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Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

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Re: Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

#21

Post by jaimehrubiks »

Regardless of the current issues with the updates, gas prices, different opinions on the community, devs vs miners vs users...

Am I the only one who thinks people underestimate Ethereum and its EVM invention? In 2013 this guy (who I think is a visionary) wrote a document with a proposal that led to the creation of a world-wide turing-complete distributed computer. And still, people are just starting to realize its potential. This month a layer-2 solution called optimism will launch a virtual machine called OVM (optimism vm) on top of ethereum smart contracts that can solve most of the current scalability issues (and there are other solutions being tested in parallel: zkrollups...). We are also starting to realize the potential of Dex and Defi (distributed exchanges and finance), DAOs (distributed organizations), NFT (non-fungible tokens) and a bunch of things more that 7 years after are appearing out of thin air. So even if Ethereum wasn't updated at all (although, we probably all agree that PoW is not environmental friendly and should be replaced with a better alternative: PoS) it could still thrive in the long term thanks to its most fundamental design choices (turing-complete...). I am truly amazed by this technology and Vitalik. I wish I knew a little bit more of the underlying fundamentals. What do you think?

Re: Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

#22

Post by georgyo »

typest wrote: post #12

I'm not an expert, but if 51% of the existing hashpower doesn't want a change, it sounds less a 51% attack and more like miners voting against something that isn't in their interest. The whole point of blockchains is that the incentives are supposed to be aligned between miners and users. If that isn't the case here, it sounds like a problem.

Crypto miners and and crypto users are aligned in the same way banks and customers are aligned.

Re: Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

#23

Post by chizhik-pyzhik »

typest wrote: post #12

I'm not an expert, but if 51% of the existing hashpower doesn't want a change, it sounds less a 51% attack and more like miners voting against something that isn't in their interest. The whole point of blockchains is that the incentives are supposed to be aligned between miners and users. If that isn't the case here, it sounds like a problem.

It is a problem. That's a big reason for moving from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake- to more directly make the _holders_ of Ethereum in charge of the chain.

It's a difficult thing to do, though. Hashpower based mining is easier to get going. Proof of stake has issues like the nothing-at-stake problem, where theoretically you could stake-mine on multiple chains: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2402/what-exact...

Re: Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

#24

Post by Sargos »

moralestapia wrote: post #6

Not trying to be snarky but Vitalik itself is ETH's 51% attack ... What's the point of decentralized cryptocurrency when it falls down on the hands of one person.

Vitalik is very popular because he is heavily respected. Even with that said he cannot get people to make a controversial change as the overall Ethereum community, not just the miners and core devs, decides whether a new proposal is safe enough.

Re: Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

#26

Post by numbsafari »

jaimehrubiks wrote: post #21

Regardless of the current issues with the updates, gas prices, different opinions on the community, devs vs miners vs users... Am I the only one who thinks people underestimate Ethereum and its EVM invention? In 2013 this guy (who I think is a visionary) wrote a document with a proposal that led to the creation of a world-wide turing-complete distributed computer. And still, people are just starting to realize its po…

Never underestimate the efficiency with which money launderers and organized crime are able to innovate and adapt.

Re: Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

#28

Post by chizhik-pyzhik »

moralestapia wrote: post #6

Not trying to be snarky but Vitalik itself is ETH's 51% attack ... What's the point of decentralized cryptocurrency when it falls down on the hands of one person.

It's not really in the hands of one person, though. If the community diverges, two chains will be created, and the one will the most value will be considered the 'real' chain.

This already happened once, and the less-popular chain became known as 'Ethereum Classic.' It's still around.

Re: Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

#29

Post by tom_mellior »

typest wrote: post #12

I'm not an expert, but if 51% of the existing hashpower doesn't want a change, it sounds less a 51% attack and more like miners voting against something that isn't in their interest. The whole point of blockchains is that the incentives are supposed to be aligned between miners and users. If that isn't the case here, it sounds like a problem.

> it sounds less a 51% attack and more like miners voting against something that isn't in their interest

We also used to call this situation a potential "fork" (as in, the thing with two prongs) before the word "fork" was somehow redefined to mean "protocol update everyone agrees on, with a linear history without any prongs".

Re: Vitalik escalates ETH 2.0 merge as miners plan a 51% attack

#30

Post by Sargos »

jaimehrubiks wrote: post #21

Regardless of the current issues with the updates, gas prices, different opinions on the community, devs vs miners vs users... Am I the only one who thinks people underestimate Ethereum and its EVM invention? In 2013 this guy (who I think is a visionary) wrote a document with a proposal that led to the creation of a world-wide turing-complete distributed computer. And still, people are just starting to realize its po…

It really is amazing when you understand the capabilities and speed of iterations of the growing use cases of this new shared trust machine. DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, so many different ecosystems currently being built cooperatively by hundreds of different companies and project teams. It's almost a force of nature.
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