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It’s all moot. ETH 2.0 is coming June and it uses proof of stake which uses a tiny fraction of what proof of work uses. All things like this article should do

It’s all moot. ETH 2.0 is coming June and it uses proof of stake which uses a tiny fraction of what proof of work uses. All things like this article should do is make you invest in proof of stake coins because they are the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake

ognarb 5y ago
I'm hearing about eth moving to PoS since years now. It won't happen.
- dlubarov 5y ago
  It's been slow, but progress is happening. There's already ~$28 billion worth of ETH staked on the beacon chain. Most of the engineering work for the merge has already happened. A post-merge testnet (Kintsugi) was launched a few weeks ago. If you look at the mainnet readiness checklist [1], the remaining work is largely testing and documentation. Hard to imagine how it could not happen at this point. [1] https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/Merge/mainnet-readiness.md https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/Merge/mainnet-rea...
eli 5y ago
Hasn't that been a few months from launch since 2019?
- TimJRobinson 5y ago
  It's actually running on a testnet now. Just ironing out bugs before release.
- viraptor 5y ago
  People were a bit eager with the announcements, but the real progress is there. A few steps big steps were finished last year and now the big merge is scheduled for 22. https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/ https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/
codexon 5y ago
Why is it taking so long for proof of stake to happen? They've been talking about it for many years and the fact that none of the mainstream coins have moved to proof of stake and there is no rising new coin that uses it, make me think there's a fundamental issue with it.
- yellowapple 5y ago
  > and the fact that none of the mainstream coins have moved to proof of stake Three of the top 10 by market cap are already on proof-of-stake.
- iskander 5y ago
  It's comically complicated once you get into the details of moving an existing chain over from PoW; the Ethereum developers have really been working on it for years and only now have it in a shape that works for multiple Ethereum clients on a shared test network. If PoW weren't a climate disaster it would have very obvious appeal due to its orders of magnitude simpler implementation. Edit: You can learn more here -- https://consensys.net/blog/news/the-state-of-the-merge-an-update-on-ethereums-merge-to-proof-of-stake-in-2022/ https://consensys.net/blog/news/the-state-of-the-merge-an-up...
  - packetlost 5y ago
    So why hasn't there been any new POS coins? If the complexity is in maintaining the history, new coins wouldn't have that problem. Even outside of any hypothetical technical complexity, a system that explicitly pushes all the power to those with the most money seems antithetical to the point.
    - iskander 5y ago
      There are tons of them, looking at the top 20 coins here: https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ - Solana - Cardano - XRP - Terra - Polkadot - Avalanche - Polygon That's the majority of actual chains in the top 20, since many of the rest are tokens running on top of other chains (USDT, USDC, SHIB, BUSD, &c) In general, starting a clone of proof-of-stake Ethereum is a very popular way to make a new chain. As for the philosophical point, PoW isn't really different. It takes tremendous capital investment to produce enough hash rate to ever mine a BTC. These are all more or less systems in which the rich get richer and the not-rich get to gamble.
mjr00 5y ago
Even when or if this switch eventually finally happens, if the current inertia keeps going and the idea that "cryptocurrency causes climate change" continues to gain mainstream traction, it's going to be very hard to make people change their beliefs without a huge, concerted marketing campaign.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Geez give humans some credit. A grade school child can understand what 99.95% less energy consumption means.
babyshake 5y ago
Why June? Isn't that just the difficulty bomb date? I haven't heard anything about the merge happening in June.
- Yizahi 5y ago
  Why not June? He didn't specify the year after all. :)
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/ https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/ The difficulty bomb will effectively be the end of proof of work as far as I know. I apologize if that is wrong. I used to be an Ethereum miner long ago but haven’t done it for some time.
  - rcxdude 5y ago
    The difficulty bomb exists to make evolving the protocol by forking it smoother, since there's no practical way to keep using the 'original chain' indefinitely (TBH I think this is one of the better ideas in etherium after seeing all the drama around bitcoin hardforks). It can be effectively put off indefinitely while still staying on PoW by just forking to a version of the protocol which the same but with a later difficulty bomb, and indeed this has already been done multiple times. The current plan as stated by the foundation is to not extend it again (at least officially: miners could start their own fork if they wanted but it would be up to the market to decide which one is worth anything), but they can postpone it again.
int_19h 5y ago
You'd think so, but it seems that people who have a problem with cryptocurrency in general are already laying the groundwork for the next assault. This is one of the tweets in the linked thread: https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099 https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099 It basically claims that cryptocoins are "sound money", and that "sound money" is inherently racist. I tried to follow the logic in that thread, and, so far as I can tell, it boils down to something akin to "Hitler was a vegetarian, ergo, vegetarianism is bad".

