4 ms·

1. Punishment mechanisms here are kind of complicated, but in short, you're punished for mainly 2 reasons: being an offline validator, or for an attestation vio

1. Punishment mechanisms here are kind of complicated, but in short, you're punished for mainly 2 reasons: being an offline validator, or for an attestation violating. Slashers are entities that enforce the two above rules. If a slasher determines that you're node is down, or that you're committing an attestation violation (i.e. that you're signing more than one attestation in a given epoch mainly). The slasher actually does not get rewarded here. The block proposer who takes the broadcasted slashing and and adds a proof of it to their block proposition, and get what's called a whistleblower reward. Slashing is not meant to profitable, and the whistleblower reward is quite small. We don't need a million slashers, in fact, we could operate with just one... expect the Eth Foundation to run them, among other large players who can spare the resources. 2. Owning 2/3 of nodes economically is kind of silly. You essentially just 51% the network, and everyone else leaves. You're then stuck with a worthless personal currency. Have fun! 3. More than one validator means more validator rewards, and a bit more "power" in that you're a larger component of the general validation network.

ww520 4y ago
What are the checking mechanisms that 2/3 of the nodes are not colluding together? In other words how do you prove someone owning 51% or 2/3 of the network?
- danuker 4y ago
  Here you are asking the most important question. Exchanges hold the most ETH. They are a central collusion point which could cause undue influence on the network. At least it seems they do not own a lot of the existing Eth. https://etherscan.io/accounts https://etherscan.io/accounts
- randomran01234 4y ago
  Their actions would most likely be visible on the network because it is transparent. The community can then decide whether to activate a fork and punish the colluding nodes.
  - adrr 4y ago
    Who is the community and how do they decide to fork(eg: is there a vote?)?
    - randomran01234 4y ago
      Users, developers, other stakers.
      - atherton33 4y ago
        Why would users and developers without stake get input? Doesn't that subvert the point of staking?
        randomran01234 4y ago
        Users and the market decides on the chain, governance in Ethereum is based on social consensus not “one coin one vote.”
        adrr 4y ago
        I still don't understand how consensus works off the chain. If 51% of the stackers just decide to run their own software and do their own thing. How does something off chain change that? How does something off chain penalize a majority of staked ETH?
        randomran01234 4y ago
        If the 51% is a single staker or small group of colluding stakers attacking the chain, the rest of the users will probably not want to continue using that chain. The users can activate a soft fork, just by changing the rules of the code to burn the attacker’s funds, and running the updated client software. The remaining honest stakers can then continue to follow the head of the non-attacked chain, and the attacker would be the only one left on their chain.
IncRnd 4y ago
> 1. Punishment mechanisms here are kind of complicated, but in short, you're punished for mainly 2 reasons: being an offline validator, or for an attestation violating. A malicious actor can cause the network to slash a validator's funds by inhibiting the validator's connection. Slashing funds seems completely disproportionate for a validator being offline.
- kybernetikos 4y ago
  You actually lose a relatively small part of your stake for being offline, so it happens gradually. I believe the amount lost corresponds roughly to what you would have gained in rewards over the same time period.
rakoo 4y ago
Thanks for the reply ! 1. So if I get it correctly, there is an actor in charge of surveiling the network. There is no financial incentive to do that which means only a few actors will be running a slasher, and thus completely remove all decentralization. Once a fraud has been detected, the proof of fraud is to be spread by nodes with a financial incentive, meaning they might spread whatever the slasher says like gospel, giving even more power to slashers. This is a very large step away from decentralization. The network depends not just on a few coders, but also on an institution checking whether nodes behave correctly or not. The whole point of blockchain was that everyone would assume everyone was out to cheat, and came up with a way to make it useful. 2. As I said in another reply, I don't expect the most rationality and long-term thinking from economic actors anymore, especially in the world of cryptocurrencies. I could very well see a single actor owning that many nodes but still being trusted because "they're the good guys" and people remain. You would also have to be sure they are in fact colliding. 3. So, as I feared, this is capitalism in its crudest form. At least PoW made it indirect by putting requirements on the hardware, but here it's just plain naked for all to see. I know I sound very negative but I was really curious to see how PoS really changed the dynamics compared to PoW, and now I know. Thanks again for your explanations.
- bfung 4y ago
  > This is a very large step away from decentralization. The network depends not just on a few coders, but also on an institution checking whether nodes behave correctly or not. The whole point of blockchain was that everyone would assume everyone was out to cheat, and came up with a way to make it useful. Exactly. This is usually the tradeoff glossed over by PoS marketing, that decentralization is essentially lost and it's no different than government controlled currencies. Instead of the "elected officials", it's the crypto messiah's that control this currency. You can pay into it, just as you can try to pay into your local city, county, state, (assuming in the USA) etc...
- pa7x1 4y ago
  There is no actor in charge of surveilling the network. Every validator is. And every validator is incentivized to do so because you get a reward coming from the slash penalty. So everyone is checking on everyone else.

