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Mainnet Merge Announcement

blog.ethereum.org

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Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#471

Post by drcode »

MR4D wrote: post #269
drcode wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally wrong. Anybody has the ability to declare "the people with stakes did not validate correctly" In this context, what it means is that a person posted conflicting validation messages on different parts of the network, and anybody who can show the existence of two such conflicting messages can post it to the blockchain, receive a reward, and the offending validator gets slashed. (There are also other ways you ca…

Who slashes the Slashers? (with apologies to The Watchmen) EDIT: Clarification - once a slasher posts the violation, who removes the ether?

To answer "who removes the ether":

The value in a staking account is calculated on the blockchain as "amount staked minus slashing penalties", and this violation is automatically recorded as a slashing penalty, so the answer is "everybody"

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#472

Post by Balladeer »

leppr wrote: post #159
immibis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto has the same wealth centralization problem as all currencies (so far) - it's not immune, at all. It's not because of central bank activity. Wealth just centralizes. Free market economics lead to this emergent outcome. In principle, inflationary currencies have a force pushing away from wealth centralization, while deflationary currencies have a force pushing towards it, which is why everyone who thinks they'll…

> In principle, inflationary currencies have a force pushing away from wealth centralization That depends entirely where the new money gets injected. If it gets injected at the top, like with our current fiat currencies, then there's nothing wealth-decentralizing about it, all the contrary. [1] Mineable cryptocurrencies inject the new money to whoever mines them, which could be anyone (less true with the current stat…

> Mineable cryptocurrencies inject the new money to whoever mines them, which could be anyone

While true in theory, is it true in practice? Those with the most resources to mine will mine the most and thus receive the most, allowing them to mine more, and the cycle of centralization continues.

That's true regardless of PoW or PoS, isn't it?

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#473

Post by spywaregorilla »

leppr wrote: post #416
ethbr0 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You are spamming the HN comments and didn't read links, therefore your question is invalid, because of who asked it" is ad hominem. It's easy enough not to reply. No need to get an attitude about it.

Yes, this was ad-hominem because it seems obvious the OP is not asking this in good faith. Their first comment is not in the form of a neutral question, but a prejudiced assumption based on a false idea that nothing in the linked article could lead one to believe. > 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 i…

> Yes, this was ad-hominem because it seems obvious the OP is not asking this in good faith.

There's nothing here that was done in bad faith and I should not need to defend myself for asking a question in a tech forum. Assuming I'm not asking in good faith is bad faith.

The reason I asked was a description pasted a short while ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32535409

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32535912

Which included this line:

> Slashing is not meant to profitable, and the whistleblower reward is quite small. We don't need a million slashers, in fact, we could operate with just one... expect the Eth Foundation to run them, among other large players who can spare the resources.

Which sure sounds like a decentralized process that is ultimately just centralized around the ETH foundation at the end of the day.

Honestly I've learned a lot from the responses here. And I think people who assumed I was doing anything other than just asking questions because the idea I was asking about offended them are asshole. So yeah. Go pound sand.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#474

Post by IncRnd »

If anyone wonders why many "regular people" are uncertain about doing anything with cryptocurrencies, look at the top of this article for the reason. It's not that people are incapable of understanding the subject, but that the purveyors of the subject constantly coin new words and meanings.

  * Ethereum is moving to proof-of-stake! The transition, known as The Merge,
    must first be activated on the Beacon Chain with the Bellatrix upgrade.
    After this, the proof-of-work chain will migrate to proof-of-stake upon
    hitting a specific Total Difficulty value.
  * The Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled for epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain –
    11:34:47am UTC on Sept 6, 2022.
  * The Terminal Total Difficulty value triggering The Merge is
    58750000000000000000000, expected between Sept 10-20, 2022.
  * Note: as announced earlier, the Kiln testnet is being sunset. Operators
    will shut down on September 6, 2022.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#475

Post by unnouinceput »

SilasX wrote: post #392
unnouinceput wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs an average of ~5k USD to mine one bitcoin. Meaning even if the value drops at exchanges, no miner will sell below this value due to not breaking even on electricity. That's why also bitcoin miners go to places where electricity cost is low, and why they undervoltage their mining cards.

Wait, really? It only costs $5k to mine one when they sell for $21k?

I meant electricity cost, on average, is ~ 5k USD. I didn't factor anything else, like cost of hardware, rent/location, living expenses etc.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#476

Post by newsclues »

falcolas wrote: post #288
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is incorrect. https://i.redd.it/5lhlmwdg27j91.png Ethereum will be more decentralized after proof of stake. No longer do you need massive amounts of electricity and insider access to gpu or asic manufacturers.

