However, I believe this risk can no longer be ignored. Furthermore, I believe that this risk will only increase as AI truly produces blockbuster applications like WeChat. Therefore, from the perspective of competition for limited energy resources, future AI applications are undoubtedly the biggest threat to POW mining. Consensus mechanisms capable of mitigating this threat include at least Proof-of-Stake (PoS). In my article two days ago, I listed "Blue Fox's" vision for the future of Ethereum, one of which was the ability to run nodes on simple, small devices—in fact, continuously lowering the hardware barrier and reducing energy consumption has always been Ethereum's focus. Now it seems that after transitioning to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), this approach is indeed very likely to mitigate the risks of energy competition between Ethereum and artificial intelligence. That's one point. Secondly, if we consider Ethereum from a broader perspective, since it's an application network, and its centered ecosystem will support on-chain transactions across the entire virtual world, theoretically, it should be as free from constraints from the physical world as possible. Energy limitations are a significant constraint from the physical world. Therefore, application protocols should try to avoid such limitations and move away from the real world as quickly as possible, becoming a solid foundation for a virtual world that relies as little as possible on energy. In short, whether it's due to circumstances or historical coincidence, I am increasingly in favor of Ethereum's transition from PoW to PoS.