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Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

blog.ethereum.org

471–480 of 1001 posts

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

#471

Given that the main use of cryptocurrency is to increase fiat, and the main reason it increases fiat is based on the fundamentally poor design of guessing at random numbers with increasing difficulty, I predict that if Etherium becomes more efficient, the price will drop and interest in the coin will implode. I'm genuinely curious if I'm wrong, why I'll be wrong. No one cares about BCH, for example, even though it's…

I disagree. The initial investments in these big currencies were from people thinking that they could become a practical currency with real-world use due to its lack of regulation and name-attached government tracking. The bulk of fiat driving up the price since then has been somewhat blind speculation. None of these change with PoS; instead, holders are now rewarded for verifying transactions.

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

#472

IF it merges. That's a big "if" The ethereum Miners will rebel, "The Merge" will introduce catastrophic bugs, 0-days will appear. However, if it does successfully transfer to proof of stake, we're in for a long and exciting ride. Trust is a valuable commodity these days.

> The ethereum Miners will rebel

I don't think miners can do anything about this. In the worst case, they coordinate to stop mining on N-1 block. But this requires an amazing level of coordination, plus network can directly bribe/reward next block producer by paying to `coinbase` address (real `coinbase`, not Armstrong's coinbase).

> "The Merge" will introduce catastrophic bugs, 0-days will appear.

This is why you have testnets.

> we're in for a long and exciting ride.

Definitely!

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

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You people obsessed with reducing humanity’s energy usage are so tiresome. Anyone who actually cares about the well-being of humanity should be focused on increasing the amount of energy available. I want to climb the kardashev scale, not live in an eco-pod and eat bug burgers so I can scrounge every last joule.

We all want luxury, but at some point the changes that come from energy usage will be very unluxurious, no?

Yeah, maybe when we’ve exhausted the sun’s net output.

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

#474
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…

To directly answer your question: currently, ethereum has the same fundamental scaling problems that bitcoin has (limited global throughput) Bitcoin's attempted solution on this front is off-chain scaling via lightning network. As far as I can ascertain, this has had highly limited adoption. Eth's attempted solution on this front is sharding. I can't claim to be an expert in this, but from my understanding after proo…

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

#475
post #133

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 l…

You people obsessed with reducing humanity’s energy usage are so tiresome. Anyone who actually cares about the well-being of humanity should be focused on increasing the amount of energy available. I want to climb the kardashev scale, not live in an eco-pod and eat bug burgers so I can scrounge every last joule.

Bingo! The more energy a system has available the greater capability it has. For example, if a mining community is able to generate cheap excess power it opens up possibility for local smelting and foundry industries.

I think of each community as a game of Civilization. As you progress you unlock higher rungs of the tech ladder. Exporting your raw materials to later import finished products made from them is a waste of resources and stagnates the local industries at the raw material stage.

What industries could be developed in your community if the power was available?

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

#476
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've be lurking heavily in the crypto-mining communities for a few weeks now. Most are saying they'll just "move to a new coin" which is basically all they CAN do, unless they cash out early and sell their hardware. Nvidia is releasing* "LHR" (low hash rate) cards to give gamers some relief (assuming they can't be jailbroken). * https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/05/18/lhr/

Unfortunately, NVIDIA already accidentally leaked a driver with without those limitations within days of releasing those cards. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/nvidia-accidenta...

That driver was just for the 3060 LHR. The 3080, 3070 and 3060 Ti LHR will require newer drivers. It's still possible for NVIDIA to mess up and release a newer driver without those limitations again, though.

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

#477

I really wish the UN could get together and implement a global treaty on a revenue neutral carbon tax. The only reason energy is as cheap as it is right now is because we're not properly pricing in the externalities of environmental damage. This would immediately make unproductive energy use ( cough POW crypto cough) a lot less profitable, without the government having to come in and set prices and regs for every lit…

Yeah, nope.

Consider the amount of energy wasted right now and also in similar "industries".

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-uses-less-than-...

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

#478
post #453

ETH wont, and shouldn't migrate to PoS. PoS is a scam -- a trick, a reinvention of existing corrupt economic models. It throws out the greatest part of decentralized cryptocurrencies -- trustless, independently verifiable, auto-adjusting to external conditions, hard to fake proof of work. It replaces it with shell games and chicanery. I am very pro proof of work. The energy usage is a good thing. We can deal with the…

> enough folks will ignore this and keep mining Irrelevant. Well designed networks are pretty much isolated from whims of miners. Ethereum is one of them, Bitcoin is not. I'm speaking about 2 weeks difficulty re-targeting window vs single block window. > It replaces it with shell games and chicanery. Why do you perceive it like that? I would love to hear details. Ethereum will use hybrid PoS. Where random number gene…

Sounds like a shell game to me. You know what isn't? Burning energy, using a simple hash function to measure how much energy was burned. Simple, effective, safe. Energy usage is a good thing, actually.

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

#479

Fully support this, as PoW protocols - from an efficient market perspective - consume as much as they are currently worth to mine, which would mean that if we believe that the value of BTC will go up (in line with past increases, for orders of magnitude) then also the consumption of power will go up just as much. When BTC hits 250K per coin next year, expect 5x as much energy consumption to what it does use today. At…

Consider not rabbitholing into a narrative and understanding reality:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-uses-less-than-...

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

#480
post #133

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 l…

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Facebook is net-zero emissions.
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