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The Problem with Ethereum

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Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#241

Post by silasdavis »

Taek wrote: post #228
silasdavis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The miners do have the power to hard fork - they can choose to run a node that implements the fork > A hard fork is determined by the users, who have to upgrade their software. Who are 'the users' here? Light clients? Users of wallets? None of these have the power to adopt a fork, soft or hard. The collective action of the miners (or validators) defines which chains still retain liveness. For example in the hard fork…

Anyone who runs a full node can decide any set of rules they want to follow. You can incentivize miners to mine on your fork by providing block rewards. If you pay people to do something, at least some of them will. The ETC fork would have been successful at any non-zero support level from people with the ability to mine. And since any CPU can mine (just inefficiently), any fork can get a mining baseline. That may no…

Thanks for responding. So you are saying full nodes are the users? They can provide connectivity but full nodes that don't mine can't continue a fork (where fork is any fork including the original) without there being people willing to mine that fork. So that's why I think miners have the ability to fork.

> The ETC fork would have been successful at any non-zero support level from people with the ability to mine.

It would be economically irrational for people to send transactions to a fork with a single miner since that miner could unilaterally rewrite any transactions as they see fit. This is why I think miners have the ability to control forking.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#242

Post by shawnz »

noxer wrote: post #200
Taek wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general misconception about how consensus works in blockchains. Miners can choose whether or not to adopt a "soft fork". A soft fork can't violate any existing rules, it can just introduce new rules. A hard fork is allowed to violate existing rules, and gives you more flexibility in what can be changed. And miners do not have the power to decide whether or not a hard fork will happen. A hard fork is determi…

Not correct. The software update that goes to the uses but if miners dont mine for the hard fork, then the user cant use it. Its a technical reality that they could update anyway and at least some miners would mine for them but that would just be causing a chain fork and 2 different chains. The miners have the power to decide where they mine. And user have the power to decide on which chain they operate on. They both…

> The software update that goes to the uses but if miners dont mine for the hard fork, then the user cant use it. ... The miners have the power to decide where they mine.

This is based on the assumption that miners would rather choose to abandon their business as a matter of principle than mine on the most profitable chain, and also somehow convince any future, unaffiliated prospective miners to also do the same. How could they ever achieve that? Miners don't control where the financial incentives are.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#243

Post by xtracto »

mypastself wrote: post #127

If nearly half the text is bolded, what’s the purpose of the boldface? I feel like there’s a 51% font attack brewing within the article. Regarding the content, the class allegory itself can go the other way as well: the core developers can be thought of as the workers, the miners are the owners of means of production etc. The one point that’s relevant is the rule-making: the DAO hack hard fork has proven that Ethereu…

Looks more like the zebra striping for tables: its there just so that you can differentiate paragraphs

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#244

Post by shawnz »

nearbuy wrote: post #192
Taek wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general misconception about how consensus works in blockchains. Miners can choose whether or not to adopt a "soft fork". A soft fork can't violate any existing rules, it can just introduce new rules. A hard fork is allowed to violate existing rules, and gives you more flexibility in what can be changed. And miners do not have the power to decide whether or not a hard fork will happen. A hard fork is determi…

Ah, I should have known better. I was misinterpreting from the article linked in the article where it says (about a fork), "Miners, exchanges, and node operators also had to agree to update their software."

It is necessary for some miners to choose to use the post-fork software in order for it to work, but miners take on the task of mining due to financial incentives, and the users ultimately control those incentives. Miners only have a choice in the sense that they could collectively choose to abandon their profits as a matter of principle.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#246

Post by xorcist »

silasdavis wrote: post #241
Taek wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who runs a full node can decide any set of rules they want to follow. You can incentivize miners to mine on your fork by providing block rewards. If you pay people to do something, at least some of them will. The ETC fork would have been successful at any non-zero support level from people with the ability to mine. And since any CPU can mine (just inefficiently), any fork can get a mining baseline. That may no…

Thanks for responding. So you are saying full nodes are the users? They can provide connectivity but full nodes that don't mine can't continue a fork (where fork is any fork including the original) without there being people willing to mine that fork. So that's why I think miners have the ability to fork. > The ETC fork would have been successful at any non-zero support level from people with the ability to mine. It…

Forking a coin is free. Anyone can fork any coin at any time. Most miners will mine whatever makes money, but some may mine for a possible future payout or altruistic reasons.

