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Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

launchpad.ethereum.org

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Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#31

Post by rglullis »

olodus wrote: post #17

I haven't been keeping up with the Eth / PoS development, do we have any preliminary numbers on how much energy this switch is hoped to save? Same goes with sharing, how much is it argued this will speed up the transaction process?

Validators will need to run a computer with reasonably modern specs (at least 1TB SSD, 8-16GB RAM, multiple cores) in order to collect fees and not have their funds slashed. IIRC you need to have at least 70% uptime to not lose any funds, and to be a good investment you need 99%+ uptime.

If you consider that modern systems with the required specs can run on 10W, you should get ~90kWh in a year.

Transaction-speed wise, there is a lot of talk about 100000+ TPS, but the general consensus seem to be that this will only be achieved with extra L2 support and that a more realistic number for "pure on-chain" throughput is in the high-hundreds / low thousands.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#32

Post by dane-pgp »

tikej wrote: post #10
beaner wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to riff on this idea, despite inevitable pushback: Bitcoin's proof-of-work is basically a conversion of energy directly into money. This pushes competition towards cheaper and cheaper sources of energy. First it's finding jurisdictions that subsidize it, then it's creating your own cheaper energy sources. Proof-of-work incentivizes cheap & renewable energy investment. The penultimate phase is custom off-grid min…

Cool, except so-called renewable energy sources still built using non-renewable materials. There also physical limits to efficiency of energy transformation and slightly less heat loss per unit of energy with much more energy production is not exactly what climate needs right now.

"The estimated calculations presented in this work prove that the total power produced by us was 0.0414% in 2000 and 0.0577% in 2017 of the global solar power reaching the Earth’s surface"[0].

So even if Bitcoin mining were to cause global electricity production to increase by an order of magnitude, it would still be a rounding error compared to the amount of global warming caused by the Sun directly.

Thinking about it thermodynamically, though, in a future where Bitcoin mining uses only excess solar and wind energy, it wouldn't be adding any heat to the planet because that energy would have become heat anyway.

[0] https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/16/3069/pdf

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#33

Post by mathnmusic »

beaner wrote: post #7
newyankee wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean no more mining and waste of electricity ?

Just to riff on this idea, despite inevitable pushback: Bitcoin's proof-of-work is basically a conversion of energy directly into money. This pushes competition towards cheaper and cheaper sources of energy. First it's finding jurisdictions that subsidize it, then it's creating your own cheaper energy sources. Proof-of-work incentivizes cheap & renewable energy investment. The penultimate phase is custom off-grid min…

> Proof-of-work incentivizes cheap & renewable energy investment.

Energy will become cheap even for malicious actors, so bitcoin hash difficulty will have to go up in order to keep it costly for them to fake transactions. Which means energy usage goes up too. There's no way to avoid "work" in a proof-of-work scheme.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#34

Post by stouset »

beaner wrote: post #11
mayank wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The endgame is that all energy companies will primarily be Bitcoin mining companies, feeding their excess renewable energy into the grid to power homes, etc. Or you could just skip the Bitcoin part...

I guess you could. But the presence of Bitcoin and proof-of-work actually speeds up the competition in the renewable energy space by making it more profitable than it otherwise would be. That's a good thing, it gets us to the world we want more quickly.

Building more renewable energy capacity only to have that capacity immediately used to mine Bitcoin rather than replace some existing fossil fuel use is not progress.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#35

Post by beaner »

brazzy wrote: post #30
beaner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why this seems so dystopian to some. To me, it seems like a financial incentive for a decentralized, robust, renewable future.

There is nothing particularly robust or renewable, or "future" about it.

Necessarily renewable because it is the cheapest possible energy long-term; you only need to pay for upkeep, not for resources to convert. Maybe this depends on whether you think renewables will become cheaper than coal/gas, and maybe you're pessimistic about that. I'm not.

Robust because the phenomenon can begin detached from the energy grid by profit-seeking entities with capital to invest. Doesn't need permission, can be smaller, independent and eventually have something to offer back to the grid, but don't require it initially. Ability to bootstrap outside of regulation as a result. More nodes, more competition, shared excess. Fewer singular points of failure, more redundant, less fragile.

