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Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

blog.ethereum.org

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

#571

Post by hanniabu »

swensel wrote: post #506
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…

This is one thing I've been wondering about new projects that start with PoS. How do they have enough distribution of the coins in order for them to be resilient against attacks?

Exactly, the devil is in the details, just like how all current "scalable" blockchains are only able to do so because they sacrificed decentralization. Ethereum is dealing with growing pains right now because it's solving scalability with an approach that doesn't sacrifice decentralization or security.

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

#572

Post by suikadayo »

bigphishy wrote: post #416

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.

It's not up to the miners to decide, it's up to the nodes to decide.

Also, merge testnet is up already, making sure there are no significant issues.

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

#573

Post by seibelj »

mmmmmbop wrote: post #563

Could somebody help me understand the valuation of Ether? Let's assume for a second that future developments in the the Ethereum protocol really unlock the widespread use of distributed apps, and herald a new technological era. As far as I understand, Ethereum optimists are betting that then people will be forced to buy Ether to participate in this Internet of distributed apps, driving the price higher. In this (opti…

In the internet, the more websites and APIs exist, the greater the utility of the internet as a whole - the sum of its parts is worth more than each individually.

With Ethereum, every time a new smart contract is added to Ethereum, the whole network becomes more useful, as each contract can communicate with each other. You can assemble new applications based on the building blocks of existing contracts.

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

#574

Post by leishman »

Proof of Stake is already how our current financial system works. The people with the most money make the decisions. Proof-of-Work is provably resistant to this, as evidenced by the 2017 blocksize debate where almost every large miner and bitcoin company wanted to change the protocol and it was fought off through grassroots efforts. A PoS currency will be controlled by a cabal of US financial institutions, and indirectly by the US regulatory system. Be careful what you wish for.

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

#575

Post by fumblebee »

mtlynch wrote: post #557
tylercubell wrote: post #525

Algorand has been Proof of Stake for years (2019 MainNet launch) and it's actually carbon-negative [1]. It's a shame more people don't know about it. Its founder is a Turing-award-winning MIT professor (Silvio Micali) who solved the blockchain trilemma [2] with the Pure Proof of Stake consensus algorithm. The tech is leaps and bounds ahead of other cryptos. [1]: https://www.algorand.com/resources/news/carbon_negative…

That sounded interesting but I couldn't understand from the links how a blockchain can be carbon negative: > To achieve a carbon-negative network, Algorand and ClimateTrade will implement a sustainability oracle which will notarize Algorand’s carbon footprint on-chain for each epoch (a set amount of blocks). With its advanced smart contracts, Algorand will then lock the equivalent amount of carbon credit as an ASA (A…

It's times like this I ask myself whether I'm slow, or whether the text in question is needlessly complex.

My pessimistic side suggests this could be purposeful obfuscation of implementation by using complex language. No one will question their solution if no one can understand it.

On the other hand, I'm a big proponent of the Algorand project and based on the general quality of their work (the tech, docs, tutorials, etc.), I'd be surprised if there were anything malignant going on.

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

#576

Post by everfree »

DickingAround wrote: post #261

This reduces security considerably. Fundamentally, the proof of work system locks in longer chains because of all the work that was done historically . If there is just one honest node out there you will be able to tell the difference between the honest one and a majority of fakes. With proof of stake there is nothing beyond the will of the current majority to lock in what is right. If you feel the majority is always…

This property is called Weak Subjectivity and is indeed a compromise that PoS makes over PoW. However, in practice, the trust assumptions aren't much higher than when you, say, download node software from a source that you trust.

> I do not feel I can trust the majority to be correct every minute or every day forever.

With weak subjectivity, you only have to trust them to be correct on a timeframe of every few months. If consensus is actually broken somehow over such a long period of time, there will be big headlines about it and you'll be able to configure your node accordingly.

Further reading:

https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-lov...

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

#577

Post by danlugo92 »

silicon2401 wrote: post #25

Can someone give a brief summary of what Ethereum is? Is it a crypto that will be merging with some other crypto? How does it relate to Ethereum 2? Are they going to continue being separate cryptos?

It's like Bitcoin except it has vulnerabilities so will be hacked (and it already has been) or taken over by the Zuckerbergs of the world when the incentives are high enough in the future (maybe 5 or 10 years) then it will implode.

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

#578

Post by hanniabu »

mmmmmbop wrote: post #563

Could somebody help me understand the valuation of Ether? Let's assume for a second that future developments in the the Ethereum protocol really unlock the widespread use of distributed apps, and herald a new technological era. As far as I understand, Ethereum optimists are betting that then people will be forced to buy Ether to participate in this Internet of distributed apps, driving the price higher. In this (opti…

> wouldn't someone just start a new blockchain with the Ethereum protocol?

Sure, and many have, but they don't have the security, decentralization, dev mindshare, community, tooling, or ecosystem that Ethereum has.

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

#579

Post by gpsx »

Wouldn’t it be nice if energy were free, and caused no environmental damage? Well, how about cheaper and cleaner. Whether you think spending energy on coin mining is worthwhile or not, energy is required to do any work (by definition), so to feed our innovations, easy energy is important (and not evil). We will need to work on that.
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