4 ms·

I have to say I'm very surprised, and I'm curious to see how this plays out. PoW must die, but I have a hard time seeing how this won't lock up a ton of currenc

by api 4y ago

I have to say I'm very surprised, and I'm curious to see how this plays out. PoW must die, but I have a hard time seeing how this won't lock up a ton of currency and create its own plutocracy. Of course I suppose an argument could be made that a "least privilege plutocracy" with aligned interests is not as bad as many alternatives.

dcolkitt 4y ago
Why would this be any more plutocratic than any other capitalist economy? It's a mechanism where you can lock up ETH and get paid a steady return over time (about 3.9% today). Similarly the US dollar has treasury bonds where you can lock up USD and get paid a steady return over time (about 3.4% today).
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  That brings up an interesting point. Would PoS rewards get adjusted with central bank interest rates? If not, isn't there a risk of validators fleeing for better returns elsewhere?
  - rcxdude 4y ago
    If they do rates will go up. So in that sense it's self-levelling. And the rate corresponding to the minimum secure number of stakers is likely extremely high.
  - exo762 4y ago
    Absolutely. But validator block rewards are automatically adjusted to compensate for that.
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    Yes, they get adjusted- by the market, the best adjuster there is! If you can make more investing in low-risk bonds you will do that. If you make more investing in ETH staking you will do that. Eventually it will more or less look like the bond market in terms of value.
michaelsbradley 4y ago
So far it’s locked up 32 x 416987 ETH. That’s about 10% of the circulating supply. The number of validators probably won’t grow beyond a couple million because the earnings/rewards per validator shrink as the total number of active validators grows. The effective APR is already down to ~4%.
AgentME 4y ago
Locking up some currency is better than a similar amount being continuously needlessly spent on mining hardware and electricity.
michaelsbradley 4y ago
Why a surprise? Why very surprised? There has been a sustained effort over the last 2+ years to make this happen: - thousands of commits in many public Git repositories, mostly on GitHub - cross-team calls (for a variety of teams external to the Ethereum Foundation, though having received grants from the same) with recordings, transcripts, and minutes that are accessible to the public - a series of testnet "merges" leading up to the OP that stretch back over recent months I'm asking a genuine question. Yes, I realize it's taken time to make it happen and far longer than originally estimated, but it's not like the announcement popped out of nowhere.

by api 4y ago

dcolkitt 4y ago

Why would this be any more plutocratic than any other capitalist economy? It's a mechanism where you can lock up ETH and get paid a steady return over time (about 3.9% today). Similarly the US dollar has treasury bonds where you can lock up USD and get paid a steady return over time (about 3.4% today).

AlexandrB 4y ago
That brings up an interesting point. Would PoS rewards get adjusted with central bank interest rates? If not, isn't there a risk of validators fleeing for better returns elsewhere?
- rcxdude 4y ago
  If they do rates will go up. So in that sense it's self-levelling. And the rate corresponding to the minimum secure number of stakers is likely extremely high.
- exo762 4y ago
  Absolutely. But validator block rewards are automatically adjusted to compensate for that.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  Yes, they get adjusted- by the market, the best adjuster there is! If you can make more investing in low-risk bonds you will do that. If you make more investing in ETH staking you will do that. Eventually it will more or less look like the bond market in terms of value.

michaelsbradley 4y ago

So far it’s locked up 32 x 416987 ETH. That’s about 10% of the circulating supply. The number of validators probably won’t grow beyond a couple million because the earnings/rewards per validator shrink as the total number of active validators grows. The effective APR is already down to ~4%.

AgentME 4y ago

Locking up some currency is better than a similar amount being continuously needlessly spent on mining hardware and electricity.

michaelsbradley 4y ago

Why a surprise? Why very surprised? There has been a sustained effort over the last 2+ years to make this happen: - thousands of commits in many public Git repositories, mostly on GitHub - cross-team calls (for a variety of teams external to the Ethereum Foundation, though having received grants from the same) with recordings, transcripts, and minutes that are accessible to the public - a series of testnet "merges" leading up to the OP that stretch back over recent months I'm asking a genuine question. Yes, I realize it's taken time to make it happen and far longer than originally estimated, but it's not like the announcement popped out of nowhere.