Basically in proof of work you have no idea who is participating at any moment. For example, the NSA could be running a blockchain in parallel and if they have more power create a fork. With proof of stake you are always aware of the participants in the system and a fork will only happen it the richest decide to fork. But why would they? In Bitcoin the most powerful miner might have no bitcoin and no incentive to keep the network safe.
At the same time, because of this, you don’t really get finality in Bitcoin. You get some assurance that your transaction is “confirmed” after a number of block but you’re never really sure. In proof of stake you can have consensus protocols with true finality, meaning that there’ll be no forks for sure if a threshold of participants remained honest.
At the same time, because of this, you don’t really get finality in Bitcoin. You get some assurance that your transaction is “confirmed” after a number of block but you’re never really sure. In proof of stake you can have consensus protocols with true finality, meaning that there’ll be no forks for sure if a threshold of participants remained honest.