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The Ethereum merge is done

coindesk.com

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Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#731

Post by pbronez »

colordrops wrote: post #725
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…

You are saying two contradictory things. First that those with the most money control Ethereum, and then that transactions can't be controls be reversed, indicating that you want a human layer of control that is currently missing. This is a conflating of layers and evidence of a fundamental misunderstanding of of how it works. The fact that these types of get off my lawn comments get voted to the top of HN that make…

I think the argument is:

(1) in both traditional finance and crypto, a relatively small group of big players control the rules of the game

(2) in traditional finance, there are established ways for small players (Eg consumers) to appeal to big players (eg retail bank) to make exceptions and provide redress

(3) in crypto, there are not yet established pathways for small players to petition big players for redress in this way.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#733

Post by lawrenceyan »

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…

Given your background, you likely already understand all the individual components of how a blockchain like Ethereum functions, just disparately or in different contexts.

I'd recommend just taking look at the documentation / code.

Here's some sample ones:

Ethereum - https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/evm/

Solana - https://docs.solana.com/cluster/synchronization

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#734

Post by everfree »

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).

Please don't try to tell me what's entertaining to me and what isn't.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#735

Post by ryeguy_24 »

mcherm wrote: post #719
ryeguy_24 wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is potentially the most interesting comment in here. If all of those GPUs just flipped to another cryptocurrency, global energy reduction would be zero.

In the short term, that's true because the GPUs are already purchased. In the long run, people will invest in new cryptocurrency mining rigs very much in proportion to the profitability of running one.

Also a great comment. :) Good points on both short- and long-term effects.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#736

Post by nightski »

matkoniecz wrote: post #660
once_inc wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. H…

> allows Bitcoin mining to become net carbon negative Phrasing in this way suggests that Bitcoin is already net carbon negative or can plausibly become it. That is not true. > Using electricity isn't the problem. It is, as electricity is fungible and wasting it on bitcoin increases prices for everyone else and encourages greater degradation of shared resources.

I agree Bitcoin probably won't be carbon negative any time soon if ever. But electricity is definitely not fungible as production is not always in the same place as demand.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#737

Post by crowhack »

dcolkitt wrote: post #661
TheDudeMan wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a crypto miner and had a pile of GPUs would they be powered-off right now? Of course not.

There's virtually no other ASIC resistant (i.e. can use GPU) PoW coin left to mine. There's the proof-of-work ETH fork, but it only has a market cap less than 2% of than real ETH. So even though they juiced the block rewards, miner rewards are more than 90% lower, which isn't enough to pay for electricity of the previous hash rate.

True, there are not many (or any) that will be as profitable but some still exist such as ergo, https://ergoplatform.org/en/get-erg/#Mining .

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#738

Post by kinakomochidayo »

the_duke wrote: post #204
TimJRobinson wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum isn't supposed to be money (though it can be), it's fuel you use for doing other things. Do people use less oil because it's deflationary and gets consumed when used? No, because it's useful now. The most likely end game for Ethereum is being a replacement for all backend financial systems. Instead of having to hire teams of people to verify things or integrate various legacy systems together, everyone can b…

Banks would never switch to a system that makes all transactions publicly traceable, and they shouldn't. The industry has investigated blockchains for many years, since distributed consensus for transactions is a problem they actually have. They might run their own private chains. But it won't be ETH.

There is something called zk rollups on Ethereum, and some use zero knowledge to make transactions private.

Like Aztec Protocol, which is used by zk.money.

It’s also the same technology used by Tornado Cash, which was sanctioned recently.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#739

Post by colechristensen »

oliwarner wrote: post #727
apeace wrote: post #634

> It's like Finland has suddenly shut off its power grid So, have we observed global energy usage go down by about one Finland? Shouldn't that be observable somehow? Shouldn't there be some power stations reducing their output as a reaction to reduced demand? Anyone know how this would be visible, and on what kind of time frame we expect it to become visible? I'm not claiming it hasn't happened. I just feel surprised…

The people who were mining ETH didn't give a toss about the environment. They invested in PoW hardware and they're not going to stop using it because ETH is now PoS, they'll just mine something else. I just hope the PoW markets collapse now ETH is moving on.

With ETH off there’s going to be a significant loss of profit to be had and people stopping because the expected value of mining has gone negative. Store stocks of graphics cards are booming. There absolutely will be a reduction in PoW power usage globally.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#740

Post by progman32 »

colordrops wrote: post #723
bcrosby95 wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a criminal spies on my credit card # as I make a purchase and uses that to go on a spending spree I can fix it with the credit card company with little cost but a few hours of time and frustration. I'll take this one step further. My credit card company has caught every instance of fraud on my card. So I've had zero hours of frustration yet multiple instances of people trying to use my credit card number. One ti…

There can't be fraud of the sort that you get with credit cards on a blockchain unless you leak your private keys. The fact that security is built around a 16 digit number and 3 digit pin that you share with everyone and can be reused is embarrassing for credit card companies, not a win. Amazing.

Okay, then they leak their private key.
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