A fork is generally considered successful if it carries economic value. That is decided by the amount of users transacting in the currency. Working exchanges are a requirement for this, but not enough (as has been experimentally demonstrated).

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#247

Post by namlem »

dash2 wrote: post #150
kristofferR wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(b) is why Bitcoin core development has stagnated[*]. And that's fine if people just want it to be like gold, however Ethereum doesn't aspire to not evolve. (c) I actually disagree with. Decentralized governance is a very interesting subject, and some cryptos like Tezos are governed quite decentralized in many ways. Right now I'm really confident in how Ethereum is governed, with the "old-fashioned" open-source devel…

Decentralized governance is interesting like nuclear fusion: it's 30 years away and always will be. Real governance requires somebody to take the time and effort to think about solutions to public goods problems. In other words, governance is a public good. Decentralizing it just results in underprovision.

Except nuclear fusion isn't 30 years away anymore. A ton of progress has been made in plasma physics. There's a good chance we'll see an energy-positive reactor by the end of this decade.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#248

Post by EveYoung »

dragonelite wrote: post #116
denton-scratch wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's plenty wrong with Ethereum, but casting miners as 'the working class' is a flawed analogy. Agreed. Marx's working class consists of those who do not own means of production, and are therefore compelled to sell their labour. Miners do not lack means of production; they operate expensive mining machinery. That machinery continues to run, and earn money for the miner, even while the miner sits on the beach. Se…

The two class cycles workers cycle: Commodity(labor) -> Money -> Commodity(food, housing bills) Capitalists cycle: Money -> Commodity(means of production) -> Money(profit/surplus value) At least that is the bit that kind of sticked to me and made me realized in the west you want to do the second cycle. Earn money by selling labor, live life as a cheap ass for a while use savings to become a asshole landlord.

Unfortunately, the second option becomes more and more difficult for most people. With increasing costs of living, saving enough money for investments often times seems impossible.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#249

Post by textbookrental »

spottybanana wrote: post #76
kristofferR wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(b) is why Bitcoin core development has stagnated[*]. And that's fine if people just want it to be like gold, however Ethereum doesn't aspire to not evolve. (c) I actually disagree with. Decentralized governance is a very interesting subject, and some cryptos like Tezos are governed quite decentralized in many ways. Right now I'm really confident in how Ethereum is governed, with the "old-fashioned" open-source devel…

> (b) is why Bitcoin core development has stagnated. And that's fine if people just want it to be like gold, however Ethereum doesn't aspire to not evolve. How stagnated is Bitcoin development? Yeah it is not progressing super fast, but I think it is still progressing. Taproot has been accepted by miners and will be activated this year. Improvements are being done. As Bitcoin is the biggest crypto by market gap, I th…

I just find it unbelievable that after a decade of the smartest people moving into the crypto space, the best crypto solution is the first one, created by a single person 13 years ago.

It makes Bitcoin look like an anti-technology.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#250

Post by casi18 »

gorgoiler wrote: post #195
casi18 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who do these people think they are, trying to push upon us a new gold? it is completely opt in, you don't have to participate. which seems better than the money governments say we have to use (because they are in control of it and can use that power to maintain control of people). > one that doesn’t slyly concentrate billions of wealth into the hands of a few. lots of people in crypto very open to any ideas or sugg…

The government is the people. If cryptocurrency is an end-run around the collapse-of or lack-of democracy then I get it, but we deserve better in the West.

I think making tools for transparency of financial information with privacy for the individuals is very beneficial to our democracies.

and I think tools that help people coordinate/unionise/collectivise around shared interests is good for all of us who are working people.

we dont have to be totally cynical and an accelerationist to believe there are flaws with government and money. I dont think the western democracies are collapsing, i feel like i have decent representation where i live. But i think things could be done better, ive also witnessed massive wastes of resources in local government, corruption and collusion. I dont think the systems we've inherited from pre-electricity society are going to be the absolute best we can ever come up with. this is hackernews, where people praise saas startups and hobbies and research on new gpus. but damn you if you think we can come up with better money or government.

I think people are just skeptical of the intentions of those of us working in the space (which is sensible) because of the money and the memes and the absurdity of the energy around the crypto space. but i dont understand why people are so doom and gloom about it, 99.9% of the people involved arent living in a bunker waiting for the collapse of society, generally the eth devs ive met are very positive and optimistic and like you say, believe we deserve better.

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