Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#131

Post by jayd16 » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

Vanclief wrote: post #86

focom wrote: post #2

So with PoS, we recreate a system where a few rich pool have decision over the network. Can someone enlighten me on how this is different from the current fiat system?

It is a system where you have skin in the game, the more skin in the game you have, the more power you have. Think it like a democracy where you are voting with your wallet. The main difference with the fiat world is that with Ethereum you have transparency, and there is no corruption. You can't just bribe a politician to enact a rule you want. Everything that happens in the network is recorded permanently, and rules…

That's called a plutocracy not a democracy.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#132

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

caballeto wrote: post #65

michael_vo wrote: post #32

What are the attack vectors on PoS. With PoW you need 51% of the mining power to take over the system, which is very labor intensive to set up. With PoS could you take over all coins by buying 51% of the existing coins? So if the market cap of ETH is 200BB spend 100BB to double your money?

Once the attack goal is achieved the Ethereum value will go to zero. It does not make sense to do this by buying coins, but potentially hackers could get control of such big amount of coins by hacking exchanges, thus bringing whole system to collapse. Similar scenario as in Mr. Robot.

ETC has been 51% attacked 4 times and it's still the 17th largest cryptocurrency.

https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-51-attacks-etc

Furthermore it's become pretty clear from the many attacks on value tokens in Etherum & BSC DeFi that the attacker can move faster that the market and drain any liquidity pools/exchanges that have open offers into something that isn't going to collapse.

The theory early on was that the coin cratering b/c of an attack would be an extra deterrent, but the price of coins that have been successfully 51% attacked says otherwise.

Here's another cryptocurrency in the top 100 that has suffered many 51% attacks.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-gold-blockchain-hit-b...

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#133

Post by DCKing » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

Good. Very good.

This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies.

Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to literally burn up energy [1] to make financial products. Especially because proof-of-work simply just isn't necessary to have cryptocurrency.

Banning their trade won't categorically stop PoW cryptocurrencies. What it should do is completely tank their value and get the world to move on to less destructive coins.

I don't think there's any precedent for banning classes of financial products for environmental reasons, but it's time to create one.

[1]: In addition to environmental reasons, there's probably also economic ones. Mining burns through other scarce resources such as chip production capacity, although the true impact there is unclear.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#134

Post by tphyahoo2 » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #87

tphyahoo2 wrote: post #71

https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Proof-o... https://standardcrypto.wordpress.com/2021/03/31/the-censorsh... ETH is competing against USD, not against BTC. Bitcoin is competing against gold. Different races. different goals. Different risks.

> ETH is competing against USD, not against BTC. Bitcoin is competing against gold. If true, this means that every argument comparing BTC to fiat is bullshit. Given that most arguments I see in favor of BTC compare it to fiat, this doesn’t speak well to the understanding of those who hold it. Given that BTC’s value is predicated purely on the beliefs of those who hold it, a systematic misunderstanding like this sugge…

To be clear, bitcoin is of course also competing against USD.

But this is neither a fair nor an interesting competition.

Life span of fiat currencies is usually decades.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#135

Post by agumonkey » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

kemonocode wrote: post #43

For the people who criticize as to why they've taken so long in shifting to a PoS model: consensus takes time, so does developing and testing something that definitively shouldn't go wrong. Also, there's the inherent issue with Proof-of-Stake that Proof-of-Work doesn't have: the initial distribution of the coin has to be wide enough before it could feasibly self-maintain a PoS shift without being immediately vulnerab…

I wonder if it's already on on a testnet

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#136

Post by freeone3000 » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

znite wrote: post #85

roel_v wrote: post #75

Maybe this is a good time and place to ask - let's say I want to buy something using Ethereum. Is it correct that when I look at, say, https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_transaction_... , you have to pay USD 20 just as payment fees? I wrote off Bitcoin as a payment mechanism a long time ago because of this (although it seems BTC tx costs are now lower than ETH?), is this the direction tx costs for all cr…

Not sure how it all works, but I assume it's broken down for a purchase on something like Coinbase card - eg. they bundle a load of card transactions into a ETH to fiat conversion for Visa https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/trading-and-funding/ot...

An entire month's worth, in fact! In practical terms, you pay for things in fiat and then cryptocurrency is sold to cover your credit card bill.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#137

Post by dboat » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

jerrycruncher wrote: post #70

kemonocode wrote: post #43

For the people who criticize as to why they've taken so long in shifting to a PoS model: consensus takes time, so does developing and testing something that definitively shouldn't go wrong. Also, there's the inherent issue with Proof-of-Stake that Proof-of-Work doesn't have: the initial distribution of the coin has to be wide enough before it could feasibly self-maintain a PoS shift without being immediately vulnerab…

Consensus may take time, but when you're pouring gas onto a fire, arguing that you need to dump out most of the can before you can be sure you know what you're doing isn't a defensible position.

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#138

Post by kipchak » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

michael_vo wrote: post #32

What are the attack vectors on PoS. With PoW you need 51% of the mining power to take over the system, which is very labor intensive to set up. With PoS could you take over all coins by buying 51% of the existing coins? So if the market cap of ETH is 200BB spend 100BB to double your money?

The market cap will also increase as you buy loads of coins. For example if I went on coinbase pro, there are people willing to sell up to 50,000 ETH at a maximum price of $6,000, or a total cost of $220,000 million. Of course Coinbase isn't the only market, but if it was and I bought that 220,000 million dollars of ETH the market cap would now be around 700B, at least temporarily.

My guess would be at some point people would realize a takeover was occurring and panic, but it seems like a 51% buyout would require an ungodly amount of money and time.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#139

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

eventreduce1 wrote: post #38

michael_vo wrote: post #32

What are the attack vectors on PoS. With PoW you need 51% of the mining power to take over the system, which is very labor intensive to set up. With PoS could you take over all coins by buying 51% of the existing coins? So if the market cap of ETH is 200BB spend 100BB to double your money?

Yes and no. If you spend 100BB to buy 51% and then take over the network, eth will have zero value and you loosed 100BB.

There have been multiple examples of 51% attacks happening and the cryptocurrency it happened to not going to zero.

Etherum classic and Bitcoin gold come to mind. They are both in the top 100 still, and both have been 51% attack multiple times.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#140

Post by shawnz » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #6

sergioisidoro wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current system is no different, as the hash power is related to how many computers you can afford to buy. This doesn't fix the problem but it does fix the environmental impact.

The difference is that with PoW you constantly have to do "stuff" (ie. buying equipment, running datacenters) or get left behind. PoS on the other hand you can just sit on your ass and wait for the $$$ to roll in.

In PoS, you are still permanently burning the time value of the money you have staked. That's unrecoverable just like the electricity spent in PoW is unrecoverable.