"Future," because that's a great vision for the future.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#36

Post by dvh »

dane-pgp wrote: post #24
adrianN wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many existing processes that basically turn energy into money. It's called energy intensive industry. So far instead of pushing for renewables, companies making their money this way were a major hindrance in clean energy investments.

I'm not sure which energy intensive industries you're thinking of, but bitcoin mining has the potential advantage that it can be turned on and off at a moment's notice, and doesn't require constant human supervision. That's not true of a lot of industrial processes.

Aluminium smelting.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#37

Post by diang »

rglullis wrote: post #31
olodus wrote: post #17

I haven't been keeping up with the Eth / PoS development, do we have any preliminary numbers on how much energy this switch is hoped to save? Same goes with sharing, how much is it argued this will speed up the transaction process?

Validators will need to run a computer with reasonably modern specs (at least 1TB SSD, 8-16GB RAM, multiple cores) in order to collect fees and not have their funds slashed. IIRC you need to have at least 70% uptime to not lose any funds, and to be a good investment you need 99%+ uptime. If you consider that modern systems with the required specs can run on 10W, you should get ~90kWh in a year. Transaction-speed wise…

Competing with Bitcoin's TPS in the single digits, high-hundreds/low thousands is a big leap... but still not enough to replace the higher order global currencies. In order to gain the necessary L2 support, they'll have to establish dominance relative to bitcoin with an equally lacking TPS.

Seems like a "If they come, we will build it" problem.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#38

Post by beaner »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #28
beaner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're choosing to consider the case when the price is very high, but not when it's very low. The flip-side of that coin would be that energy not worth being put into mining, which would be sold at a loss to the grid, would instead be put into batteries and saved, to be sold when when market prices were high again. But I think by the time Bitcoin becomes so universal that all energy companies are mining companies, it…

Do you really think that Bitcoin, the first prototype of a decentralized currency, will be the primary electronic currency ever ? We've only just begun exploring the design space, and it's terribly arrogant to believe that we'll be stuck with this prototype even just 20 years down the line.

I don't think there's anything particularly arrogant about it. My ego doesn't depend on Bitcoin's success. You could say that expecting it to still be around then is naïvité, maybe. But of course, I still disagree.

Bitcoin's success has more to do with its monetary policy and hard-money aspects than with the way it consumes energy. Monetary policy isn't something we've seen any innovation with at all in the crypto space. Different coins have different inflation curves, but inflation curves exist in all currencies. They're not a new concept, they've just got specific variants.

But also, Bitcoin isn't static. It's still being developed. And I think its focus on slow stability and payments makes it more attractive, not less, in the long-term.

It's already been here 11 years, 20 is not so many more. I fully expect it to still be around then, and almost certainly in the top position in crypto, if not globally among all currencies.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#39

Post by mikkelam »

I honestly think eth2 will have an incredible effect. Think of all the developing countries or countries without proper financial infrastructure, even places where you do not trust your local currency. All these places will benefit hugely from a bootstrapped currency ready to be deployed for very little effort.

Launching an ecommerce will suddenly be much easier for a many more people.

I'm also very interested in seeing how governments will respond, the revolution WILL be coming whether they like it or not.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#40

Post by beaner »

viraptor wrote: post #26
beaner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're choosing to consider the case when the price is very high, but not when it's very low. The flip-side of that coin would be that energy not worth being put into mining, which would be sold at a loss to the grid, would instead be put into batteries and saved, to be sold when when market prices were high again. But I think by the time Bitcoin becomes so universal that all energy companies are mining companies, it…

Yes, I'm choosing the case where the price is too high, because most people rely on energy being available and that's why there's a number of laws (depending on the country) that protect from disconnection. In practical terms, I prefer my freezer not to stop working and spoil stored food rather than having universal world currency which fluctates less.

Then we shouldn't have an issue, since I explained how such a system would continue to provide in that case.
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