Live data from Hacker News

The Ethereum merge is done

coindesk.com

811–820 of 1001 posts

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#811
post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First one is Lido and second one is Coinbase both of them are pools. Lido is more decentralized than Coinbase as the stake is spread across many different staking providers. In any case the situation is not ideal and a bigger uptake of solo staking and truly decentralized staking solutions like RocketPool would be beneficial. https://etherscan.io/address/0x388c818ca8b9251b393131c08a736... https://etherscan.io/address…

wait, so why does Coinbase "own" a wallet with all its users ETH in it? Who really "owns" the coins held on Coinbase?

Coinbase is the only entity that knows the private keys which could be used to move the funds in this wallet. So if "owns" means actual technical control of the coins, Coinbase owns them.

Now, many people (pretty much all) follow the laws and contractual obligations of the region in which they live. Under the framework of that system, the funds at still belong to the customer that deposited them. Whether that means the customer "owns" them or is simply "owed" them by Coinbase is debatable...probably a pointless debate.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#812
post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First one is Lido and second one is Coinbase both of them are pools. Lido is more decentralized than Coinbase as the stake is spread across many different staking providers. In any case the situation is not ideal and a bigger uptake of solo staking and truly decentralized staking solutions like RocketPool would be beneficial. https://etherscan.io/address/0x388c818ca8b9251b393131c08a736... https://etherscan.io/address…

wait, so why does Coinbase "own" a wallet with all its users ETH in it? Who really "owns" the coins held on Coinbase?

[deleted]

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is rude. I care about the environment, still I am mining. How is it good for the environment? I only mine when my house and battery does not need electricity and our solar is producing over 1kw. Everything I earn (around 100-300$ a month between February to Oktober) I invest in the next environment project. My miners need about 500w. This is a fraction of the amount I put back into the grid. If I would not do th…

That's good on you. And yet, obviously, not what is happening on average with crypto mining.

You are certainly right. However I am under the assumption that you only mine where electricity is cheap. If you are not stealing it, there is only nuclear, wind, water and sun produced energy left => Miners are kind of forced to use environment friendly energy.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#814
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…

There is a X Moonshot Factory or w/e the google incubator is called for unified power grid visibility. It is supposedly hard to do.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#815
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…

If you're the type of person who poured capital into mining hardware and you own it, which you likely do because it's more cost effective, you still have all that hardware sitting around. You're going to repurpose it to other mining endeavors or quickly find a way to try and eek more money out of if, because you were already that type of person.

I don't keep up with crypto and mining but until it becomes unprofitable or you can't pull money for and start operating in the red, you're going to continue consuming similar power.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#816
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…

Vitalik has a FAQ

https://vitalik.ca/general/2017/12/31/pos_faq.html

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#817
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 entire world generates about 25,000 TWh of electricity every year. Finland consumes about 87 TWh of electricity every year. An entire Finland of electricity use thinly distributed over the entire planet disappearing is a negligible rounding error on the grand scheme of things. It's about a ~0.3% change. News media uses word imagery like "an entire Finland of electricity use" because it sounds huge and scary to th…

The thing is, in the wider cacophony of human civilization, Ethereum and cryptocurrencies also don't exist.

If I and my grandma and everyone's grandma would use Proof of Work cryptocurrencies to buy peanuts at the supermarket, PoW energy usage would probably rival that of China.

Now it's just used for speculation by a bunch of rich folks, crooks and marks. Probably only a few thousand transactions per second, I imagine.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is rude. I care about the environment, still I am mining. How is it good for the environment? I only mine when my house and battery does not need electricity and our solar is producing over 1kw. Everything I earn (around 100-300$ a month between February to Oktober) I invest in the next environment project. My miners need about 500w. This is a fraction of the amount I put back into the grid. If I would not do th…

You should also go burn entire forests for energy and then invest the profits to plant forests to restore what you just did. Dont want to be snarky, but thats the summary of what you just said.

I forgot to mention that I only use solar energy from our roof. I updated my comment. Wrote the initial comment in a rush. Sorry for that.

So no, I only use overproduction to mine and only a fraction of it. Everything else goes back into the grid.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what will happen now that the ponzi structure is now gained new velocity as energy constraints have shut down proof of work mining. PoW creates centralized collusion between those who can afford the best miners and this helped the velocity of the chain itself since it is only as good as the last mined block. Now that layer is gone, its this proof-of-stake which is a bit funny since, Ponzi schemes are also pr…

You're confused, in a ponzi earlier investors are paid from the investments of future investors. That's not how PoS works. In Ethereum, everyone is diluted to pay stakers and the time of their investment does not matter.

> in a ponzi earlier investors are paid from the investments of future investors.

Also, a Ponzi scheme requires fraud, where the earlier investors are being lied-to about where the money comes from in order to paint a false financial picture of the company.

Not directly related to your point, but I wanted to put that out there since it's a pet-peeve of mine that "Ponzi" gets frequently misused as a label for anything the speaker thinks is unsustainable.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#820

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…

> liberation of people from massively powerful banks and governments The difference between business and governments is that in business every dollar has a vote, whereas in a democracy every adult has a vote. "liberation of people" can only happen by having a working democracy. And a working democracy can only exist when there is (democratically elected) government. So it's not like people should be liberated from go…

To add to your comment, we want a *powerful* and accountable government.

Weak governments make for failed states, because corporations and other interest groups such as gangs, warlords, control things instead.

Post reply on HN