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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

#521

Post by imtringued »

d0gbread wrote: post #390
from wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always perplexed me too. There's a nice Buffett quote on this ( https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2011ltr.pdf ): "Today the world’s gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce – gold’s price as I write this – its value would be $9.6 tri…

Share this quote with someone in Venezuela with a straight face. Or the countless unbanked that have access to a divisible digital gold but not stocks, bonds, gold, or enough to direct invest.

I have read about too many hyperinflation stories that I forgot the specifics of Venezuela but the vast, vast majority of them are caused by food shortages which themselves are caused by government repossession of productive assets. The problem is that the government is stealing your land, your company and your gold. The problem isn't that money is getting less valuable, it's that there is nothing to spend it on.

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

#522

Post by imtringued »

seibelj wrote: post #125
_7fvc wrote: post #118

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and cryptocurrency spawn a generation of people who worship Austrian economics. This ETH upgrade is making ETH even more deflationary. People are obsessed with price and want to pump the numbers. These wars are not doing anything to advance adoption and bring freedom to people. Crypto builders are pumping the coins under the banners of freedom and decentralization. The problem with crypto is volati…

What does “worship” mean? I am a believer of the Austrian theory of economics. Are Keynesian / Monetarists also “worshippers” of a theory? Modern economics is not that old. I fundamentally believe printing as much money as we are across the rich world is going to lead to disaster, just as it has time and again in the developing world (see Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Brazil, etc.). If anything, Austrian economics…

>I fundamentally believe printing as much money as we are across the rich world is going to lead to disaster, just as it has time and again in the developing world (see Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Brazil, etc.).

When will the US government repossess farms and corporations? Once that happens I can guarantee that hyperinflation is going to happen. Another way is to just bomb the USA's means of production.

Those are the primary ways hyperinflation happens. By destroying the ability to exchange currency for products and services the perceived value of the currency becomes worthless. It doesn't even take an increased money supply for it to happen, it merely accelerates hyperinflation by adding additional money into an economy where the velocity of money is at its peak.

>If anything, Austrian economics is a reversion to the standard theory of economics for thousands of years. The “innovation” of Keynesian economics is one of the greatest evils ever perpetuated on society. But again - what do I know - I don’t have a PhD from an Ivy. I just protect my assets in a zero-interest world by avoiding government threat.

According to Keynesian economics we would have to print significantly less money. Whatever is happening right now is neither Keynesian economics nor MMT. It's a pump and dump for rich people.

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

#523

Post by imtringued »

_7fvc wrote: post #437
seibelj wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does “worship” mean? I am a believer of the Austrian theory of economics. Are Keynesian / Monetarists also “worshippers” of a theory? Modern economics is not that old. I fundamentally believe printing as much money as we are across the rich world is going to lead to disaster, just as it has time and again in the developing world (see Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Brazil, etc.). If anything, Austrian economics…

Keynesians think money grows on tree. It is true in some senses. Apples grow on tree. At the extreme, they think money is imaginary. They can print as much as they want. Austrians think money grows from hard money. It is also true in some senses. Money is made from money. It's circular and Ponzi-like. It requires you to believe in what hard money is. Austrian thinking leads to some cult-like behaviors. At the extreme…

Keynesians believe that stimulating the right part of the economy will increase the speedup of recovery. When you fail to stimulate the right part of the economy that's not Keynesian economics. Most proponents of Keynesian politics are in favor of fiscal stimulus. Namely infrastructure investments and jobs programs. Where do you see this happening?

Meanwhile Austrian economics is just some meme that is anti Keynesian and doesn't even attempt to solve any problem other than get rid of Keynesian economics. This is especially telling when they are extra loud when no Keynesian economics are being done so they feel justified in their criticism.

What we have right now is closer to trickle down economics. Douse the rich in money with the hope that some drops reach the poor.

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

#524

Post by AzzieElbab »

chrisco255 wrote: post #213
AzzieElbab wrote: post #16

I actually like all things crypto, but why does this tech have to suck so much

Because this tech is not just about tech, but also game theory, consensus and economic incentives to align completely disconnected parties with completely different motives in a trustless manner.

I think economic incentives are misaligned when it comes to providing a valuable open platform. Everything is way too expensive on blockchain.

