3 ms·

You say "miners" like they're a union with a spokesperson. They're not; they're thousands of people spread across the world, with different agendas. Miners who

by 015a 6y ago

You say "miners" like they're a union with a spokesperson. They're not; they're thousands of people spread across the world, with different agendas. Miners who refuse to adopt the new PoS system have the right to not upgrade to it. At that point, the system "forks" (the article calls it a 51% attack, but I think that's a little inflammatory). This literally already happened with Ethereum and Ethereum Classic; Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. It isn't a new situation. The reason why some miners are dissenting this change is, first and obviously, because they disagree with it. So, why not just fork? Because no one talks about Bitcoin Cash; they talk about Bitcoin. They want to stay on PoW because it will return the best revenue for their mining operation, but if they're busy mining a coin that has little value, that also hurts their revenue. In other words, the only way for them to win is to get the community against the change, which is a losing bet because the change is widely supported.

jude- 6y ago
So I guess Ethereum is, in fact, a developer-run show.
- 015a 6y ago
  People are free to disagree with and act against the developers. That's more than you can say for, for example, the United States Government; if I disagree with tax policy or federal monetary policy, I (may) have the option to leave, but changing the system would take a lifetime, if its even possible. Creating a new system without moving countries would inevitably end with the police at my doorstep. Miners want money. Ethereum, like every currency, is worth what it is because of people. The value of Ethereum goes where the money velocity goes; in other words, where the users go. The critical question is not what the developers or miners support; its what the users support. Well, barring any major conflicts of interest, they'll/we'll probably support the developers; their power comes directly and only from the trust that the collective democracy of ethereum's users has in them. If Vitalik demonstrated extreme prejudice against ethereum's users, then the users would (probably) revolt, and new developers would be installed, but critically: Ethereum, like all blockchains, enables that in a way which doesn't involve the war, death, and bloodshed that overthrowing governments typically requires. Miners want to have their cake and eat it too. They don't give a shit about Ethereum's users. They want a high ETH token price, wholly and totally supported by Ethereum's users, but without this RFC, which both the developers and most users support. They could fork, give the middle finger to the users, and their secondary TRASH-ETH blockchain would be worth nothing, because it doesn't have users, but at least they'd have proof of work. That's why they'll lose; not because the developers are on the other side, but because the users have put their faith in the developers, not the miners. And that's a very healthy position for ethereum to be in right now.
  - jude- 6y ago
    So if developers released a "jubilee" version of the software that took all ETH away from addresses that hadn't spent anything in 5 years, and distributed it evenly across all Ethereum addresses less 2 years old (which one might imagine would be a boon to a large number of users), would that be sufficient to upgrade the network? Asking because one huge advantage I see in Bitcoin's upgrade procedure is that developers alone can't change the monetary policy -- i.e. developers can't just bribe users to screw over investors. I'm curious why the "All Core Devs call dictates software releases" upgrade process is considered an acceptable alternative?

by 015a 6y ago

jude- 6y ago

So I guess Ethereum is, in fact, a developer-run show.

015a 6y ago
People are free to disagree with and act against the developers. That's more than you can say for, for example, the United States Government; if I disagree with tax policy or federal monetary policy, I (may) have the option to leave, but changing the system would take a lifetime, if its even possible. Creating a new system without moving countries would inevitably end with the police at my doorstep. Miners want money. Ethereum, like every currency, is worth what it is because of people. The value of Ethereum goes where the money velocity goes; in other words, where the users go. The critical question is not what the developers or miners support; its what the users support. Well, barring any major conflicts of interest, they'll/we'll probably support the developers; their power comes directly and only from the trust that the collective democracy of ethereum's users has in them. If Vitalik demonstrated extreme prejudice against ethereum's users, then the users would (probably) revolt, and new developers would be installed, but critically: Ethereum, like all blockchains, enables that in a way which doesn't involve the war, death, and bloodshed that overthrowing governments typically requires. Miners want to have their cake and eat it too. They don't give a shit about Ethereum's users. They want a high ETH token price, wholly and totally supported by Ethereum's users, but without this RFC, which both the developers and most users support. They could fork, give the middle finger to the users, and their secondary TRASH-ETH blockchain would be worth nothing, because it doesn't have users, but at least they'd have proof of work. That's why they'll lose; not because the developers are on the other side, but because the users have put their faith in the developers, not the miners. And that's a very healthy position for ethereum to be in right now.
- jude- 6y ago
  So if developers released a "jubilee" version of the software that took all ETH away from addresses that hadn't spent anything in 5 years, and distributed it evenly across all Ethereum addresses less 2 years old (which one might imagine would be a boon to a large number of users), would that be sufficient to upgrade the network? Asking because one huge advantage I see in Bitcoin's upgrade procedure is that developers alone can't change the monetary policy -- i.e. developers can't just bribe users to screw over investors. I'm curious why the "All Core Devs call dictates software releases" upgrade process is considered an acceptable alternative?