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Actually yes, and it's pretty brillaint: the difficultly bomb. The current fork of eth is programmed to kill itself sometime next year. This means even if mine

Actually yes, and it's pretty brillaint: the difficultly bomb. The current fork of eth is programmed to kill itself sometime next year. This means even if miners want to continue mining they must prepare and propogate their own forked software. There is no "do nothing" default option.

dereg 5y ago
I don't think it's brilliant. I think that the difficulty bomb is something akin to the debt ceiling in that it can be arbitrarily pushed back so, in reality, the real effect of the "bomb" is to give smaller groups of people outsized control over the network by holding miners hostage. My mind is open here - what are the flaws in my interpretation?
- DarylZero 5y ago
  I think you're right about what difficulty bomb is like. Not sure why you think that means it's not brilliant.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  So the idea isn't about a deadline really, since it can be pushed back indefinitely. The idea is that you don't need consensus for it to go off, you need consensus for it not to go off. The status quo is always that it will go off if left untouched. It makes sure that miners can't just refuse the update, they have to fork the code to stop PoS. Which they're of course free to do, ETC removed the difficulty bomb entirely.
- Danieru 5y ago
  And that's the brilliant part. The eth developers figured out a unique method for keeping every last bit of control.
  - immibis 5y ago
    Eh, if they act dishonestly the consensus can move to a different fork. The key is that fork has to have active consensus and can't just exist by default.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  It's brilliant because it prevents a small constituency - PoW generators and client developers - from sabotaging a roadmap by simply deciding to not support its planned upgrades. With this safeguard in place, to change the roadmap, they need to gain support of users at large, by getting them to actively switch to their fork, just as the roadmap supporters need to do. Therefore, supporters of change and statis are on equal footing, ensuring that the system isn't biased toward stasis even when the roadmap calls for change. To summarize, the difficulty bomb encodes the roadmap's plan to implement a change in the protocol, into the protocol, graduating the plan from having mere social consensus, which requires active participation to enforce, to having a technical one, which is autonomously enforced.
Animats 5y ago
That's been postponed how many times now?
ramshanker 5y ago
As I understand, it’s complete open source. So what is preventing a couple of miners to team up and change some integer to say year 2100 & recompile and distribute?
- bibabaloo 5y ago
  Nothing, except convincing other people to use their fork.
- ivalm 5y ago
  That would be a fork...
- ur-whale 5y ago
  The blocks produced by this new software would be rejected by other miners still using the unmodified software, because difficulty(block)<difficulty_enforced_by_bomb_at-that_time. Hence: the very definition of a fork, that is some blocks seen as valid by some faction and seen as invalid by others.

dereg 5y ago

I don't think it's brilliant. I think that the difficulty bomb is something akin to the debt ceiling in that it can be arbitrarily pushed back so, in reality, the real effect of the "bomb" is to give smaller groups of people outsized control over the network by holding miners hostage. My mind is open here - what are the flaws in my interpretation?

DarylZero 5y ago
I think you're right about what difficulty bomb is like. Not sure why you think that means it's not brilliant.
betwixthewires 5y ago
So the idea isn't about a deadline really, since it can be pushed back indefinitely. The idea is that you don't need consensus for it to go off, you need consensus for it not to go off. The status quo is always that it will go off if left untouched. It makes sure that miners can't just refuse the update, they have to fork the code to stop PoS. Which they're of course free to do, ETC removed the difficulty bomb entirely.
Danieru 5y ago
And that's the brilliant part. The eth developers figured out a unique method for keeping every last bit of control.
- immibis 5y ago
  Eh, if they act dishonestly the consensus can move to a different fork. The key is that fork has to have active consensus and can't just exist by default.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
It's brilliant because it prevents a small constituency - PoW generators and client developers - from sabotaging a roadmap by simply deciding to not support its planned upgrades. With this safeguard in place, to change the roadmap, they need to gain support of users at large, by getting them to actively switch to their fork, just as the roadmap supporters need to do. Therefore, supporters of change and statis are on equal footing, ensuring that the system isn't biased toward stasis even when the roadmap calls for change. To summarize, the difficulty bomb encodes the roadmap's plan to implement a change in the protocol, into the protocol, graduating the plan from having mere social consensus, which requires active participation to enforce, to having a technical one, which is autonomously enforced.

Animats 5y ago

That's been postponed how many times now?

ramshanker 5y ago

As I understand, it’s complete open source. So what is preventing a couple of miners to team up and change some integer to say year 2100 & recompile and distribute?

bibabaloo 5y ago
Nothing, except convincing other people to use their fork.
ivalm 5y ago
That would be a fork...
ur-whale 5y ago
The blocks produced by this new software would be rejected by other miners still using the unmodified software, because difficulty(block)<difficulty_enforced_by_bomb_at-that_time. Hence: the very definition of a fork, that is some blocks seen as valid by some faction and seen as invalid by others.