Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#51

Post by skybrian » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

dyndos wrote: post #16

DaftDank wrote: post #6

Can someone explain to me how PoS is not centralized? The whole point of crypto and the blockchain is decentralization, no? I feel like crypto/blockchain will end up looking nothing like how it was intended, and be regulated to the point that it's just the next iteration of the traditional banking system, where the current power holders continue holding the power. Maybe I was naive to ever think it would be any diffe…

The key distinction is that PoW is permissionless, whereas PoS is permissioned. Bitcoin is secured by hashpower, which is produced by physical capital outside the network. Nobody needs to ask for permission to start hashing and trade kilowatts for sats. PoS networks are secured by on-chain assets. This means you can't "mine" it without first buying tokens from someone who already owns them. You need permission from a…

It seems like this argument proves too much for your purposes, in the sense that it can be used to show that neither algorithm is any good as far as distributed governance is concerned.

While it’s true that you can’t buy Bitcoin (for example) unless someone else is selling, most people aren’t concerned about market liquidity for buyers due to whales being unwilling to sell. The permission to buy doesn’t seem hard to get?

Also, for the most part, people are happy when the price goes up, which is what happens when there are more buyers than sellers.

I guess in theory, money drops could distribute ownership more widely and that would be more equitable, but this sort of inequality (some people have a lot more Bitcoin than others) isn’t normally considered too much of a problem.

But if you’re going to take distributed governance seriously, neither proof-of-work nor proof-of-stake give ordinary people much of a say in how things go. In this way it’s similar to the stock market, where we’re told our votes are meaningful but in practice they aren’t unless you have a huge amount of shares. Participating in governance is usually an illusion and it’s not normally why you invest, unless you’re a corporate raider or something.

Similarly for mining. It’s done to make money.

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#52

Post by __s » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #46

So I have some ETH; is there anything I should be doing?

No

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#53

Post by newobj » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

DaftDank wrote: post #6

Can someone explain to me how PoS is not centralized? The whole point of crypto and the blockchain is decentralization, no? I feel like crypto/blockchain will end up looking nothing like how it was intended, and be regulated to the point that it's just the next iteration of the traditional banking system, where the current power holders continue holding the power. Maybe I was naive to ever think it would be any diffe…

for proofs of "whatever", where whatever is something that can be accrued with money, then it's proof of money, and money is centralized, or at least reallllllly spikily concentrated, so, yeah

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#54

Post by Hjfrf » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

dogman144 wrote: post #19

dyndos wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key distinction is that PoW is permissionless, whereas PoS is permissioned. Bitcoin is secured by hashpower, which is produced by physical capital outside the network. Nobody needs to ask for permission to start hashing and trade kilowatts for sats. PoS networks are secured by on-chain assets. This means you can't "mine" it without first buying tokens from someone who already owns them. You need permission from a…

Ya I wonder if we’ll start seeing attempts to corner the market in PoS.

What's the point? Once people realise that you control all transactions those tokens you've hoarded immediately become worthless.

You've destroyed other people's "money" at the expense of your own.

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#55

Post by newobj » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

dyndos wrote: post #16

DaftDank wrote: post #6

Can someone explain to me how PoS is not centralized? The whole point of crypto and the blockchain is decentralization, no? I feel like crypto/blockchain will end up looking nothing like how it was intended, and be regulated to the point that it's just the next iteration of the traditional banking system, where the current power holders continue holding the power. Maybe I was naive to ever think it would be any diffe…

The key distinction is that PoW is permissionless, whereas PoS is permissioned. Bitcoin is secured by hashpower, which is produced by physical capital outside the network. Nobody needs to ask for permission to start hashing and trade kilowatts for sats. PoS networks are secured by on-chain assets. This means you can't "mine" it without first buying tokens from someone who already owns them. You need permission from a…

don't you suspect that in practice they are self-assailing because a known-to-be-taken-over network will immediately go into hyper deflation?

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#56

Post by pcthrowaway » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

QTnqs6C5 wrote: post #50

majormajor wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a state actor could pull it off more cheaply. Start buying large amounts while letting it leak that you're going to take over the network. See if enough people will panic-sell on the leak to drop the price of your takeover. It's kinda like taking over a condo building on a much larger scale: the people you buy out first can charge a premium; by the end, you set the terms.

Why would people sell rather than fork to a version of the network where those ETH did not exist? One of the benefits of POS is that when you fork away from a malicious actor, they have to start over from the beginning while in POW, they can just point their hardware to your new chain unless you change the mining algorithm and screw over all the other miners.

This is exactly what happened with Ethereum in the early days when a bad actor was able to exploit a third-party contract to the tune of 5% of all ETH.

The Ethereum everyone talks about today is the fork, due to the Ethereum Foundation which owns the trademark leading the fork.