ww520 4y ago

What are the checking mechanisms that 2/3 of the nodes are not colluding together? In other words how do you prove someone owning 51% or 2/3 of the network?

danuker 4y ago
Here you are asking the most important question. Exchanges hold the most ETH. They are a central collusion point which could cause undue influence on the network. At least it seems they do not own a lot of the existing Eth. https://etherscan.io/accounts https://etherscan.io/accounts
randomran01234 4y ago
Their actions would most likely be visible on the network because it is transparent. The community can then decide whether to activate a fork and punish the colluding nodes.
- adrr 4y ago
  Who is the community and how do they decide to fork(eg: is there a vote?)?
  - randomran01234 4y ago
    Users, developers, other stakers.
    - atherton33 4y ago
      Why would users and developers without stake get input? Doesn't that subvert the point of staking?
      - randomran01234 4y ago
        Users and the market decides on the chain, governance in Ethereum is based on social consensus not “one coin one vote.”
        adrr 4y ago
        I still don't understand how consensus works off the chain. If 51% of the stackers just decide to run their own software and do their own thing. How does something off chain change that? How does something off chain penalize a majority of staked ETH?
        randomran01234 4y ago
        If the 51% is a single staker or small group of colluding stakers attacking the chain, the rest of the users will probably not want to continue using that chain. The users can activate a soft fork, just by changing the rules of the code to burn the attacker’s funds, and running the updated client software. The remaining honest stakers can then continue to follow the head of the non-attacked chain, and the attacker would be the only one left on their chain.

IncRnd 4y ago

> 1. Punishment mechanisms here are kind of complicated, but in short, you're punished for mainly 2 reasons: being an offline validator, or for an attestation violating. A malicious actor can cause the network to slash a validator's funds by inhibiting the validator's connection. Slashing funds seems completely disproportionate for a validator being offline.

kybernetikos 4y ago
You actually lose a relatively small part of your stake for being offline, so it happens gradually. I believe the amount lost corresponds roughly to what you would have gained in rewards over the same time period.

rakoo 4y ago

Thanks for the reply ! 1. So if I get it correctly, there is an actor in charge of surveiling the network. There is no financial incentive to do that which means only a few actors will be running a slasher, and thus completely remove all decentralization. Once a fraud has been detected, the proof of fraud is to be spread by nodes with a financial incentive, meaning they might spread whatever the slasher says like gospel, giving even more power to slashers. This is a very large step away from decentralization. The network depends not just on a few coders, but also on an institution checking whether nodes behave correctly or not. The whole point of blockchain was that everyone would assume everyone was out to cheat, and came up with a way to make it useful. 2. As I said in another reply, I don't expect the most rationality and long-term thinking from economic actors anymore, especially in the world of cryptocurrencies. I could very well see a single actor owning that many nodes but still being trusted because "they're the good guys" and people remain. You would also have to be sure they are in fact colliding. 3. So, as I feared, this is capitalism in its crudest form. At least PoW made it indirect by putting requirements on the hardware, but here it's just plain naked for all to see. I know I sound very negative but I was really curious to see how PoS really changed the dynamics compared to PoW, and now I know. Thanks again for your explanations.

bfung 4y ago
> This is a very large step away from decentralization. The network depends not just on a few coders, but also on an institution checking whether nodes behave correctly or not. The whole point of blockchain was that everyone would assume everyone was out to cheat, and came up with a way to make it useful. Exactly. This is usually the tradeoff glossed over by PoS marketing, that decentralization is essentially lost and it's no different than government controlled currencies. Instead of the "elected officials", it's the crypto messiah's that control this currency. You can pay into it, just as you can try to pay into your local city, county, state, (assuming in the USA) etc...
pa7x1 4y ago
There is no actor in charge of surveilling the network. Every validator is. And every validator is incentivized to do so because you get a reward coming from the slash penalty. So everyone is checking on everyone else.