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Does anyone have an opinion if new tokens (aka altcoins) created by ERC20[1] are exacerbating Ethereum's network congestion ? My initial reaction is that ERC20

Does anyone have an opinion if new tokens (aka altcoins) created by ERC20[1] are exacerbating Ethereum's network congestion ? My initial reaction is that ERC20 is a parasite vector that will cause long term harm to the value of ETH. Altcoins, to some extent, all compete for speculative dollars. For all I know 80%[2] of the top 800 coins on coinmarketcap.com are ERC20 issued tokens. That means a lower price for ETH due to competition and therefore a lower incentive for the miners who can instantly start mining another currency. Which leads to further latency, less liquidity, and further price depression. [1] ERC20 is a protocol for issuing new tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. [2] Does anyone have a source ? This was a wild guess.

gst 9y ago
> long term harm to the value of ETH I don't see why this is a problem. The goal of the Ethereum developers is to increase the utility of the network, not to artificially inflate the value of ETH. In fact for one of the future Ethereum upgrades it's planned to convert ETH into a ERC20 token, so that it's at the same level as all the other tokens on the network. It wouldn't even get a special status in terms of transaction fees, as (IIRC) the plan is to allow miners to accept whatever tokens they prefer for the gas payment. See https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/28 https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/28 and https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/572v7t/eth_as_an_erc20_token/d8ohxxb/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/572v7t/eth_as_an_...
- Jabanga 9y ago
  Neither of those links imply ether will lose its role as input for gas payment. It simply lets ether be used by contracts in the same way tokens are, which allows for greater abstraction of ether transactions. Vlad Zamfir explicitly rejects any call for economic abstraction: https://medium.com/@Vlad_Zamfir/against-economic-abstraction-e27f4cbba5a7 https://medium.com/@Vlad_Zamfir/against-economic-abstraction...
deleted 9y ago
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Jabanga 9y ago
ERC20 tokens increase the value of the Ethereum platform. The more tokens on Ethereum, the more opportunities for interoperation, which increases the utility of all tokens (see Metcalfe's Law). Moreover, it increases the value of ether by increasing demand for blockchain computations.

gst 9y ago

> long term harm to the value of ETH I don't see why this is a problem. The goal of the Ethereum developers is to increase the utility of the network, not to artificially inflate the value of ETH. In fact for one of the future Ethereum upgrades it's planned to convert ETH into a ERC20 token, so that it's at the same level as all the other tokens on the network. It wouldn't even get a special status in terms of transaction fees, as (IIRC) the plan is to allow miners to accept whatever tokens they prefer for the gas payment. See https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/28 https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/28 and https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/572v7t/eth_as_an_erc20_token/d8ohxxb/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/572v7t/eth_as_an_...

Jabanga 9y ago
Neither of those links imply ether will lose its role as input for gas payment. It simply lets ether be used by contracts in the same way tokens are, which allows for greater abstraction of ether transactions. Vlad Zamfir explicitly rejects any call for economic abstraction: https://medium.com/@Vlad_Zamfir/against-economic-abstraction-e27f4cbba5a7 https://medium.com/@Vlad_Zamfir/against-economic-abstraction...

deleted 9y ago

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Jabanga 9y ago

ERC20 tokens increase the value of the Ethereum platform. The more tokens on Ethereum, the more opportunities for interoperation, which increases the utility of all tokens (see Metcalfe's Law). Moreover, it increases the value of ether by increasing demand for blockchain computations.