The Ethereum blockchain with the unaltered history is called Ethereum Classic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic#The_DAO_bailo...

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#57

Post by tux3 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

exo762 wrote: post #38

bgroat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is that it isn't, and none of these systems ever were. They're distributed, not decentralized. And this distinction, and the refusal to acknowledge it is what put me off crypto entirely.

May I ask you to elaborate a bit? What is they are centralized around? Capital? Misbehaving capital can easily be destroyed in PoS by a fork. Please see Steem/Hive case.

I think the idea is that if piles of money grow proportionally to their size, the biggest pile of money will grow the fastest, effectively becoming the central point where power is concentrated.

With proof of work, the same effect exists, thought it involves a loop where hashrate is exchanged for money, which is converted into more efficient hashrate at a TSMC fab.

An actor that openly attacks the network will quickly be blacklisted in either system, but when you control a majority of the money there are other ways to influence the system that don't involve breaking a formal rule.

Disclaimer: I don't have the faintest clue what I'm talking about. I only have passing familiarity with cryptocurrencies, and I've read one or two of their whitepapers.

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#58

Post by lasagnaphil » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

exo762 wrote: post #25

dyndos wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key distinction is that PoW is permissionless, whereas PoS is permissioned. Bitcoin is secured by hashpower, which is produced by physical capital outside the network. Nobody needs to ask for permission to start hashing and trade kilowatts for sats. PoS networks are secured by on-chain assets. This means you can't "mine" it without first buying tokens from someone who already owns them. You need permission from a…

> Another aspect of this is 51% attacks are recoverable for PoW You can switch the protocol once. Making ASICs useless. But you can't do it twice. > but are a permanent takeover condition for PoS networks. This is false in both theory and practice. It is true that PoS does not offer in-protocol solution for the problem. But there is a historical precedent of people forking away money of Justin Sun in Steem project, c…

The incredibly illuminating thing about cryptocurrency hard forks, is that it reveals that money is just a numeric measure of the social relationships people have towards each other, and as a result the ledger and its rules can be dynamically changed according to the needs and desires of the people (in constrast to what many naive metallists say that money is and should be a fixed store of value such as gold). I think crypto people have been generally focusing too much about the ideal, technical aspects of absolute distributed, immutable ledgers, and focused less about the social, political aspects of their work.

It is this aspect that I view the current Ethereum hard fork as one of the most important test the crypto scene had in a while - it's more of a political test than a technical one. I'm assuming that there will be quite some friction between the miners and the owners - and I'm interested in how it would turn out. Those two groups are dependent of each other for their existence, and the rift between them would potentially be the demise of the project. Will the project succeed in establishing a governance structure that would address both the needs and desires of both groups? Or will the project go into tyranny with one group dominating over the other (which would eventually lead to everyone's downfall)? In other words, this will be more of a test of governance than about technology. I don't have high hopes for the miners though, since there's just too much investor pressure from all the crypto craze that hasn't really been stopped since the coronavirus, and the miners doesn't seem to have a strong enough coordinated willpower to land an effective strike.

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#59

Post by jlokier » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

exo762 wrote: post #13

DaftDank wrote: post #6

Can someone explain to me how PoS is not centralized? The whole point of crypto and the blockchain is decentralization, no? I feel like crypto/blockchain will end up looking nothing like how it was intended, and be regulated to the point that it's just the next iteration of the traditional banking system, where the current power holders continue holding the power. Maybe I was naive to ever think it would be any diffe…

Capital is capital, be it in the form of money or hardware. Putting the onus on capital in a form of hardware is just making it harder for smaller guys. I can throw 32 ETH into staking. It's way beyond my capability to mine - wrong geography, electricity prices, accommodation situation etc.

Just a reminder that smaller guys don't have 32 ETH to spare. That's $88,603 USD. Not much for the levels.fyi crowd, but a fortune to most people.

Which means, whether you can stake is very dependent on your personal situation - especially geography - much like whether you can profitably mine.

Of course staking is still better than mining for many reasons. But it's a somewhat rich person's game.

Re: Ethereum just activated its ‘London’ hard fork

#60

Post by Ceezy » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

bgroat wrote: post #21

DaftDank wrote: post #6

Can someone explain to me how PoS is not centralized? The whole point of crypto and the blockchain is decentralization, no? I feel like crypto/blockchain will end up looking nothing like how it was intended, and be regulated to the point that it's just the next iteration of the traditional banking system, where the current power holders continue holding the power. Maybe I was naive to ever think it would be any diffe…

The answer is that it isn't, and none of these systems ever were. They're distributed, not decentralized. And this distinction, and the refusal to acknowledge it is what put me off crypto entirely.

It helps that most people don't know the difference between peer to peer and decentralized...