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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

#681

Post by minsc__and__boo »

leishman wrote: post #592
aqme28 wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not convinced that PoW is immune to those pressures or even resistant to it. The people with capital control the mining. At least the environmental problems are reduced with PoS

The difference is that PoW is censorship resistant. Anybody can be a miner and existing miners cannot censor new miners. Performing new work is external to the network state. In PoS, existing stakers can prevent new stakers from registering. Very important distinction.

That's the same with PoW though, isn't it?

Existing PoW miners can fork away from any new miners that won the last block.

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

#682

Post by Valgrim »

leishman wrote: post #668
simias wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like cryptocurrencies achieved any of their goals so far anyway. If it's about facilitating pyramid schemes and creating a worldwide casino we might as well do it efficiently and without wasting insane amounts of resources. I'm personally very happy for PoS and hope that it'll be successful, I would be a lot less annoyed with cryptocurrency bullshit if it wasn't so wasteful. With proof-of-stakes it basically…

Funny how everyone complains it's wasteful yet I see absolutely nobody complaining that they have some sort of electricity shortage because of Bitcoin miners.

The issue is not scarcity, it's pollution.

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

#683

Post by Rogach »

leishman wrote: post #668
simias wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like cryptocurrencies achieved any of their goals so far anyway. If it's about facilitating pyramid schemes and creating a worldwide casino we might as well do it efficiently and without wasting insane amounts of resources. I'm personally very happy for PoS and hope that it'll be successful, I would be a lot less annoyed with cryptocurrency bullshit if it wasn't so wasteful. With proof-of-stakes it basically…

Funny how everyone complains it's wasteful yet I see absolutely nobody complaining that they have some sort of electricity shortage because of Bitcoin miners.

Well, here's a datapoint for you: I've witnessed firsthand how a big miner farm resulted in full blackout in a small-ish city (~100k population).

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

#684

Post by fredfoobar »

dahfizz wrote: post #670
fredfoobar wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole book written about the history of this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57429394-the-blocksize-w... "Roughly 90% of the hash power once threatened to change the rules of #Bitcoin believing the users didn’t matter in the decision. The users spun up 10s of thousands of full nodes & told them to go f*ck themselves." [1] [1] https://twitter.com/TheCryptoconomy/status/13940065488763084...

Why wouldn't a similar "takeover" be possible in a PoS system? You really haven't addressed the parent's point.

[responding to the pre-edit question about PoW] I just did, you don't need any capital to run a node. The book documents an incident where there was majority hash-rate (miners) wanting to change the rules against the wishes of the users.

more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IT4s-6T__k

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

#685

Post by drew-y »

leishman wrote: post #668
simias wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like cryptocurrencies achieved any of their goals so far anyway. If it's about facilitating pyramid schemes and creating a worldwide casino we might as well do it efficiently and without wasting insane amounts of resources. I'm personally very happy for PoS and hope that it'll be successful, I would be a lot less annoyed with cryptocurrency bullshit if it wasn't so wasteful. With proof-of-stakes it basically…

Funny how everyone complains it's wasteful yet I see absolutely nobody complaining that they have some sort of electricity shortage because of Bitcoin miners.

Because shortages aren't the issue. The issue is using more power than all of Argentina for one currency. That is a lot of CO2 emissions for something that brings questionable value.

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

#686

Post by s7atic »

leishman wrote: post #574

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 indire…

Why do you believe a global PoS currency will be controlled by US actors? The US has a 10--20% share of global GDP.

Regardless, history has proven that the most legitimate branch of a blockchain wins, irrespective of security model. It will not be the actor with the most hash power or stake. For reference, see the Justin Sun/STEEM drama.

Vitalik Buterin has an interesting blog post on legitimacy: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html.

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

#687

Post by SilasX »

dahfizz wrote: post #670
fredfoobar wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole book written about the history of this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57429394-the-blocksize-w... "Roughly 90% of the hash power once threatened to change the rules of #Bitcoin believing the users didn’t matter in the decision. The users spun up 10s of thousands of full nodes & told them to go f*ck themselves." [1] [1] https://twitter.com/TheCryptoconomy/status/13940065488763084...

Why wouldn't a similar "takeover" be possible in a PoS system? You really haven't addressed the parent's point.

Did you mean PoS? Parent was talking about a PoW system.

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

#689

Post by Taek »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #435

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…

I agree that we should try to implement global fines/taxes/fees/whatever on the externalities of society (be it electricity, manufacturing, dumping, litter, etc).

I disagree that it would have a significant impact on PoW. PoW is already one of the cleanest energy industries in the world, and it's also entirely price insensistive. PoW is going to consume billions of dollars of electricity per year at any price. An external tax of 50% would cut energy use by nearly a third, but it wouldn't do any more than that.

And I should add, PoW would be absolutely happy with such a fee in place. It really doesn't care how much electricity costs, it only cares that an attacker would also have to pay the same price.

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

#690

Post by cwkoss »

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…

> To me it seems that a new blockchain that e.g. gives every human a wallet pre-filled with the amount of Ether needed for staking (plus some extra) would appeal more to the vast majority of people than a blockchain where the early adopters are the new rubber barons of the Internet.

That sounds awesome. If you can securely deliver a cryptographic key to every human on the planet and teach them to use it, I'd happily invest my life savings towards that ends. Unfortunately due to disparities in education, safety and access to technology, I think this is a near-impossible task in 2021.

Cardano is issuing cryptographic student IDs to 5M students in Ethiopia though! The future is bright!

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