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Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

launchpad.ethereum.org

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Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#81

Post by globular-toast »

newyankee wrote: post #3
drcode wrote: post #2

TLDR; The transition from Eth1->Eth2 requires the following steps: 1. Network operators (stakers) deposit at least 524,288 ETH in a special contract 2. The early Eth2 blockchain (the "beacon chain") launches Dec 1st 3. The Eth1 blockchain will be merged into Eth2 (details TBD) 4. Other features will be added to make Eth2 fully functional (sharding being the biggest feature) Just a few minutes ago, step 1 has been acc…

Does this mean no more mining and waste of electricity ?

Probably not. Proof of work seems to be essential for a successful currency. Go visit the City of London or the Financial District of Manhattan to check out the proof of work of the current financial industry. Millions of people busying around and spending time in huge buildings that are---quite evidently now during the pandemic---completely unnecessary.

If you really want to stop waste then try to convince people to stop worrying about whether others have more stuff than they do. John Lennon wrote a well-known song about this idea. You could try imagining it too. Unfortunately you've got billions of years of evolution against you, but good luck!

Alternatively, if you can figure out a way to do it without proof of work then you'll stop all of this waste while still appealing to our animalistic instincts.

But, then again, who are you to talk about waste anyway? What makes your life not a waste of energy? Don't you consume food every single day?

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#82

Post by beaner »

rglullis wrote: post #65
beaner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't forget that do not have enough to stake can pool their resources together. That's great! And makes a lot of sense. However, it still requires locking capital. Those who do not have a lot of money, spend a much higher percentage of their money, and therefore need it to be liquid. So though pooling may reduce the effect of inflationary rich-poor inequality increases, I don't think it would eliminate it.

> I don't think it would eliminate it. Well, duh . No system will ever be perfect and there will always be costs associated with BFT systems. The question is knowing how these systems compare with one another and what kind of trade-offs are there. It is impossible to dispute that the costs of keeping a PoS-based system is overall lower than the current state-of-the-art, yet you try to knock PoS while ignoring all the…

I'd like to continue engaging in good-faith conversation, not start exchanging barbs with undertones of acrimony.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#83

Post by rglullis »

beaner wrote: post #50
viraptor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say it's completely unlike. I don't think renting out some mining hardware for near-guaranteed return is any different in effort. It's about the same as putting money in an investment fund. PoW, PoS, and other investments practically end up with: until you withdraw the money you can invest your existing wealth to get returns, without real effort.

Proof-of-stake requires the majority of what is mined has to be sold on the open market. This redistributes mined coin to any user anywhere, rich or poor. If you mine and do not sell, you perpetually consume and fail in short order. Proof-of-stake doesn't require this natural, market-driven redistribution. It exchanges it for an inflationary process that further separates the rich and the poor. They're fundamentally…

You are completely ignoring second-order effects for these systems. You can quite easily turn resources obtained from a PoW system into a PoS financial system and have the worst of both worlds.

Do you want an example?

> If you mine and do not sell, you perpetually consume and fail in short order.

With ETH you can mine ETH, lock in a MakerDAO vault and pay your operations with very low-interest DAI and use that to finance all your operational costs.

As long as your profit from mining is higher than the interest from minting DAI (which is very easy to do), you can mine forever without ever giving up the original ETH. Your only limitation would be in how many people would be willing to buy all the DAI you will be minting.

This is no different than a PoS system, except that it still has to bear all the PoW costs and externalities.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#84

Post by rglullis »

beaner wrote: post #77
rglullis wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> conversion of energy into money. You are treating this is a some function of fundamental physics. It's not. We are only talking about "conversion of energy into money" because that is what the best current implementation of a BFT system is using. It's accidental. You are focused on the "Work" part of "Proof-of-Work", when what we care about for solving consensus in distributed part is the "Proof".

> We are only talking about "conversion of energy into money" because that is what the best current implementation of a BFT system is using. Yes, that's my point isn't it? I said "Bitcoin's proof of work is basically a conversion of energy directly into money." I did not say "all systems for ensuring the soundness of proofs in blockchains are a conversion of energy directly into money." What we care about is trust mi…

> What we care about is trust minimization

And the costs of achieving those.

> provides the best-yet incentives

At an ever-growing prohibitive cost.

> most equitable distribution of coin.

