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> And regardless of all of that, Ethereum will be on proof of stake within a year I’ve been hearing this since 2017. I won’t believe it until I see it.

delecti 4y ago
Yup. > The ultimate goal of the Ethereum Foundation for 2017 is to follow the vision of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and make a move from a proof of work to a proof of stake protocol https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereums-2017-roadmap-flexibility-pow-to-pos-improving-ecosystem https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereums-2017-roadmap-flexib...
Entwickler 4y ago
There's a site made to track the details of what needs to happen before the merge. https://wenmerge.com/ https://wenmerge.com/ it still lacks specific date commitments. The focus is on "when it's ready" given that ~0.5 trillion dollars are in the system.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  I believe the date it currently counts down had been planned as the merge date/deadline but has explicitly been postponed already. ethmerge.com still says Q2 too, but a prediction market https://polymarket.com/market-group/ethereum-merge-pos https://polymarket.com/market-group/ethereum-merge-pos sees only a 75% chance of it happening this year, and a 61% chance of it happening by the end of Q3.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
I don't think it'll ever happen because the miners don't want it. They've invested millions into GPUs and they'll all become worthless once Eth switches to PoS. Or they'll find another coin to mine.
- DennisP 4y ago
  $30 billion in ETH locked on the PoS network will be worthless if they don't switch. Meanwhile, there's no technical way for the miners to keep the switch from happening.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    >Meanwhile, there's no technical way for the miners to keep the switch from happening. Right, because it’s never happened that miners disagree with a change and split into a different chain…
    - DennisP 4y ago
      They can certainly do that, but that doesn't keep the merge from happening. It just means there might be a PoW chain on the side. It'll be up to the market to decide whether it's worth anything, and if it's not worth much, it won't support much mining activity. So far, the miners don't appear to be organizing a chain split. And it would take some organizing; they'd need to defuse the difficulty bomb, get exchange support, try to get support from the people running tokens backed by custodied assets, etc. Perhaps most critically, they'd need to get a large portion of the user community to believe that PoW is better and worth sticking with. That's not happening either, and Ethereum users are very much looking forward to PoS.
      - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
        Remind me how many existing splits there are?
        DennisP 4y ago
        One. In that case, unlike today, a large portion of the user community believed that the alternate approach was a better idea. And the market did make a pretty definite decision on the two forks' relative worth. ETH today is worth $2800 and ETC is at $26.
        4y ago
DennisP 4y ago
Yes and in 2017 there hadn't been a proof of stake network running in parallel for a year and a half, with 10% of all ETH deposited and locked in place until after proof of work is killed off. Nor had there been multiple public testnets for the merge process.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jjulius 4y ago
  I'm just an outsider, but to OP's point, in 2017 they had none of what you just cited yet they were making the "within a year" claims, and continued to do so year after year. One can't help but draw a comparison to the boy who cried wolf. Edit: This isn't me taking a position, just observing.
  - nicwolff 4y ago
    I'm also skeptical, but let's remember that the point of the fable is not "the boy's repeated claims lost credibility because the wolf never came", but rather "the people eventually learned to ignore the boy's claims and were caught by surprise when the wolf finally came" ツ
    - lupire 4y ago
      But if PoS comes after everyone stops caring about ETH (or PoS), it still fails. PoS isn't the hard part. Getting ETH successfully onto PoS is the hard part.
      - DennisP 4y ago
        According to the people designing and building this stuff, PoS itself was a lot harder than merging it with the rest of the network. For PoS there was all sorts of complicated game theory, a whole new protocol, and trying to figure out every possible way to attack it. For the merge, it's basically just changing the fork choice rule of the existing network, so instead of going with the fork with the most work, it goes with the one being chosen by the PoS network.

delecti 4y ago

Yup. > The ultimate goal of the Ethereum Foundation for 2017 is to follow the vision of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and make a move from a proof of work to a proof of stake protocol https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereums-2017-roadmap-flexibility-pow-to-pos-improving-ecosystem https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereums-2017-roadmap-flexib...

Entwickler 4y ago

There's a site made to track the details of what needs to happen before the merge. https://wenmerge.com/ https://wenmerge.com/ it still lacks specific date commitments. The focus is on "when it's ready" given that ~0.5 trillion dollars are in the system.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
I believe the date it currently counts down had been planned as the merge date/deadline but has explicitly been postponed already. ethmerge.com still says Q2 too, but a prediction market https://polymarket.com/market-group/ethereum-merge-pos https://polymarket.com/market-group/ethereum-merge-pos sees only a 75% chance of it happening this year, and a 61% chance of it happening by the end of Q3.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

I don't think it'll ever happen because the miners don't want it. They've invested millions into GPUs and they'll all become worthless once Eth switches to PoS. Or they'll find another coin to mine.

DennisP 4y ago
$30 billion in ETH locked on the PoS network will be worthless if they don't switch. Meanwhile, there's no technical way for the miners to keep the switch from happening.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  >Meanwhile, there's no technical way for the miners to keep the switch from happening. Right, because it’s never happened that miners disagree with a change and split into a different chain…
  - DennisP 4y ago
    They can certainly do that, but that doesn't keep the merge from happening. It just means there might be a PoW chain on the side. It'll be up to the market to decide whether it's worth anything, and if it's not worth much, it won't support much mining activity. So far, the miners don't appear to be organizing a chain split. And it would take some organizing; they'd need to defuse the difficulty bomb, get exchange support, try to get support from the people running tokens backed by custodied assets, etc. Perhaps most critically, they'd need to get a large portion of the user community to believe that PoW is better and worth sticking with. That's not happening either, and Ethereum users are very much looking forward to PoS.
    - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
      Remind me how many existing splits there are?
      - DennisP 4y ago
        One. In that case, unlike today, a large portion of the user community believed that the alternate approach was a better idea. And the market did make a pretty definite decision on the two forks' relative worth. ETH today is worth $2800 and ETC is at $26.
        4y ago

DennisP 4y ago

Yes and in 2017 there hadn't been a proof of stake network running in parallel for a year and a half, with 10% of all ETH deposited and locked in place until after proof of work is killed off. Nor had there been multiple public testnets for the merge process.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jjulius 4y ago
I'm just an outsider, but to OP's point, in 2017 they had none of what you just cited yet they were making the "within a year" claims, and continued to do so year after year. One can't help but draw a comparison to the boy who cried wolf. Edit: This isn't me taking a position, just observing.
- nicwolff 4y ago
  I'm also skeptical, but let's remember that the point of the fable is not "the boy's repeated claims lost credibility because the wolf never came", but rather "the people eventually learned to ignore the boy's claims and were caught by surprise when the wolf finally came" ツ
  - lupire 4y ago
    But if PoS comes after everyone stops caring about ETH (or PoS), it still fails. PoS isn't the hard part. Getting ETH successfully onto PoS is the hard part.
    - DennisP 4y ago
      According to the people designing and building this stuff, PoS itself was a lot harder than merging it with the rest of the network. For PoS there was all sorts of complicated game theory, a whole new protocol, and trying to figure out every possible way to attack it. For the merge, it's basically just changing the fork choice rule of the existing network, so instead of going with the fork with the most work, it goes with the one being chosen by the PoS network.