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The Merge

ethereum.org

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Re: The Merge

#351

Post by doomroot »

betwixthewires wrote: post #336
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…

This problem is overstated IMO. Choosing the one with the most validators is closely analogous to choosing the chain with the most work i.e. the one with the most hash power. And with algorithmic difficulty adjustment in PoW, you don't pick the chain with the headers with the most 0s preceding, you pick the longest chain. A longer chain with a sudden difficulty adjustment is an obvious invalid chain, but I digress Th…

I’m not sure about Ethereum PoW, but in Bitcoin you absolutely pick the chain with the most work not the longest chain that’s a consensus rule. This is how bitcoin/PoW avoids weak subjectivity, the problem described by the parent comment.

Re: The Merge

#352

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

Prunkton wrote: post #280
remote_phone wrote: post #267

Will this drop has fees? Gas fees are keeping crypto from taking off, it’s ridiculously high

gas fees will not get affected by the merge from a users point of perspective (there is a lot going on for validators etc). This was not part of the plan. In this regard there was kind of a shift over the last years of how Ethereum is working and wants to work. The current vision of Ethereum is roughly: There is a protocol layer (1) and an application layer (2). User transactions should be dealed with on layer 2 with…

Layer 2s that retain Ethereum security are huge for swaps, planned stock exchange replacement.

See: Loopring

Re: The Merge

#353

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

littlestymaar wrote: post #268
jmathai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multitudes of miners will no longer race to find the next computationally expensive hash. Proof of Stake does address the energy concerns of crypto.

At the expense of the “permissionless” nature of crypto, moving from “anybopdy can join with his GPU” to “you must pay the insiders to join the party”. I also reveals how centralized ethereum really is in terms of who holds the power: a blockchain where the devs can screw the miners like this isn't really reassuring… Bitcoin's carefully crafted balance of power (and the disapearance of Satoshi) lead to a technologica…

> a blockchain where the devs can screw the miners like this isn't really reassuring…

It's not a screwing if they've known the roadmap the whole time....

Re: The Merge

#354

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

cowtools wrote: post #81
TakeBlaster16 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy refreshing these crypto threads. Comments are turning from black to gray to black again like I'm at a disco.

Something I like about HN is that down-voted posts will often come back from the grave. For some reason voters have a lot of sympathy. Back on reddit, people use votes as a way to signal to each other what to believe in: instinctively, you upvote popular comments and downvote unpopular comments. It's really the first few voters that decide what people see.

If you vote instinctively, instead of for the betterment of the community, I'll be the one to ask you: please don't vote.

Re: The Merge

#355

Post by randomran01234 »

adrr wrote: post #347
randomran01234 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users and the market decides on the chain, governance in Ethereum is based on social consensus not “one coin one vote.”

I still don't understand how consensus works off the chain. If 51% of the stackers just decide to run their own software and do their own thing. How does something off chain change that? How does something off chain penalize a majority of staked ETH?

If the 51% is a single staker or small group of colluding stakers attacking the chain, the rest of the users will probably not want to continue using that chain. The users can activate a soft fork, just by changing the rules of the code to burn the attacker’s funds, and running the updated client software. The remaining honest stakers can then continue to follow the head of the non-attacked chain, and the attacker would be the only one left on their chain.

Re: The Merge

#356

Post by jrm4 »

cinntaile wrote: post #208
jrm4 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is what I was trying to get to with "inherently." The information ITSELF that is yielded by the process is 100% arbitrary and not valuable, i.e. relays no additional useful information about the world (e.g. the boiling point of some new liquid or something), like many would think of when we think of people doing math to solve things.

Re: The Merge

#357

Post by cl1nk »

noelsusman wrote: post #202
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.

It is by far the cheapest and fastest option to send money internationally, fees from using SWIFT are ridiculous and the banks always use terrible exchange rates, I used to lose about ~4% of the money I sent to my family in another country

Re: The Merge

#358

Post by Ruphin »

irusensei wrote: post #298

My main issue with PoS is that people wont run nodes. Contrary to bitcoin there isn’t a self hosting culture on Ethereum. Its all about trading and tokenomics. They will stake through exchanges, which already control the fiat ramps and are easily controlled by regulatory pressure. Since those guys are now validating on chain transaction censorship might become a thing. And then there is the biggest irony on the fact…

Proof of Stake and Proof of Work only impact the consensus model of the network (i.e. how new blocks are added), but for network participants that do not participate on consensus there is no difference. Just like in Bitcoin or in Ethereum now, you can run a node without participating in mining or staking.

If you run an Ethereum node now, it will still be the same after the Merge, and not somehow less valid. It will still check the correctness of all the transactions, as it does now.

I think a large cause of this confusion is the "validator" terminology; calling nodes that produce blocks through staking validators makes people think that normal nodes don't validate or check anything, but this is not correct.

Re: The Merge

#359

Post by dcow »

Prunkton wrote: post #271
dcow wrote: post #253

I predict this is the beginning of the end for Ethereum. First we will see what the intrinsic value of a blockchain is. Then the network will die when someone buys the 2/3rds of the validators for less than Visa makes in a day. It will probably just be Visa. Code is not law, money is. This is the core value on the network and has been for quite awhile now.

this is not how markes work. while trying to buy 2/3 by of a semi-stable (in that time frame) amount of ETH, you will skyrocket the price and have to pay more for each additional ETH. A huge amount of ETH is already staked aka out of the system since you can not unstake them at the moment. You can not liquidate your staked ETH regardless how much money you throw around. This is not a practical attack vector you would…

I am very pro DeFi. But I think it’s a delicate thing. This is just my prediction. It won’t be immediate either. I’m sure ETH with chug along for awhile longer.

Re: The Merge

#360

Post by wasabi991011 »

lottin wrote: post #303
Josde wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that is true, I think the point that other users are trying to make is that wording it as "a complex mathematical problem being solved" makes it look like that work is doing something useful when it really is not.

It's worse than that, they're aren't solving anything at all. They're taking part in a lottery, in which participants have to guess a number, and the winner gets to update the ledger. Nobody is solving complex mathematical problems.

Given y, solve for x in the equation f(x) = y

That's a valid use of the word "solve". It is obviously mathematical. It is complex, as we do not have a simple way to solve it.

I get it, words can have multiple meanings. It's fine to give a clarification on the specific use here, but then move on.

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