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Mainnet Merge Announcement

blog.ethereum.org

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Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#21

Post by dmichulke »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #10

Is it incorrect to say that ethereum is now entirely centralized with some extra steps? Like, you have this proof of stake thing, but the only reason it works is because there's just a small number of validators, which is just going to be the ethereum foundation and friends. edit: putting this at the top because nobody is responding on topic. I am NOT talking about the class of people who stake 32 eth to validate nod…

Let's say it like this:

In the near future the rules are made by the people with the most ETH

and soon after the most ETHs will be earned by the people who make the rules.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#22

Post by bowsamic »

codesnik wrote: post #7
aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the benefit of a low-cost global consensus system...? Is this sarcasm? Or are you getting caught up in some version of politics?

is it low cost, though?

Low cost as in energy and computation, but the cost of transactions are still higher and transactions are still slower than some of the alternatives as far as I'm aware

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#23

Post by potatototoo99 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #10

Is it incorrect to say that ethereum is now entirely centralized with some extra steps? Like, you have this proof of stake thing, but the only reason it works is because there's just a small number of validators, which is just going to be the ethereum foundation and friends. edit: putting this at the top because nobody is responding on topic. I am NOT talking about the class of people who stake 32 eth to validate nod…

Yes, it is correct. It was already much more centralized than for instance bitcoin, due to the difficulty in having a validator node, but now it is just managed by the big holders and that's that. Furthermore, they will censor transactions according to US laws at least, and if you try to validate and not censor, you will get your staked coins taken from you by the protocol (as opposed to PoW, where you just fail to get your block in the chain), so this is another nail in the coffin of this project imo.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#25

Post by DanHulton »

rvz wrote: post #8

> Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake has been a loooong time coming. Thank you to everyone who contributed to researching, specifying, developing, analyzing, testing, breaking, fixing, or explaining everything that got us to The Merge. At least now it has a hard deadline which will silence the parroting critics on 'burning up the planet', 'The merge will NEVER happen', 'repeated delays', etc. But I imagine that…

That has hardly ever been the ONLY problem crypto has had, ands acting as if solving this one problem should silence all dissenters lest they be considered unserious is disingenuous. Look at the comments for literally any popular article about crypto on this site, hell, keep scrolling on this one and you'll probably find plenty.

I, for one, am happy that enabling art theft and fraud on a massive scale will shortly no longer ALSO consume terrifying amounts of electricity and hardware, but that is about as positive as I can be about this news.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#26

Post by IHLayman »

thebeastie wrote: post #15
spywaregorilla wrote: post #10

Is it incorrect to say that ethereum is now entirely centralized with some extra steps? Like, you have this proof of stake thing, but the only reason it works is because there's just a small number of validators, which is just going to be the ethereum foundation and friends. edit: putting this at the top because nobody is responding on topic. I am NOT talking about the class of people who stake 32 eth to validate nod…

No, the validators are anyone with a stake in the system, not just the Ethereum foundation and friends.

But, a stake has to be at least 32 ETH, where at $1650/ETH lands you at $52,800. So, the validators have to have a significant investment in the platform, more than your average investor, and far more than anyone simply owning ETH. While I don't necessarily agree with the centralization arguments, I do agree that it is a far smaller group of people than you'd think.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#27

Post by bowsamic »

potatototoo99 wrote: post #23
spywaregorilla wrote: post #10

Is it incorrect to say that ethereum is now entirely centralized with some extra steps? Like, you have this proof of stake thing, but the only reason it works is because there's just a small number of validators, which is just going to be the ethereum foundation and friends. edit: putting this at the top because nobody is responding on topic. I am NOT talking about the class of people who stake 32 eth to validate nod…

Yes, it is correct. It was already much more centralized than for instance bitcoin, due to the difficulty in having a validator node, but now it is just managed by the big holders and that's that. Furthermore, they will censor transactions according to US laws at least, and if you try to validate and not censor, you will get your staked coins taken from you by the protocol (as opposed to PoW, where you just fail to g…

No, it's the opposite. Proof of work is more centralised than proof of stake, because the former has an economy of scale: it's cheaper to add a single miner if you are a big mining operation vs a small mining operation. On the other hand, staking 1 eth is always staking 1 eth.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#29

Post by bowsamic »

IHLayman wrote: post #26
thebeastie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the validators are anyone with a stake in the system, not just the Ethereum foundation and friends.

But, a stake has to be at least 32 ETH, where at $1650/ETH lands you at $52,800. So, the validators have to have a significant investment in the platform, more than your average investor, and far more than anyone simply owning ETH. While I don't necessarily agree with the centralization arguments, I do agree that it is a far smaller group of people than you'd think.

$52,800 is a pittance compared to any remotely significant mining operation

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#30

Post by spywaregorilla »

IHLayman wrote: post #26
thebeastie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the validators are anyone with a stake in the system, not just the Ethereum foundation and friends.

But, a stake has to be at least 32 ETH, where at $1650/ETH lands you at $52,800. So, the validators have to have a significant investment in the platform, more than your average investor, and far more than anyone simply owning ETH. While I don't necessarily agree with the centralization arguments, I do agree that it is a far smaller group of people than you'd think.

Again, no, not the people putting up the stake.

I am asking about the people with the power to declare that people who put up the stake were dishonest in their validations.

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