> No longer do you need massive amounts of electricity and insider access to gpu or asic manufacturers. No, you just need money, 32 eth is only around $50000. And there's a lot of people with sufficient money to stand up multiple validators. And validators can also initiate/vote on arbitrary slash requests (which costs them nothing, as I read it).

As a not well off person with a gaming computer with power included in my rent, I don’t have 50,000$.

Shrinking the number of people with the financial means to contribute doesn’t seem like it’s going to result in decentralization.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#477

Post by rglover »

marshray wrote: post #446
rglover wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, that's just a convenient dismissal. Look around. None of what's happening is a mistake, it's just painful to contemplate and denial of it is easier (hence why politicians continue to run amok—nobody wants to face the truth).

No. Some of us do, in fact, seek the truth and attempt to face it. You are being dismissed out-of-hand because you make extraordinary, non-falsifiable claims ("None of what's happening is a mistake") without bothering to present any evidence in support of them.

Testosterone rates are down over the last 50 years [1].

That correlates with the changes to food production to lower costs [2], [3].

Based on your "alex jones" jab, you clearly took my statement to refer to a "conspiracy," when really I attribute these changes to a combination of:

1. Financial incentives for corner-cutting which are bolstered by government policies increasing regulation (production, safety, employment, etc) [4], leading to companies having to spend more for compliance and look for ways to corner cut, with the unfortunate choice being product quality, or, increased prices.

2. The government legislating to have ever-increasing budgets for entitlement programs [5] and other superfluous spending which necessitate higher taxes (financial pressure on working class people) and money printing. These, predictably, lead to inflation which corporations combat by increasing prices and so upward mobility gets knee-capped for a large chunk of the population.

On the relationships side, divorces went up significantly in the 80s and were stable until the early 2010s [6] as marriages started to decline and single parenting increased [7].

The greater point being, all of these changes can be attributed back to social changes with a root cause of government decision making. Like I said, look around. It's all there. Admittedly, it's complex and it's far too easy to take an irrational stance in the form of "it's the globalists!" but in reality, a lot of poor decision making and mismanagement in the government is the root of our woes.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7063751/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20516261/

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21367944/

[4] https://www.nahb.org/blog/2021/05/regulatory-costs-add-a-who...

[5] https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0027_entitlement-programs...

[6] https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-us-divorce-rate-has-hit-a-50-...

[7] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276025/us-percentage-of-...

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#478

Post by DanHulton »

rvz wrote: post #89
DanHulton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has hardly ever been the ONLY problem crypto has had, ands acting as if solving this one problem should silence all dissenters lest they be considered unserious is disingenuous. Look at the comments for literally any popular article about crypto on this site, hell, keep scrolling on this one and you'll probably find plenty. I, for one, am happy that enabling art theft and fraud on a massive scale will shortly no…

> That has hardly ever been the ONLY problem crypto has had, Where did I say it was the only problem? Why are you strawmaning my comment with such anger? > ands acting as if solving this one problem should silence all dissenters lest they be considered unserious is disingenuous. Another strawman and this rhetoric sounds like defeat and denial and my point was (if you've properly read my comment instead of misconstrui…

If your line: "But I imagine that they will invent new problems and the critics will hastefully rush in with their low effort hot takes" was _only_ intended to refer to "inventing new problems about environmental issues" and "low effort hot takes about environmental issues", you have not achieved the clarity in communication you were looking for.

Also, it's kind of a weird stance to take? I haven't seen anyone claiming that PoS wouldn't do exactly what it set out to do, that is fix the energy waste issue inherent in PoW-based blockchains. Maybe we just run in different circles, but the main criticism I see of PoS is that it doesn't _matter._ It doesn't make blockchains or defi any more useful or moral, and it just highlights the other externalities more clearly.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#479

Post by dsimmons »

IncRnd wrote: post #474

If anyone wonders why many "regular people" are uncertain about doing anything with cryptocurrencies, look at the top of this article for the reason. It's not that people are incapable of understanding the subject, but that the purveyors of the subject constantly coin new words and meanings. * Ethereum is moving to proof-of-stake! The transition, known as The Merge, must first be activated on the Beacon Chain with th…

To be fair, I think this is mainly aimed at developers (and ETH ecosystem developers specifically).

While I don't disagree that there's a "vocabulary" problem (e.g. "dank-sharding"), in a perfect world, a normie would largely just interact with an application without needing to know any of this.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#480

Post by AgentME »

anderspitman wrote: post #305
spywaregorilla wrote: post #10

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.

The previous post is completely making up the concept of slashers being an exclusive role. People should not be coming to any conclusions from a thread that starts off so wildly disconnected from reality.
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