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This is FUD, broadly speaking. The devs have put out a patch for miners which allows them to decide whether or not they wish to fork over these transactions. Ce

This is FUD, broadly speaking. The devs have put out a patch for miners which allows them to decide whether or not they wish to fork over these transactions. Centralization is not required for this decision, instead, distributed consensus. The counterpoint to your statements is simply that consumers need safety with their money. It is no badge of honor to let unsophisticated technical people lose money for some extreme libertarian ideals.

pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
I agree with your points. But the miners who actually have a say, if I am not mistaken, are the big ones and the pool owners. These are just a small fraction of all people running mining software. A soft fork will undeniably require distributed consensus. It is the number of people with the actual right to vote that may be worrisome. Perhaps the pool owners should extend their voting rights to their pool contributors, pooling votes as they pool mining shares. (Disclaimer: I hold a small amount of ETH and participate in a mining pool.)
- vessenes 10y ago
  Or, pool owners could announce their position, and you could switch pools. This has happened in Bitcoin, albeit very occasionally.
forgotpwtomain 10y ago
> This is FUD, broadly speaking. The devs have put out a patch for miners which allows them to decide whether or not they wish to fork over these transactions. Centralization is not required for this decision, instead, distributed consensus. With all respect Peter, this is not FUD and OP is raising a valid concern. Yes, the miners vote on the patch - but given the infant state of the ecosystem and the large loss incurred, even further controversy or delay in finding a resolution may cause them permanent economic harm; so it would appear that there is little leeway in the choice involved. > The counterpoint to your statements is simply that consumers need safety with their money. It is no badge of honor to let unsophisticated technical people lose money for some extreme libertarian ideals. Yes, that's certainly the argument, particularly that if there is majority agreement than the protocol change is justified. But this doesn't at all invalidate OP's concern that fundamentally algorithmic contract's aren't binding if such an alteration can be adopted. The case could be made that in a more mature ecosystem such case specific alterations are more potentially damaging than useful and that this is a transitional phase, yet I think the burden of proof is on the one responding.
- vessenes 10y ago
  >so it would appear that there is little leeway in the choice involved. I think we agree on this. The reality is that an active choice will still have to be made by a consensus group, though. It's not a matter of something being forced down the throats of a majority by an oligarchy, it's utilizing the existing consensus mechanism. I think OP should be well warned here as to what is binding with smart contracts, for sure. This isn't any different than risk calculations in Bitcoin, though -- early days advice was to wait six blocks for transactions over $20, because the cost of subverting the network was very low. This is part of the give and take of mining and distributed consensus with current technologies.
- vessenes 10y ago
  I've written a longer post about this: http://vessenes.com/point-counterpoint-ethereum-miners-should-blacklist-thedao-theft/ http://vessenes.com/point-counterpoint-ethereum-miners-shoul...

pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago

I agree with your points. But the miners who actually have a say, if I am not mistaken, are the big ones and the pool owners. These are just a small fraction of all people running mining software. A soft fork will undeniably require distributed consensus. It is the number of people with the actual right to vote that may be worrisome. Perhaps the pool owners should extend their voting rights to their pool contributors, pooling votes as they pool mining shares. (Disclaimer: I hold a small amount of ETH and participate in a mining pool.)

vessenes 10y ago
Or, pool owners could announce their position, and you could switch pools. This has happened in Bitcoin, albeit very occasionally.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago

> This is FUD, broadly speaking. The devs have put out a patch for miners which allows them to decide whether or not they wish to fork over these transactions. Centralization is not required for this decision, instead, distributed consensus. With all respect Peter, this is not FUD and OP is raising a valid concern. Yes, the miners vote on the patch - but given the infant state of the ecosystem and the large loss incurred, even further controversy or delay in finding a resolution may cause them permanent economic harm; so it would appear that there is little leeway in the choice involved. > The counterpoint to your statements is simply that consumers need safety with their money. It is no badge of honor to let unsophisticated technical people lose money for some extreme libertarian ideals. Yes, that's certainly the argument, particularly that if there is majority agreement than the protocol change is justified. But this doesn't at all invalidate OP's concern that fundamentally algorithmic contract's aren't binding if such an alteration can be adopted. The case could be made that in a more mature ecosystem such case specific alterations are more potentially damaging than useful and that this is a transitional phase, yet I think the burden of proof is on the one responding.

vessenes 10y ago
>so it would appear that there is little leeway in the choice involved. I think we agree on this. The reality is that an active choice will still have to be made by a consensus group, though. It's not a matter of something being forced down the throats of a majority by an oligarchy, it's utilizing the existing consensus mechanism. I think OP should be well warned here as to what is binding with smart contracts, for sure. This isn't any different than risk calculations in Bitcoin, though -- early days advice was to wait six blocks for transactions over $20, because the cost of subverting the network was very low. This is part of the give and take of mining and distributed consensus with current technologies.
vessenes 10y ago
I've written a longer post about this: http://vessenes.com/point-counterpoint-ethereum-miners-should-blacklist-thedao-theft/ http://vessenes.com/point-counterpoint-ethereum-miners-shoul...