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Mainnet Merge Announcement

blog.ethereum.org

51–60 of 609 posts

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not true. Stakers don't make the rules any more than miners make Bitcoin rules.

Miners do make Bitcoin rules though, the entire protocol is a consensus protocol driven by the miners.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The code - not the people. Trust but verify - just like all other FOSS.

The people who are running the slasher nodes

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is quite far from true > but now it is just managed by the big holders To have any influence during the proof of work days you needed a server farm. This was also restricted to a small elite who could, if they wished, censor transactions.

It's incorrect to say PoW miners can censor transactions.

With PoS, the big players control the small players. If the minority doesn't play along, their funds will be slashed by the procotol. If 66% of validators censor you, your transaction will never be finalized.

With PoW, the big players cannot coerce the small players in any way. Everyone independently controls their own blocks. If 66% of miners censor you, your transaction will merely take 3x as long to be confirmed.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#54

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 incorrect. https://i.redd.it/5lhlmwdg27j91.png Ethereum will be more decentralized after proof of stake. No longer do you need massive amounts of electricity and insider access to gpu or asic manufacturers.

1. Energy production and 2. specialized chip production

are both centralized, with the later being highly centralized. The move to PoS removes both of these centralized targets.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#55
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the question I am asking. You can have many people putting up their 32 ETH. Sure that's "decentralized". But what if most of the stakers collude to double spend tokens? My understanding is that there is an additional layer of validators that have the power to force them to give up their stake as a penalty. Hence "proof of stake". And that there are very few validators. And it's really just the ethereum fo…

You’re mistaken, validators and stakers are one and the same. A 51% attack becomes unbelievably more expensive in a proof of stake system, especially because at the end of it all of your money is burned (whereas with POW you get to keep the GPUs unless they change the algo).

stakers/validators vs. slashers

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the question I am asking. You can have many people putting up their 32 ETH. Sure that's "decentralized". But what if most of the stakers collude to double spend tokens? My understanding is that there is an additional layer of validators that have the power to force them to give up their stake as a penalty. Hence "proof of stake". And that there are very few validators. And it's really just the ethereum fo…

What you are referring to is an old problem (arguably now solved) called “nothing at stake.” Short, bastardized answer is that something built into the consensus code called “slashing” keeps the validators/shakers from trying to stake two versions of a block.

Who gets to run a slasher node and who gets to agree that its valid to slash a block?

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#57
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is incorrect. https://i.redd.it/5lhlmwdg27j91.png Ethereum will be more decentralized after proof of stake. No longer do you need massive amounts of electricity and insider access to gpu or asic manufacturers.

Instead you just need a massive amount of eth

Wouldn't those with ownership in a system be best trusted with the self-interest of such a system? That seems to be the best alignment of incentives.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#58

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…

Apologies if I get this incorrect, I'm an amateur, but I have read about the design - the slashers will likely be few and centralized, but that's not disastrous because the slashers must provide proof of wrong doing to cause someone's ETH to get "slashed". That is, they're likely to be centralized (though they don't have to be! I believe anyone can be one) but they have to prove to everyone that something should be slashed in order to do so, so you don't have to trust the centralized part. Does that make sense?

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#59
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is incorrect. https://i.redd.it/5lhlmwdg27j91.png Ethereum will be more decentralized after proof of stake. No longer do you need massive amounts of electricity and insider access to gpu or asic manufacturers.

It should however be noted that Ethereum had a ICO [1] on launch, where you could buy ethereum for a particular price. 9.9% percentage of that also was set aside for "founders". (it could however be more [2]) Today it accounts for something like 59% (72m) of total supply (~120m). Make what you will of that. 1. https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/initial-coin-offering-exp... 2. https://medium.com/@hasufly/ethereum-pres…

> 9.9% percentage of that also was set aside for "founders"

> Today it accounts for something like 59% of total supply. Make what you will of that.

Can you help me understand what exactly this means? Ethereum's supply has grown since the presale, so if anything the 9.9% should have gotten smaller since then.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Honestly I think the biggest problem with crypto is how it has mainly been used either to scam people or to further centralise wealth towards the richest. I have seen very little morally good outcomes of crypto yet, but a vast number of morally bad ones.

So given we all know that there are indeed scams on Ethereum, does that mean that all of crypto will go away entirely as a result of this 100%?

I know precisely that I see the same old arguments against crypto time after time, but somehow despite all of these scams, carnage, etc. it still refuses to die somehow.

Maybe companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Stripe, Monegram, and even the regulators want it to succeed? If not, they would have banned all the exchanges, coins, and removed all wallets off of the apps stores a long time ago.

So I'm afraid that it is here to stay, with some survivors existing for a long time under certain compliance requirements and other crypto projects withering away.

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