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The Merge

ethereum.org

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Re: The Merge

#271

Post by Prunkton »

dcow wrote: post #253

I predict this is the beginning of the end for Ethereum. First we will see what the intrinsic value of a blockchain is. Then the network will die when someone buys the 2/3rds of the validators for less than Visa makes in a day. It will probably just be Visa. Code is not law, money is. This is the core value on the network and has been for quite awhile now.

this is not how markes work. while trying to buy 2/3 by of a semi-stable (in that time frame) amount of ETH, you will skyrocket the price and have to pay more for each additional ETH. A huge amount of ETH is already staked aka out of the system since you can not unstake them at the moment. You can not liquidate your staked ETH regardless how much money you throw around. This is not a practical attack vector you would literaly >100x the ETH price. This aspect also differs from the PoW approach where you take a source from outside of the system (Hardware) to participate. And since there is a 'infinite' number of Hardware/Hashpower you could accumulate over time attacks are easier (still hard for different reasons) to perform.

But lets assume you archive to controll 2/3rds of validators, you can not start staking the very next second. There is a queue (I think of some days) and people will recognize the attack before you will be able to perform it and people will simply blacklist you for their own sake.

Re: The Merge

#272

Post by latchkey »

littlestymaar wrote: post #260
latchkey wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is order of magnitude easier for them to make changes after launch since the code and developers are here on earth and not floating in space.

Especially given Ethereum's decision power being entirely centralized in the hands of the developers (unlike bitcoin for instance) who has shown willingness to hard-fork when they consider it necessary. In fact, the move from PoW to PoS illustrate this concentration of power: the miners lose a lot but they had no say in the decision.

Miners knew from day one that PoS was eventual. As a very large ETH miner, I'm not that concerned about that part of things. Why? The business model for my company was built around a larger idea than just mining. Mining was just a great way for us to bootstrap the business.

Let's also not forget that there are other coins out there to mine. There is a huge potential for something to take ETH's place... whether that happens or not is up in the air and really depends on someone to step up and take it. Easier said than done, but the possibility is there.

Re: The Merge

#274

Post by redox99 »

azth wrote: post #234

What effect will this have on its price?

If everything else stays the same, it should have a positive impact on price because of the reduction of issuance.

Re: The Merge

#275

Post by Prunkton »

dcow wrote: post #264
Cantinflas wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need billions to buy a significant %...

Not after we learn the intrinsic value of the network.

you said it yourself 'Code is not law, money is'. Money will always flow to the market with the highest 'capital efficiency', its like the laws of thermodynamics for economics/human greed lol. This is the whole point why people perform the ridiculous undertaking to build dedicated fiber-connections between stock markets on different continents. we already know DeFi does outperform traditional markets in this regard in important topics. Its an engineering task to increase the % in this still very young discipline. But IMHO it is mostly a question of regulation to have a significant shift

Re: The Merge

#277

Post by comex »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #227

You do not need to wait for the merge to see the effects. Staking pools are already heavily centralizing power in the network on centralized exchanges and """"decentralized"""" contract pools like Lido which can be manipulated and changed with the keys of a small group of people. Vitalik is already preparing to organize social enforcement and democratic slashing for when these pools have their arms twisted to censor…

As opposed to miners which are… not heavily centralized?

Re: The Merge

#278

Post by redox99 »

swarnie wrote: post #12
y42 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote The Merge will reduce Ethereum's energy consumption by ~99.95%.

Does the merge come with any real world benefits? Besides now not needing the yearly power consumption of Belgium. Like... Can i buy bread and milk with this thing any time soon?

It also greatly helps with GPU shortages because they aren't needed for mining anymore.

Re: The Merge

#279

Post by everfree »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #227

You do not need to wait for the merge to see the effects. Staking pools are already heavily centralizing power in the network on centralized exchanges and """"decentralized"""" contract pools like Lido which can be manipulated and changed with the keys of a small group of people. Vitalik is already preparing to organize social enforcement and democratic slashing for when these pools have their arms twisted to censor…

> Staking pools are already heavily centralizing power in the network on centralized exchanges and """"decentralized"""" contract pools

That's just not true. Check the PoW and PoS pie charts here:

https://etherscan.io/stat/miner?range=7&blocktype=blocks

https://beaconcha.in/charts/pools_distribution

It's easy to see that they are extremely similar in terms of centralization.

Re: The Merge

#280

Post by Prunkton »

remote_phone wrote: post #267

Will this drop has fees? Gas fees are keeping crypto from taking off, it’s ridiculously high

gas fees will not get affected by the merge from a users point of perspective (there is a lot going on for validators etc). This was not part of the plan.

In this regard there was kind of a shift over the last years of how Ethereum is working and wants to work. The current vision of Ethereum is roughly: There is a protocol layer (1) and an application layer (2). User transactions should be dealed with on layer 2 with fees around 0.1$. Layer 1 is considered as the generalized security layer to make specialized layer 2 possible without downsides. User transactions can be that cheap because they are part of an accumulated so called rollup, there are different kind of rollups for more specialized use-cases.

But to come back to your initial question. There are also updates in the pipeline for ethereum to increase its performance in regard of gas fees and ts/s >100x in the coming ~5y. There will be several small updates, way way easier to implement than the merge. The first should hit mainnet 2023.. but time will tell ;)

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