Justin Bons, founder and CIO of Amsterdam-based Cyber Capital, ignited a brand new spherical of the proof-of-work versus proof-of-stake debate on Wednesday, asserting that Solana’s “financial safety” now exceeds Bitcoin’s and trails solely Ethereum’s among the many largest networks. In a prolonged X publish on August 13, Bons revealed point-in-time calculations that, by his mannequin, put Ethereum first, Solana second and Bitcoin third on a “price to assault” foundation. “Truth cuts by means of all of the noise & the BS narratives, as financial safety could be measured objectively!” he wrote, including: “PoS is, in actual fact, far more safe than PoW, by a number of orders of magnitude.”
Solana Tops Bitcoin
Bons framed his evaluation round what he calls the annual “safety funds” required to compromise a community. For proof-of-work chains, he modeled the price of a 51% assault as a operate of miner revenues from issuance and costs; for proof-of-stake chains, he handled the assault price as a operate of market capitalization, charges and inflation, adjusted by the share of tokens staked and a 33% assault threshold.
In his snapshot, Bitcoin’s annual financial safety got here out to roughly $9.7 billion—“(0.4%)” of its market cap by his ratio—versus $24.1 billion for Solana “(23%)” and $52.2 billion for Ethereum “(10%).” He posted his working in-line: “For PoW, the maths is the yearly safety funds, inflation + charges divided by the assault threshold (51%). For PoS, the maths is the market capitalization + charges + inflation divided by the staking participation price & then divided once more by the assault threshold (33%).”
Beyond the relative rankings, Bons argued the ratio of “safety to market capitalization” is the vital lens as a result of “the larger the bounty, the higher an attacker could be prepared to spend.” In that framing, he contends, proof-of-stake advantages disproportionately from rising market worth as a result of assault prices scale with capitalization, whereas proof-of-work depends on an externalized and fluctuating spend on {hardware} and electrical energy mirrored in miner income.
“This additionally clearly exposes PoW as an inferior know-how from a safety perspective,” he wrote, claiming that “even with a lot decrease market capitalization, ETH & SOL beat BTC’s safety proper now, opposite to ‘fashionable perception’.”
The CIO additionally assigned zero “financial safety” to networks he describes as permissioned or “Proof of Authority,” explicitly naming XRP, BNB and HBAR. “They are primarily based on a distinct sort of consensus algorithm, PoA … which, in contrast to PoW & PoS, don’t depend on financial safety!” he wrote. That stance reprises prior critiques he has product of XRP’s governance and validator mannequin.
Bons’ thread drew fast pushback and requests for clarification. One commenter requested why, if “PoS gives larger safety at decrease financial drain,” the market’s dominant narrative nonetheless treats Bitcoin because the most secure asset. Bons replied: “Spot on! The majority of the market is ‘flawed,’ a minimum of in relationship to reality … This will shift as we change into extra educated on crypto.”
In a separate alternate, he predicted Bitcoin’s relative safety would maintain eroding “till the community comes below assault,” until charge income or utility adjustments the trajectory.
The Bitcoin Security Budget Debate
The broader debate round Bitcoin’s “safety funds” has intensified this 12 months as issuance fell once more after the April 2024 halving. In May, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake warned that Bitcoin’s charge market stays too small to exchange declining subsidies, calling proof-of-work “a ticking time bomb” and noting charges had slipped to multi-year lows. His argument—disputed by many within the Bitcoin group—facilities on the concept that persistently low charges indicate a shrinking funds to discourage 51% assaults over the very long run.
Still, Bons’ particular methodology is way from settled science. BitMEX Research, in a 2024 examination of “financial price to assault” throughout consensus fashions, cautioned that “like for like” comparisons slim the hole significantly, concluding that when assumptions are standardized “the values are extra related than many count on, with staking techniques solely barely costlier to assault.”
Critics additionally object to treating market capitalization as spendable assault capital, arguing that purchasing a controlling stake would push costs up and that liquidity, borrowability and governance responses complicate any static mannequin. “Economic safety” formulation that “plug market cap” immediately have been known as overly simplistic in replies to Bons’ thread.
Bons is a long-time proof-of-stake advocate whose agency describes itself as “Europe’s oldest cryptocurrency fund,” based in 2016 and primarily based in Amsterdam, and his posts routinely problem Bitcoin orthodoxy.
His newest claims—putting Solana forward of Bitcoin on safety—will possible gasoline renewed scrutiny of what, exactly, ought to rely as an “assault price” in heterogeneous techniques and the way dynamic countermeasures, from slashing and social restoration to shopper variety and charge market design, issue into any defensible rating. The solely consensus, for now, is that the query of safety—and how you can measure it—stays as contested as ever.
At press time, the Solana token traded at $201.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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