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Mainnet Merge Announcement

blog.ethereum.org

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Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#411

Post by jahewson »

anonporridge wrote: post #399
jahewson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. There are plenty of other coins out there to mine and one of the advantages of GPU vs ASIC is that you can just switch instantly.

Na. Bitcoin and Ethereum make up 60% of the total cryptocurrency "market cap" and a good chunk of the remainder are USD stablecoins that run on top of a base chain with no mining itself. The next most valuable proof of work coin at Unless Ethereum miners forcibly maintain a PoW fork or try to pump up Ethereum Classic back into the spotlight, GPU mining might finally be effectively dead. As many people have said for y…

Eek, thanks for the stats, I didn’t realise it was that lopsided. Maybe I’ll be able to afford a GPU again!

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#412

Post by usrusrusrusr »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #252
usrusrusrusr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can mine with one GPU, pool or no. Stake pooling also eliminates one of the supposed benefits of decentralised cryptocurrency - you have to trust someone else with your currency.

If I understand correctly, you are not trusting "someone", u are trusting the network itself. Imo no different than any other operation on the network. Any operation on the network requires trust that the network will do what it agreed it will do.

Staking pools are not part of the Ethereum network protocol - they are a third party that you need to trust with your Eth. You are lending your Eth to this third party, who will then participate in the Eth network on your behalf, and who is also under no particular requirement to do what they say they will.

If I have to give my currency to a third party who will then invest it for me, then why bother with decentralised cryptos at all?

>any operation on the network requires trust that the network will do what it agreed it will do.

If I were an Eth apologist, I would explain how the code that defines the network operations is fully open and inspectable, so no trust needed.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#413

Post by thinkmassive »

petters wrote: post #318
unnouinceput wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs an average of ~5k USD to mine one bitcoin. Meaning even if the value drops at exchanges, no miner will sell below this value due to not breaking even on electricity. That's why also bitcoin miners go to places where electricity cost is low, and why they undervoltage their mining cards.

What cards? Bitcoin has not been mined on GPUs for a long time and I would have thought that the ASICs used were already optimal.

ASICs are also populated onto cards, and miner firmware handles tuning the hash rate of each chip (or card) based on inputs like desired temperature and power consumption. These inputs are often adjustable.

Heat causes chips and other components to degrade, so not everyone runs their miners at maximum output all the time.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#414

Post by 735409264082 »

jimmydorry wrote: post #272
redox99 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are spreading false information. Besides the "centralization" thing that was already replied, the part of > 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) Is outright false. It is the same as PoW. You choose what transactions you include in your block. So some people may choose to not…

You appear to have contradicted yourself? >So some people may choose to not include some transactions (Ethermine is already doing this on PoW with Tornado Cash). But there is no mechanism that slashes your staked coins because the other validators didn't like what transactions you included. >PoS is in fact even more resistant because in PoS you can kick out the malicious validators by doing a social fork that slashes…

> If a group of validators don't agree with your particular arrangement of transactions in the block, they can engineer a "social fork" that slashes your stake.

Why would I want to be on their fork? They can have their censored fork, but they can't do anything to anymore who doesn't want to be a part of it.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#415

Post by pa7x1 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #188
bowsamic wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Another article pointed out that the economics of staking are completely different than those of mining. With mining, some of the earned coins need to be sold to pay for electricity. With staking, the biggest holders just sit there and collect coins with few operational costs. To me it sounds like staking has a much more powerful snowball effect than mining and the gap between the wealthiest ETH participants and ever…

It is much cheaper to run a staking operation but not 0-cost. You still need an internet connection to pay and a bit of energy to run your validator. You may owe taxes on staking rewards, etc... So there is likely to be some selling by validators. Rewards are also much lower, issuance of ETH is cut by 90%, for example.

Also you lock-up capital which has an opportunity cost and must competes with every other investable asset. As the barriers to entry staking are negligible (just acquiring a liquid staking derivative like rETH, for example) it means that everyone willing to stake will likely do so which drops the returns lower, which may push some stakers out as they see better investing opportunities. So staking is likely going to have thin margins in the future and will give a rate of return that is fairly priced given its risk adjusted returns.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#416

Post by leppr »

ethbr0 wrote: post #405
Karunamon wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this is what was said. It is not an argument for or against any point under discussion. Ad hominem is "you are wrong because you (fill in the blank)". It is not "go read the articles given to you". "You are wrong because you are an idiot" is ad hominem. "You are wrong" is denial. "You are an idiot" is insult.

"You are spamming the HN comments and didn't read links, therefore your question is invalid, because of who asked it" is ad hominem. It's easy enough not to reply. No need to get an attitude about it.

Yes, this was ad-hominem because it seems obvious the OP is not asking this in good faith. Their first comment is not in the form of a neutral question, but a prejudiced assumption based on a false idea that nothing in the linked article could lead one to believe.

> 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.

I know Cunningham's Law is a valid discussion strategy, but the topics of cryptocurrency on HN already tends to attract enough flamewars and misinformation as it is.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#417

Post by usrusrusrusr »

drog wrote: post #200
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…

There is no designated class of slashers. Slashing is part of the protocol and to slash somebody you have to prove it to the protocol that they broke rules of slashing. One of the rules is that you can't create two different blocks in the same slot (block number) i.e. you can't deliberately fork. There is a designated place in the block of the beacon chain where you can put signatures of the different blocks in the s…

>There is no designated class of slashers.

Not true. In your defence, I also only learned this today.

https://docs.prylabs.network/docs/prysm-usage/slasher https://lighthouse-book.sigmaprime.io/slasher.html

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#418

Post by [deleted] »

erwinh wrote: post #151

What we see in the Tezos chain (liquid/delegated proof-of-stake) is that big custodial wallets for the exchanges have grown to be the largest block bakers: https://thestackreport.xyz/articles/top-tezos-block-producer... With ethereum the staking mechanism is a bit more complex, my understanding is you lock your stake for quite a while so maybe its too risky for the exchanges, but wouldn't be surprised that exchanges…

[deleted]

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#419

Post by pa7x1 »

joosters wrote: post #128
programmarchy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are staking pools, just like there were mining pools.

If you join a staking pool, then by definition you are increasing the centralization of the network.

There are decentralized staking pools. https://rocketpool.net/

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#420

Post by marshray »

rglover wrote: post #285
marshray wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of the world's problems are government-created Earthquakes? Dandelions? Sunburn? Marital infidelity?

> Earthquakes? Earthquakes aren't the problem, zoning policies and poor decision making skills are. > Dandelions? Sunburn? Assuming you mean allergies, these are problems of the human body, not the world. > Marital infidelity? 1. Financial stress caused by government mismanagement of money. 2. Weakening the relational bonds of men and women and incentivizing infidelity via the welfare system and no-fault divorce. 3.…

This isn't 'controversial', it's total Alex Jones Infowars-type batshit.
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