ognarb 5y ago

I'm hearing about eth moving to PoS since years now. It won't happen.

dlubarov 5y ago
It's been slow, but progress is happening. There's already ~$28 billion worth of ETH staked on the beacon chain. Most of the engineering work for the merge has already happened. A post-merge testnet (Kintsugi) was launched a few weeks ago. If you look at the mainnet readiness checklist [1], the remaining work is largely testing and documentation. Hard to imagine how it could not happen at this point. [1] https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/Merge/mainnet-readiness.md https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/Merge/mainnet-rea...

eli 5y ago

Hasn't that been a few months from launch since 2019?

TimJRobinson 5y ago
It's actually running on a testnet now. Just ironing out bugs before release.
viraptor 5y ago
People were a bit eager with the announcements, but the real progress is there. A few steps big steps were finished last year and now the big merge is scheduled for 22. https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/ https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/

codexon 5y ago

Why is it taking so long for proof of stake to happen? They've been talking about it for many years and the fact that none of the mainstream coins have moved to proof of stake and there is no rising new coin that uses it, make me think there's a fundamental issue with it.

yellowapple 5y ago
> and the fact that none of the mainstream coins have moved to proof of stake Three of the top 10 by market cap are already on proof-of-stake.
iskander 5y ago
It's comically complicated once you get into the details of moving an existing chain over from PoW; the Ethereum developers have really been working on it for years and only now have it in a shape that works for multiple Ethereum clients on a shared test network. If PoW weren't a climate disaster it would have very obvious appeal due to its orders of magnitude simpler implementation. Edit: You can learn more here -- https://consensys.net/blog/news/the-state-of-the-merge-an-update-on-ethereums-merge-to-proof-of-stake-in-2022/ https://consensys.net/blog/news/the-state-of-the-merge-an-up...
- packetlost 5y ago
  So why hasn't there been any new POS coins? If the complexity is in maintaining the history, new coins wouldn't have that problem. Even outside of any hypothetical technical complexity, a system that explicitly pushes all the power to those with the most money seems antithetical to the point.
  - iskander 5y ago
    There are tons of them, looking at the top 20 coins here: https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ - Solana - Cardano - XRP - Terra - Polkadot - Avalanche - Polygon That's the majority of actual chains in the top 20, since many of the rest are tokens running on top of other chains (USDT, USDC, SHIB, BUSD, &c) In general, starting a clone of proof-of-stake Ethereum is a very popular way to make a new chain. As for the philosophical point, PoW isn't really different. It takes tremendous capital investment to produce enough hash rate to ever mine a BTC. These are all more or less systems in which the rich get richer and the not-rich get to gamble.

mjr00 5y ago

Even when or if this switch eventually finally happens, if the current inertia keeps going and the idea that "cryptocurrency causes climate change" continues to gain mainstream traction, it's going to be very hard to make people change their beliefs without a huge, concerted marketing campaign.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Geez give humans some credit. A grade school child can understand what 99.95% less energy consumption means.

babyshake 5y ago

Why June? Isn't that just the difficulty bomb date? I haven't heard anything about the merge happening in June.

Yizahi 5y ago
Why not June? He didn't specify the year after all. :)
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/ https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/ The difficulty bomb will effectively be the end of proof of work as far as I know. I apologize if that is wrong. I used to be an Ethereum miner long ago but haven’t done it for some time.
- rcxdude 5y ago
  The difficulty bomb exists to make evolving the protocol by forking it smoother, since there's no practical way to keep using the 'original chain' indefinitely (TBH I think this is one of the better ideas in etherium after seeing all the drama around bitcoin hardforks). It can be effectively put off indefinitely while still staying on PoW by just forking to a version of the protocol which the same but with a later difficulty bomb, and indeed this has already been done multiple times. The current plan as stated by the foundation is to not extend it again (at least officially: miners could start their own fork if they wanted but it would be up to the market to decide which one is worth anything), but they can postpone it again.

int_19h 5y ago

You'd think so, but it seems that people who have a problem with cryptocurrency in general are already laying the groundwork for the next assault. This is one of the tweets in the linked thread: https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099 https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099 It basically claims that cryptocoins are "sound money", and that "sound money" is inherently racist. I tried to follow the logic in that thread, and, so far as I can tell, it boils down to something akin to "Hitler was a vegetarian, ergo, vegetarianism is bad".