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The Ethereum merge is done

coindesk.com

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Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#461

Post by Tao3300 »

lmarcos wrote: post #28

> The Merge is one of the largest technological events in the industry to date. I feel kinda ashamed. I work in the IT industry and I claim to have knowledge about ("good") software engineering practices, distributed systems, compilers, algorithms, etc. Nevertheless, I didn't understand a word of what the article is saying. Could you recommend serious references (preferably books and not random blogs) I could read to…

Really? I feel like the article explained most of the terms.

I remember having a similar feeling when NFTs were getting big. It turned out that I did understand the terms, there just wasn't enough actually there, triggering a feeling that I must have been missing something despite my eyes telling me the emperor has no clothes.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#462

Post by seibelj »

ineedasername wrote: post #444

Prior to the merge ethereum’s trust was controlled by the organizations with the most money who bought/built massive data centers to mine it. With the merge & staking that abstraction layer has disappeared and it’s still the organizations with the most money who control it. Sure it’s great that non-productive math problems no longer need to be solved & consume so much energy and hardware to make it all work. And it m…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#463

Post by qznc »

phartenfeller wrote: post #273

I appreciate it wasting less precious energy. But this change also means that "Decentralisation" and "Power to the people" are fading away right? The wealthy actors are the ones dictating the transaction now and they also on top get paid for being rich. This does not sound like a "better financial system" for me. Also, don't forget the DAO Fork[0] where with the "ungovernable Blockhain" it was decided a transaction w…

I wonder what the ETH miners are doing now. Did they switch to other coins?

I doubt that they actually switch off their stuff. That makes no sense economically.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#464

Post by Geee »

funklute wrote: post #277
phartenfeller wrote: post #273

I appreciate it wasting less precious energy. But this change also means that "Decentralisation" and "Power to the people" are fading away right? The wealthy actors are the ones dictating the transaction now and they also on top get paid for being rich. This does not sound like a "better financial system" for me. Also, don't forget the DAO Fork[0] where with the "ungovernable Blockhain" it was decided a transaction w…

> 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…

Not so fast. In both networks, the ultimate control is held by those who run end-user nodes. These people create demand for the asset, and creating demand is ultimately the way to control the asset.

An end-user node is like a device, which verifies that bank notes are genuine or that gold coins are pure. If everyone can independently reject bad money and accept good money, the good money will have more demand and therefore be more valuable.

Even if someone is very rich or has resources to mine blocks, they can't dictate demand for other entities. They must abide by the rules which are enforced by end-user nodes.

If there are entities which have power to dictate demand, and the network can't defend itself under pressure, means that the network is not properly decentralized.

Also, the decision between "good money" and "bad money" should probably be a game theoretic focal point, rather than something set by a foundation and large staking entities.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#465

Post by imtringued »

jollybean wrote: post #380
jll29 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read 'Mastering Ethereum' https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Ethereum-Building-Smart-Con... The short of it is: - The block chain is a distributed ledger database, where all peers hold a full copy to avoid manipulation (faking an entry is only possible by controlling >50% of machines in this peer-to-peer network). - Spending money is implemented by adding a transactional record to the blockchain ledger at the end sayin…

"So you can implement legally binding (and unstoppable) contracts " No - they are not necessarily legally binding. They are just called 'contracts'. We have no idea what they mean, and each individual 'contract' will have to be scrutinized by the Judge, or else it's not 'legal' anything.

Evil Supervillain: "Darn you jollybean! You have foiled my plan to make slavery legal via an unstoppable smart contract by stating the obvious. If only you didn't exist I would be the ruler of earth!"

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#466

Post by krzyk »

ineedasername wrote: post #444

Prior to the merge ethereum’s trust was controlled by the organizations with the most money who bought/built massive data centers to mine it. With the merge & staking that abstraction layer has disappeared and it’s still the organizations with the most money who control it. Sure it’s great that non-productive math problems no longer need to be solved & consume so much energy and hardware to make it all work. And it m…

Well, currently it looks like it will be more centralized, because before one could mine with just a single GPU, now one has to have a bunch of ETH to start.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#467

Post by kranke155 »

neprotivo wrote: post #457

It looks like the new Blockchain is quite centralized. 45% of blocks are mined by just two addresses: https://twitter.com/santimentfeed/status/1570339602346684416...

Those could be exchanges ? Which would mean they represent very large numbers of users.

Seems the most likely explanation.

The idea that this isn’t true in BTC or PoW seems like a wild fiction to me.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#468

Post by CodeShmode »

ineedasername wrote: post #444

Prior to the merge ethereum’s trust was controlled by the organizations with the most money who bought/built massive data centers to mine it. With the merge & staking that abstraction layer has disappeared and it’s still the organizations with the most money who control it. Sure it’s great that non-productive math problems no longer need to be solved & consume so much energy and hardware to make it all work. And it m…

> Their influence still can override the mining process that’s supposed to be the final word on transactions.

Any attempted tampering would be highly visible and why would anyone with control of that much ETH risk loss of trust in their valuable asset?

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#469

Post by once_inc »

Waterluvian wrote: post #451
ineedasername wrote: post #444

Prior to the merge ethereum’s trust was controlled by the organizations with the most money who bought/built massive data centers to mine it. With the merge & staking that abstraction layer has disappeared and it’s still the organizations with the most money who control it. Sure it’s great that non-productive math problems no longer need to be solved & consume so much energy and hardware to make it all work. And it m…

Not using up a goat load of electricity is like 99% of why this change is great. Let people speculate on their funny money without harming everyone. A lateral move on the other details is rather unsurprising.

Using electricity isn't the problem. Anyone could use vast amounts of electricity as long as they are willing to pay the price for it. The problem is carbon emissions.

The switch to PoS is a non-issue from my perspective: a centralized system changed from using method A to method B, I don't understand why I should care.

Bitcoin mining is increasingly being used to prevent methane emissions in stranded gas reserves. Having an economic incentive to not flare or emit methane but instead using it for generating bitcoin allows Bitcoin mining to become net carbon negative.

Reducing methane emissions is vastly more effective at preventing climate change than reducing co2 emissions.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#470

Post by imtringued »

Tao3300 wrote: post #461
lmarcos wrote: post #28

> The Merge is one of the largest technological events in the industry to date. I feel kinda ashamed. I work in the IT industry and I claim to have knowledge about ("good") software engineering practices, distributed systems, compilers, algorithms, etc. Nevertheless, I didn't understand a word of what the article is saying. Could you recommend serious references (preferably books and not random blogs) I could read to…

Really? I feel like the article explained most of the terms. I remember having a similar feeling when NFTs were getting big. It turned out that I did understand the terms, there just wasn't enough actually there , triggering a feeling that I must have been missing something despite my eyes telling me the emperor has no clothes.

There is nothing new in cryptocurrency. The only real difference is the ability to flout the law. Having escape hatches is nice but glorifying the escape hatch of the week is odd.
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