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Mainnet Merge Announcement

blog.ethereum.org

381–390 of 609 posts

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#381

I can be anti-crypto and still appreciate this. First - clearly reducing the environmental impact of anything by this much is pro-humanity. (Although having the impact to begin with is another story.) Secondly from a sheer technical coordination perspective there's a feeling of pulling off a complex dance. Makes it hard for any of us to claim our workloads aren't testable!

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Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#382
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First - clearly reducing the environmental impact of anything by this much is pro-humanity. How long until BTC follows suit?

Never. PoW is a fundamental part of what makes bitcoin valuable.

Not really - being able to resolve double spends in a decentralized cryptocurrency is what makes BTC valuable, and PoW is just one method for doing that. I don't think there is any evidence that PoW is the only way to resolve double spends with a decentralized cryptocurrency.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already happening - the biggest miner refused to include Tornado Cash transactions in the mining pool. Stick a fork in it. Ethereum is done. With that degree of centralization, might as well just run a database and call it a day.

Waiting you run a big central database as Ethereum with the same marketcap.

Why should the marketcap be of any concern to me?

Is that how you evaluate technologies? By their marketcap?

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#384

Is it incorrect to say that ethereum is now entirely centralized with some extra steps? Like, you have this proof of stake thing, but the only reason it works is because there's just a small number of validators, which is just going to be the ethereum foundation and friends. edit: putting this at the top because nobody is responding on topic. I am NOT talking about the class of people who stake 32 eth to validate nod…

As an outside observer, my biggest takeaway from the threads here is that apparently the Ethereum devs have managed to create a technology so complicated that proponents can't concisely explain why it works and detractors can't explain why it doesn't.

I feel like PoS has always had this problem, it will be interesting to see how this goes. Certainly PoW has some hairy details as well, but the backbone of "you can only run computations so fast" makes it simpler to reason about.

The question being asked is also a harder one to answer than just explaining PoS. Similar to a PoW scheme where only one or two people control all of the hashing power, it could be decentralized in theory but not actually in practice, and it doesn't seem like there are any super hard numbers on this aspect.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#385
post #359

Has there been any resolution to the issues raised in https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1560070819518234624.html ? My reading of the concerns is that USDC has effective fork veto, and that with PoS the chain would be subject to OFAC, which would effectively destroy it. (my reading may well be incorrect / the concerns irrelevant)

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Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#386
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In scenario when 51% coalition is censoring everyone else (block producers / validators that don't belong to coalition), the way out is via UASF - user-activated soft fork. This will cause slashing of attackers via "inactivity leak mechanism". Source: https://vitalik.ca/general/2020/11/06/pos2020.html

Thanks. To me it seems this would greatly damage the value of the assets (like the blockchain wars but for ETH) but yes, it can be recovered from. I think the problem here is centralization and this can be more easily avoided in PoW (because of energy costs rising a lot if all miners go in one place) instead of PoS (there are no physical restraints, so in theory all staking pools could be in Switzerland). So politica…

The flip side is it's virtually impossible to hide a large-scale mining operation. The meatspace footprint is just gigantic. By contrast a validator node, even one securing billions of value, can run on consumer hardware sitting behind a VPN or TOR gateway.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#387

Does staking make Etherium deflationary? (or make it more deflationary if it already is)

According to ultrasound.money, Ethereum's current 30d inflation rate is 4.1% annualized. If the merge were already behind us (flip the "simulate merge" switch), inflation would be 0.1%.

So, not quite deflationary but pretty close. If Ethereum network usage picks up again like it did in 2021, Ethereum will experience long stretches of time where it is deflationary.

https://ultrasound.money/

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#388
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already happening - the biggest miner refused to include Tornado Cash transactions in the mining pool. Stick a fork in it. Ethereum is done. With that degree of centralization, might as well just run a database and call it a day.

Since blockchains are specifically built with idea of censorship resistance in mind, and Ethermine not including TC transactions can't actually prevent other miners from including them... I'm struggling to understand the point you are trying to make. Are you talking about lack of ideological purity of Ethermine?

> lack of ideological purity of Ethermine?

Yes, and the fact that everyone in the Ethereum community has largely glossed this over in their enthusiasm for the "merge" and what it will do the price of their assets.

Cryptocurrencies that embrace the centralization and censorship of fiat currencies are completely unnecessary and have no real utility. Tornado Cash and Ethermine should have been a line in the sand, a hard boundary for what's acceptable and what's not.

But the fact that no one even cares tells me that the community will be happy to accept even more censorship as long as their bags keep going up. Pathetic, really.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#389
post #310

What are the chances that this doesn't end in disaster? Honest question.

Chances are high that it will not end in disaster, in my opinion.

They've simulated the switchover dozens of times on a diverse set of networks, including development ("shadow") forks of the main network itself.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#390
post #359

Has there been any resolution to the issues raised in https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1560070819518234624.html ? My reading of the concerns is that USDC has effective fork veto, and that with PoS the chain would be subject to OFAC, which would effectively destroy it. (my reading may well be incorrect / the concerns irrelevant)

If being subject to OFAC oversight would "destroy" Ethereum, then Ethereum should be destroyed.

Why is that? OFAC is a US government agency, Ethereum is not a US-based organization. Why should they be forced to follow US laws? There are plenty of us outside of the US who do not care about what's illegal in the US or not.
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