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The Ethereum merge is done

coindesk.com

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Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#381

Post by Cryptonic »

galangalalgol wrote: post #373
Uehreka wrote: post #5

I gotta say, I’ve been really cynical about this and honestly thought Ethereum would keep putting off the move to PoS forever. I’m very very happy to be wrong. I still don’t see the value in cryptocurrency as a project, but now that it’s not rolling back years of renewable energy development, I’m down to have some much more interesting conversations about Ethereum, and I may even be willing to buy some and try it out…

Will this reduce video card prices?

Potentially after the chip and supply chain crisis

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#382

Post by ceejayoz »

smcl wrote: post #354
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And it reduces the world's energy bill by 0.5% I live in Europe and the measures my county is taking to combat energy shortage are pretty wild like limiting the heating of apartments, indoor swimming pools, reducing street lighting, but nowhere was is stated "banning crypto mining". Pretty insane how we're just tolerating this massive energy waste just so some people and organizations can have something to speculate…

There are definitely cases where The Market doesn't magically fix things and regulation needs to be introduced to prevent bad behaviour (or encourage a societally beneficial behaviour). However in this case with the high cost of electricity in Europe right now, isn't crypto-mining similar to lighting money on fire? I can't imagine it's profitable in many European countries, if any.

> However in this case with the high cost of electricity in Europe right now, isn't crypto-mining similar to lighting money on fire?

Miners sometimes sign long-ish-term contracts for energy.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#383

Post by seydor »

jollybean wrote: post #378
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now all we need to do is shutdown the gaming industry. It’s so wasteful to be using electricity when we could all be playing chess or Yazee instead.

Gaming does something i.e. entertain. Crypto does nothing. Or you could argue, it 'entertains'. But in a way that is unnecessary (it's a distraction, not entertainment), and in a manner that creates unnecessary energy costs (PoW vs PoS).

people pay for nothing?

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#384

Post by darkwater »

bitL wrote: post #331
Uehreka wrote: post #5

I gotta say, I’ve been really cynical about this and honestly thought Ethereum would keep putting off the move to PoS forever. I’m very very happy to be wrong. I still don’t see the value in cryptocurrency as a project, but now that it’s not rolling back years of renewable energy development, I’m down to have some much more interesting conversations about Ethereum, and I may even be willing to buy some and try it out…

Monero is the only cryptocurrency that is fulfilling its original promise (basically digital cash, untraceable) and that is being banned left and right by exchanges these days. ETH is more of the old power balance with slightly new players without all the previous regulations (i.e. scams everywhere).

> (basically digital cash, untraceable)

and programmatically "generable" is a recipe for disaster (i.e. most of the exploited machines nowadays run a monero miner, when they once ran a spambot)

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#385

Post by pGuitar »

sbt wrote: post #374
funklute wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this change also means that "Decentralisation" and "Power to the people" are fading away right? But it was always like this, also with proof of work. PoS and PoW are both just variations of "proof of resources", which in turn is a convenient substitution for likelihood that one's voting power is independent. If you want to give "power to the people", you need some way of estimating independent voting power, tha…

> If you want to give "power to the people", you need some way of estimating independent voting power, that is not tied to resources. You mean like a democracy?

No post body was provided.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#386

Post by irae »

Let's congratulate ETH from consuming 99.9 less energy, thus having 99.9% less value. IMO they essentially transformed something revolutionary, which is value secured by the masses. Anyone could mine and help ETH be secure. Now the rich (steakers) control the system. Which is essentially what happens with the current economy dominated by the rich. They are simply trying to change the "who". Alienating the miners was precisely the move to show in ETH the rich rule, the poor suffer. Same old capitalism as usual.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#387

Post by alkonaut »

mrpopo wrote: post #23
scambier wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, the Ethereum blockchain alone was consuming 0.5% of the world's total energy?

Total electricity*. Which is still huge, I am not sure people realize that there are no more low-hanging fruits in the form of a technical feat that a small group of people can accomplish like this, without impacting people's lives.

While it’s a good step, I’ll only join in the applause when someone reduces energy use by a 0.5% they didn’t create themselves.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#388

Post by dreen »

jollybean wrote: post #378
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now all we need to do is shutdown the gaming industry. It’s so wasteful to be using electricity when we could all be playing chess or Yazee instead.

Gaming does something i.e. entertain. Crypto does nothing. Or you could argue, it 'entertains'. But in a way that is unnecessary (it's a distraction, not entertainment), and in a manner that creates unnecessary energy costs (PoW vs PoS).

Nah, it's just gambling but with a veneer of investing.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#389

Post by jollybean »

fsloth wrote: post #227
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent and very clear summary, as far as I can tell. My only niggle is that smart contracts are, in practice, neither legally binding nor unstoppable... the story of the DAO Hack/Hard Fork [0] proved that consensus can overrule "the invisible hand of the blockchain" during a particularly egregious incident. [0] https://ogucluturk.medium.com/the-dao-hack-explained-unfortu...

The only reason contracts are binding is because they are enforced by courts. Legally enforceable contracts and the courts that enforce them was one of the killer features of western societies an a non-trivial reason for their economic success. I have no idea how smart contract could be globally enforced, or can they be, but if they can, the way I see it, this should create new prosperity for those who have been unab…

"this should create new prosperity for those who have been unable to enjoy access to fair courts and binding contracts. "

This is the heady mythology of those who said 'Crypto would create XYZ for those who cannot'.

Except it's been 10 years of Crypto popularity and they have no material function, are a huge drain of energy and human intellectual capital.

Contracts are subject to legal oversight of a Judicial system, the credibility of which is require of a system to function.

Digitization of a 'contract' really doesn't make sense so much at all in terms of it's 'legality'. The algorithm whether it's in regular code or Ehterium makes no difference.

If someone really wanted to 'help those without legal recourse' they'd just use a foreign legal system for transaction record. So, contracts between 2 people in Haiti could be designated under 'Canadian Law'.

But even that would be besides the point: It's not the 'legal system' that makes things work, it's the integrity of the system overall, maintained by a 'legal system'. Canada isn't rich because it has a 'legal system' - that's just one component. It's rich because people and groups act with integrity. The 'law' is involved very rarely.

There's no technical utopia that will replace 'integrity'. Or frankly 'values'.

Ehterium is a neat experiment, that's all it is for now.

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