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Afaik there's no plan to attack, they are planning a "show of force", i.e. get more then 51% in a pool for a while without doing anything with the power. This i

Afaik there's no plan to attack, they are planning a "show of force", i.e. get more then 51% in a pool for a while without doing anything with the power. This is separate from either adapting or not adapting the fork itself and happens before the fork. The original chain has to be forked either way, with or without eip 1559 because the "ice age" coded into the current version (it's in there for this exact reason). So if the change goes through and some miners decide to block it, there's not going to be an "original chain" and a "fork", but two forks, one supported by devs and minority of miners, and one supported by miner majority.

Zetaphor 6y ago
"We're not going to 51% attack the network. We're just going to allocate 51% of the hashrate into a single pool to demonstrate that we could 51% attack the network" Why should this threat of violence be treated differently than the act itself? Miners are threatening to do the one thing their entire existence is supposed to prevent. They're cutting off their noses to spite their faces, instead of enjoying another year or so of profitability
- lupire 6y ago
  "attack" is a misnomer. 51% is a majority vote.
  - rualca 6y ago
    Doesn't the majority vote mean that they get to control the cryptocurrency? Sounds like an attack to me.
  - SilasX 6y ago
    Yes, but, in fairness, the assumption behind blockchain is that it works as long as 50%+1 of the computation is power is honest, not that any block constituting 50%+1 is necessarily honest/good/correct.
- Spivak 6y ago
  Because whether it’s an attack or not is more to do with the framing than act. If you get all the miners together and can amass 51% of the hash power then you have consensus and have enough control of the network to simply not accept the EIP. If something like this isn’t possible and you don’t actually need consensus to push through changes then the whole “distributed” part is just a fiction and we’re really talking about a centrally controlled network. Miners are just basically threatening to vote against the EIP if it comes to it. Threatening to vote against a bill if it reaches the floor in its current form isn’t an attack or violence. It’s just a message that if you want it to pass you should probably change it.
  - ric2b 6y ago
    This isn't something new, Bitcoin went through this in 2017 (relevant keywords: UASF, segwit, BCH). You don't need a miner majority to do fork the chain, both versions (with and without fork) will exist and whichever is most valued by users/the market tends to "win" and bring miners back in because they like money. Unlike your voting on a bill analogy, the reality of blockchains is that both universes can co-exist.
- teawrecks 6y ago
  Calling it a 51% "attack" is like saying Biden "stole" the election by getting at least 51% of the votes. The whole point of a cryptocurrency is that there is no central authority. Vitalik can provide a vision, but he doesn't, and shouldn't want, to control it. If the compute power disagrees with him, then that's just how it's gonna be.
  - IFoundBiden 6y ago
    I wish you were Biden man. Have my babies have my ass, expertly told. Consider a career in writing. Or being oiled up. Good show dude.
  - diragon 6y ago
    But when we elevate from PoW to PoS the whole point is that compute power won't matter anymore. So a more appropriate analogy would be that if 51% of horse carriage drivers wanted that cars shouldn't be able to drive on roads, then cars shouldn't be able to drive on roads.
  - rualca 6y ago
    > Calling it a 51% "attack" is like saying Biden "stole" the election by getting at least 51% of the votes. A better comparison would be that a billionaire decided to take over just because he had more cash.
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y ago
The ice age mechanic remains one of the most significant and overlooked aspects of Ethereum. It's really good.

Zetaphor 6y ago

"We're not going to 51% attack the network. We're just going to allocate 51% of the hashrate into a single pool to demonstrate that we could 51% attack the network" Why should this threat of violence be treated differently than the act itself? Miners are threatening to do the one thing their entire existence is supposed to prevent. They're cutting off their noses to spite their faces, instead of enjoying another year or so of profitability

lupire 6y ago
"attack" is a misnomer. 51% is a majority vote.
- rualca 6y ago
  Doesn't the majority vote mean that they get to control the cryptocurrency? Sounds like an attack to me.
- SilasX 6y ago
  Yes, but, in fairness, the assumption behind blockchain is that it works as long as 50%+1 of the computation is power is honest, not that any block constituting 50%+1 is necessarily honest/good/correct.
Spivak 6y ago
Because whether it’s an attack or not is more to do with the framing than act. If you get all the miners together and can amass 51% of the hash power then you have consensus and have enough control of the network to simply not accept the EIP. If something like this isn’t possible and you don’t actually need consensus to push through changes then the whole “distributed” part is just a fiction and we’re really talking about a centrally controlled network. Miners are just basically threatening to vote against the EIP if it comes to it. Threatening to vote against a bill if it reaches the floor in its current form isn’t an attack or violence. It’s just a message that if you want it to pass you should probably change it.
- ric2b 6y ago
  This isn't something new, Bitcoin went through this in 2017 (relevant keywords: UASF, segwit, BCH). You don't need a miner majority to do fork the chain, both versions (with and without fork) will exist and whichever is most valued by users/the market tends to "win" and bring miners back in because they like money. Unlike your voting on a bill analogy, the reality of blockchains is that both universes can co-exist.
teawrecks 6y ago
Calling it a 51% "attack" is like saying Biden "stole" the election by getting at least 51% of the votes. The whole point of a cryptocurrency is that there is no central authority. Vitalik can provide a vision, but he doesn't, and shouldn't want, to control it. If the compute power disagrees with him, then that's just how it's gonna be.
- IFoundBiden 6y ago
  I wish you were Biden man. Have my babies have my ass, expertly told. Consider a career in writing. Or being oiled up. Good show dude.
- diragon 6y ago
  But when we elevate from PoW to PoS the whole point is that compute power won't matter anymore. So a more appropriate analogy would be that if 51% of horse carriage drivers wanted that cars shouldn't be able to drive on roads, then cars shouldn't be able to drive on roads.
- rualca 6y ago
  > Calling it a 51% "attack" is like saying Biden "stole" the election by getting at least 51% of the votes. A better comparison would be that a billionaire decided to take over just because he had more cash.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y ago

The ice age mechanic remains one of the most significant and overlooked aspects of Ethereum. It's really good.