There are so many reasons to implement a staking consensus model, and we considered this carefully when designing the Qtum architecture. Our lead developer Jordan Earls created a new proof-of-work algorithm in the past, so we spent some time discussing if this was the path we wanted to take. Should a network offer ASIC resistance to fend off centralization of the hashing power or not?
In all of our talks to businesses, maintaining the network through proof-of-work mining was a real concern. They asserted that efficiencies of blockchain technology shouldn’t be undermined by the inefficiencies of mining. Industry users don’t spend an excessive amount of time learning how proof-of-work systems operate. The more we delved into the topic with financial institutions, logistics providers, manufacturers, the argument for a proof-of-stake consensus model became more obvious.
The proof-of-stake consensus model makes a strong case for adoption in the Proof-of-Stake whitepaper. They list some potential threats that Sunny King’s original protocol could be vulnerable to, and offer more incentive for people to secure the network. The fact that this system rewards users who actively stake, opposed to those who just keep their coins on an exchange, or build up coin age to stake in bursts.
In short, the reason we adopted proof-of-stake is the fact that it’s an efficient and secure consensus algorithm.