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

#525

Post by fock »

herbst wrote: post #516
fock wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you mind telling me, how you cash out USD without giving anyone your name :)?

Ahh what i ment is using tether or usdb instead of usd. Which is instant and decentralized and widely accepted crypto bound to the usd value. It just saves you from up and downs, its still crypto

Well, so you are still trading with people believing in the value of these systems (which are <95% of businesses), which is a very specific distinction to cashing out money with which you can pay e.g. your taxes.

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

#526

Post by jtsiskin »

AaronFriel wrote: post #173
jtsiskin wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true, those are two different things. Requiring 100x the total number of possible stakers is 100x lower. Versus if the price increases 100x, that means the same number of possible stakers is possible, but it’s now 100x more expensive to do a 51% (or whatever the PoS % needed is) attack.

The ethereum protocol can choose whatever stake amount (in equivalent USD when they decide the bond to stake) they want. The currency being deflationary or not is irrelevant - the stake could be adjusted. The currency going up in down in value relative to ETH could be adjusted. They could choose to require one gwei, one ETH, or one million ETH. That's your protection. The exchange rate from USD to ETH is irrelevant.

No, the exchange rate is extremely relevant. Let’s say we need 2/3 of all ETH in order to launch an attack. If ETH is 1 penny, this is much easier for us to acquire than if ETH is $100.

I think you may be misunderstanding staking. Your vote is proportional to how much ETH you stake, it seems like you are picturing everyone gets 1 vote. The only reason for the minimum stake amount is for performance reasons

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

#527

Post by herbst »

fock wrote: post #525
herbst wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh what i ment is using tether or usdb instead of usd. Which is instant and decentralized and widely accepted crypto bound to the usd value. It just saves you from up and downs, its still crypto

Well, so you are still trading with people believing in the value of these systems (which are <95% of businesses), which is a very specific distinction to cashing out money with which you can pay e.g. your taxes.

Cashing out is no issue either, just not without a name. However even that exists trough localbitcoins.

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

#528

Post by SubiculumCode »

hanniabu wrote: post #485
SubiculumCode wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would call L2 coins rent seekers. Reducing gas,increasing thruput among other things

Exactly, it's a money grab. Optimism doesn't have a coin and have no plans to create one. ETH is be the only way to pay for gas on their rollup just as is the case on L1.

sorry, typo. I don't view matic as rent seekers. The opposite of your view.

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

#529

Post by inter_netuser »

__tmk__ wrote: post #425
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the difficulty bomb will kill off eth1 Wouldn’t it make sense for miners to switch to a new Ethereum chain without the bomb?

Yes, miners can turn off the bomb, but that requires that they coordinate and determine a schedule for the hardfork that turns off the bomb (you need a hardfork to turn it off). This scenario is definitely possible, but it requires a little more work than "one guy keeps running an old eth1 node".

isn't it trivial to patch?

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

#530

Post by crazydoggers »

vvillena wrote: post #517
morelisp wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means there's as many "legitimate" chains as there are ways to define a majority, and as blockchain entries increasingly denote external assets things are about to get very messy. In the end disagreements will probably be adjudicated by traditional governments based on regular contract law (in the best cases) or individual physical force (in the not-exactly-so-formal ones), and after a few instances of that may…

This is mostly true, but I'd argue legitimacy is harder to achieve than it seems, because of network effects. That said, the current NFT craze is idiotic. As you point out, there's lots of people trying to try external value to a blockchain using what is more or less nothing more than a "super pinky promise". And that's supremely stupid. Today's valuable blockchains have value by themselves. Linking blockchains to ex…

So here’s a legitimate question because I haven’t seen it asked before. Whats the value of a paper “certificate of authenticity” at the moment. My understanding is that with art if you can tie it to the original issuer, then it has value. And indeed I know there is some fraud law around forging such things. So NFTs seem fairly well suited to provide hard to forge art provenance with minimal effort.

They also seem well suited for being able to transfer ownership of physical goods and also transfer things like warranties. With an NFT tied to a serial number, you could ensure only one owner with that serial numbers item can claim warranty coverage, ensure resellers don’t try and pass off something used as new, ensure stolen goods can be tracked as such, etc.

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