Justin Bons, founder and CIO of Amsterdam-based Cyber Capital, ignited a new round of the proof-of-work versus proof-of-stake debate on Wednesday, asserting that Solana’s “economic security” now exceeds Bitcoin’s and trails only Ethereum’s among the largest networks. In a lengthy X post on August 13, Bons published point-in-time calculations that, by his model, put Ethereum first, Solana second and Bitcoin third on a “cost to attack” basis. “Truth cuts through all the noise & the BS narratives, as economic security can be measured objectively!” he wrote, adding: “PoS is, in fact, way more secure than PoW, by several orders of magnitude.”
Solana Tops Bitcoin
Bons framed his analysis around what he calls the annual “security budget” required to compromise a network. For proof-of-work chains, he modeled the cost of a 51% attack as a function of miner revenues from issuance and fees; for proof-of-stake chains, he treated the attack cost as a function of market capitalization, fees and inflation, adjusted by the share of tokens staked and a 33% attack threshold.
In his snapshot, Bitcoin’s annual economic security came 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 math is the yearly security budget, inflation + fees divided by the attack threshold (51%). For PoS, the math is the market capitalization + fees + inflation divided by the staking participation rate & then divided again by the attack threshold (33%).”
Beyond the relative rankings, Bons argued the ratio of “security to market capitalization” is the critical lens because “the bigger the bounty, the greater an attacker might be willing to spend.” In that framing, he contends, proof-of-stake benefits disproportionately from rising market value because attack costs scale with capitalization, whereas proof-of-work relies on an externalized and fluctuating spend on hardware and electricity reflected in miner revenue.
“This also clearly exposes PoW as an inferior technology from a security perspective,” he wrote, claiming that “even with much lower market capitalization, ETH & SOL beat BTC’s security right now, contrary to ‘popular belief’.”
The CIO also assigned zero “economic security” to networks he describes as permissioned or “Proof of Authority,” explicitly naming XRP, BNB and HBAR. “They are based on a different type of consensus algorithm, PoA … which, unlike PoW & PoS, do not rely on economic security!” he wrote. That stance reprises prior critiques he has made of XRP’s governance and validator model.
Bons’ thread drew immediate pushback and requests for clarification. One commenter asked why, if “PoS offers higher security at lower economic drain,” the market’s dominant narrative still treats Bitcoin as the safest asset. Bons replied: “Spot on! The majority of the market is ‘wrong,’ at least in relationship to truth … This will shift as we become more knowledgeable on crypto.”
In a separate exchange, he predicted Bitcoin’s relative security would keep eroding “until the network comes under attack,” unless fee revenue or utility changes the trajectory.
The Bitcoin Security Budget Debate
The broader debate around Bitcoin’s “security budget” has intensified this year as issuance fell again after the April 2024 halving. In May, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake warned that Bitcoin’s fee market remains too small to replace declining subsidies, calling proof-of-work “a ticking time bomb” and noting fees had slipped to multi-year lows. His argument—disputed by many in the Bitcoin community—centers on the idea that persistently low fees imply a shrinking budget to deter 51% attacks over the very long term.
Still, Bons’ specific methodology is far from settled science. BitMEX Research, in a 2024 examination of “economic cost to attack” across consensus models, cautioned that “like for like” comparisons narrow the gap considerably, concluding that when assumptions are standardized “the values are more similar than many expect, with staking systems only slightly more expensive to attack.”
Critics also object to treating market capitalization as spendable attack capital, arguing that buying a controlling stake would push prices up and that liquidity, borrowability and governance responses complicate any static model. “Economic security” formulas that “plug market cap” directly have been called overly simplistic in replies to Bons’ thread.
Bons is a long-time proof-of-stake advocate whose firm describes itself as “Europe’s oldest cryptocurrency fund,” founded in 2016 and based in Amsterdam, and his posts routinely challenge Bitcoin orthodoxy.
His latest claims—placing Solana ahead of Bitcoin on security—will likely fuel renewed scrutiny of what, precisely, should count as an “attack cost” in heterogeneous systems and how dynamic countermeasures, from slashing and social recovery to client diversity and fee market design, factor into any defensible ranking. The only consensus, for now, is that the question of security—and how to measure it—remains as contested as ever.
At press time, the Solana token traded at $201.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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