Hardly true when you have more than 50% of the hashing power coming from farms ran in China on subsidized power and not paying for externalities.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#85

Post by globular-toast »

emilsedgh wrote: post #6
seibelj wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually yes, but mining isn’t a “waste” of electricity any more than any electricity used for any essential service is. Isn’t all electricity effectively wasted if the same service can be offered for less electricity? Ethereum (and bitcoin) provide a service, and that service is protected using electricity.

If there were refrigerators that could work without electricity with no the same set of capabilities, then any refrigerator still using electricity would be considered wasteful.

If that happened then we'd just start using the electricity for something non-essential instead. Humanity is not interested in efficiency for the sake of reducing footprint. Humanity is only interested in more. If anything, fridges using more electricity means less electricity wasted (assuming refrigeration is essential and not a waste).

This pattern seems to be everywhere. Cheaper electricity: more electricity used. Bigger roads: more miles travelled. More efficient engines: bigger, more powerful cars. Plastic recycling: more plastic used. I challenge you to find any improvement in efficiency which has led to a reduced footprint.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#86

Post by beaner »

pa7x1 wrote: post #71
beaner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's how most businesses work. You start with a capital investment, often times through a loan, and through smart management, make a profit on the margin , that you can choose to reinvest to stay competitive. Proof-of-stake is completely unlike this. People who "have" are not required to exchange any effort to reap new reward. They retain purchasing power while the "have-nots" lose purchasing power. I dunno if…

This is a very poor analysis. What matters for the "haves" and "have nots", to keep using your terminology, are the entry costs. That's what separates the ability to become a "have" or "have not". Entry costs in PoS are significantly lower; you just need a consumer-grade computer, broadband and the electricity to power a consumer-grade computer (i.e. of the order of 100 W). In PoW, you need specialized equipment (ASI…

Thank you for the insight! I wasn't being dishonest. I was actually unaware that staking rewards were variable based on the amount staked, such that more ETH staked means fewer rewards per ETH staked. It makes sense, guess I just didn't think about it. I might have thoughts on it but I'd need to process first.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#87

Post by roenxi »

brazzy wrote: post #22
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…

> Proof-of-work incentivizes cheap & renewable energy investment. Cheap yes, renewable no. Complete non sequitur there. > 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. Absolute insanity straight out of postapocalyptic SF. "The ancients destroyed their civilization by funelling an ever increasing share of re…

There is genuine value in that, a similar operation has been performed using silver & gold for thousands of years. Gold is an almost exactly the same in that respect - energy gets burned on the owners behalf, and they can prove it happened.

The difference that I'm keeping an interested eye on is even if gold mining ceases, the energy required to produce a new gram of gold doesn't really change so a gram of gold still proves as much as it ever did. It isn't so clear yet that Bitcoin proves anything without an active mining network.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#88

Post by ikken »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #54

When I go through the steps to see what needs to be done to be a validator it says "terms of use are entered into by and between you and the Ethereum Foundation". So it's a centralized joke?

You're referring to the Terms of the website, not "Ethereum 2.0". It's like agreeing to the Terms of Use of a Bitcoin wallet. It doesn't mean that Bitcoin is a "centralized joke".

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#89

Post by pa7x1 »

beaner wrote: post #86
pa7x1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very poor analysis. What matters for the "haves" and "have nots", to keep using your terminology, are the entry costs. That's what separates the ability to become a "have" or "have not". Entry costs in PoS are significantly lower; you just need a consumer-grade computer, broadband and the electricity to power a consumer-grade computer (i.e. of the order of 100 W). In PoW, you need specialized equipment (ASI…

Thank you for the insight! I wasn't being dishonest. I was actually unaware that staking rewards were variable based on the amount staked, such that more ETH staked means fewer rewards per ETH staked. It makes sense, guess I just didn't think about it. I might have thoughts on it but I'd need to process first.

My apologies if I came in too hard.

You can find here a graph showing the staking rewards vs total staked ETH.

https://i.redd.it/ml5qngtlsbx51.jpg

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#90

Post by rcxdude »

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…

Yes, let's revolutionise the financial system by making sure it takes up 95% of our energy use! That's only 5 orders of magnitude more than currently. I don't think there's actually enough energy on the planet for even renewables to make that work, not without seriously disrupting the global ecosystem even worse than global warming already is.
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