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The Merge

ethereum.org

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Re: The Merge

#201

Post by cesarb »

fizzynut wrote: post #11

Given that the merge reduces the electricity cost for new Ethereum by ~1000x, won't the price just tank in a race to the bottom?

I would expect the opposite, actually. To pay for electricity, miners have to constantly sell some of the coins they earn. All else being equal, when there are more coins being sold, the tendency is for their price to decrease; once there are less coins being sold, because miners no long need to sell as much, the tendency becomes for the price to increase, or at least, decrease less.

Re: The Merge

#202

Post by noelsusman »

armchairhacker wrote: post #186

Awesome If crypto wasn't contributing causing a crash in the GPU market and contributing even more to climate change, I don't think it would have nearly as much hate as it does. Sure it's largely used for scams and money laundering, but at least it's used for scams and money laundering in a way I can ignore. Right now Bitcoin and Etherium, the leading cryptocoins, are absurdly slow and expensive, on top of causing al…

The energy part of crypto is a pretty small part of why I hate on it. More of a cherry on top. I'll stop hating on crypto when it becomes useful for anything other than committing crimes.

Re: The Merge

#203

Post by easrng »

tzs wrote: post #153
bhaak wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the nodes that have been online long enough will know that the fake chain is fake. Because it doesn't match the state that they have been observing all along. So as long as you have no extended downtime, your nodes know what the right chain has to look like. Ethereum dynamically adds checkpoints so that block reorgs can't reach too far into the past but that is mostly a convenience function as it alone couldn't s…

Could POS and POW be combined? Say you have a POS chain that functions as your main cryptocurrency ledger, and a POW chain that runs at a much slower rate that serves as a ledger to periodically record history of the POS chain?

It's not possible to lower the energy consumption of PoW like that, it has to constantly be mined to stay secure.

Re: The Merge

#205

Post by hunter-gatherer »

jrm4 wrote: post #169
osigurdson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is how I explain it to people: Imagine a page of a book, for each letter a-z, assign a number to it (a=1, b=2, .. , z=26). Compute the sum of all of the letters on the page but reset back to zero when 100 is reached (i.e. 97 + 5 = 2). The resulting number is a kind of signature for the page. Changing a letter would result in a different sum. At this point, people usually understand the utility and irreversible n…

I definitely think it matters. The metaphor of "some moron pulling a slot machine over and over and over" (which is what I use) is more accurate and I think better represents what's actually happening than something like "solving," which evokes the image of smart person (or machine) sitting down and using their brain to discover useful information. When you say "solve" it implies that the information that is produced…

I agree with this point for the same reason; what matters is how people interpret it. Of course if I'm talking to a CS type I can go right into the details. The analolgy I use with laymen is solving a large rubiks cube by randomly moving pieces instead of using any other sophisticated methods. Somebody please correct my if I'm wrong as I haven't been in the cryptocurrency space for a minute, but I believe most of the 'solving' is just a nonce increment that is then hashed with the previous block header, current block, and maybe a couple other things.

I've noticed that whenever I assert that a 'complex mathematical problem' is being solved people tend to think of an ever-growing algebraic equation.

Re: The Merge

#206

Post by hackernudes »

fizzynut wrote: post #164
hackernudes wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you mean. Stakers get ETH "for free" and therefore they crash the price? But the demand for ETH will still be there just like it was for mining. I don't really understand how Ethereum works very well. They are trying to tweak the ETH generation to make the merge work (see the ultra sound money memes). Just because stakers don't have to work hard doesn't mean ETH will crash. The whole thing doe…

Ok, a real life comparison, lets say there are 1000s of real life mines around the world that currently mine gold for say $50 per gram, but suddenly a processing technique lowers that cost for all miners to $0.50 per gram. In any normal market the price of gold should trend down.

How about this - X units of gold are produced each year. Then all of a sudden it's cheaper to mine gold, but magically still only X units of gold can be mined each year. What happens to the price of gold? What if less than X units are mined?

From what I understand, ETH issuance rate is going to go down after the merge.

Re: The Merge

#207

Post by randomran01234 »

ww520 wrote: post #126
WFHRenaissance wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Punishment mechanisms here are kind of complicated, but in short, you're punished for mainly 2 reasons: being an offline validator, or for an attestation violating. Slashers are entities that enforce the two above rules. If a slasher determines that you're node is down, or that you're committing an attestation violation (i.e. that you're signing more than one attestation in a given epoch mainly). The slasher actua…

What are the checking mechanisms that 2/3 of the nodes are not colluding together? In other words how do you prove someone owning 51% or 2/3 of the network?

Their actions would most likely be visible on the network because it is transparent. The community can then decide whether to activate a fork and punish the colluding nodes.

Re: The Merge

#208

Post by cinntaile »

jrm4 wrote: post #169
osigurdson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is how I explain it to people: Imagine a page of a book, for each letter a-z, assign a number to it (a=1, b=2, .. , z=26). Compute the sum of all of the letters on the page but reset back to zero when 100 is reached (i.e. 97 + 5 = 2). The resulting number is a kind of signature for the page. Changing a letter would result in a different sum. At this point, people usually understand the utility and irreversible n…

I definitely think it matters. The metaphor of "some moron pulling a slot machine over and over and over" (which is what I use) is more accurate and I think better represents what's actually happening than something like "solving," which evokes the image of smart person (or machine) sitting down and using their brain to discover useful information. When you say "solve" it implies that the information that is produced…

Well it is valuable. You get to include the pending transactions in a block and you get rewarded for solving the puzzle.

Re: The Merge

#209

Post by seibelj »

latchkey wrote: post #191
seibelj wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m saying there will be no requirement for ASICS in Ethereum. There may be L2s to scale Ethereum that require ASICS but that would be a voluntary decision by users who want to use said L2.

Again, that has nothing to do with the power requirements of ASICs.

I’m confused why we are arguing about. I thought you were claiming Ethereum needed ASICS to run and therefore would use more energy. Which is not the case.

It’s like saying the internet needs more energy to run when a new application is developed. No, the internet is the same, it’s the application that now needs energy. So while the total energy the internet uses has increased, it did not increase the total required for the internet to exist itself.

Re: The Merge

#210

Post by cowtools »

WFHRenaissance wrote: post #104
falcolas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reason would anyone have to believe in their benevolence? It would be safer to believe in and use their greed and self preservation.

No one would use a network with this level of centralization, or at least, it would be unwise to.

like a 51% attack on a PoW through pool conspiracy, it will be impossible to tell if (when?) the network is controlled by a single entity.

By the time the public has figured out the plot, it's too late: the attacker has already run to the exchanges with double-spent coins.

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