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This deserves to be the top spot on HN right now. Years of countless replies and mockery here across N accounts telling me this day would _never_ happen. Yet he

by zionic 4y ago

This deserves to be the top spot on HN right now. Years of countless replies and mockery here across N accounts telling me this day would _never_ happen. Yet here we are, we're finally about to break away from the shackles of PoW and the crypto skeptics are silent. EDIT: I'm rate limited/soft banned so I can't reply to most of you/anyone until tomorrow. While I can still edit: -Cash is the ultimate scammer currency, it would take a ages for crypto to match or replace cash as the best "scam" currency" -Privacy =/= laundering. Privately transacting is not implicitly a crime. -Crypto has value as trustless value transfer outside the nation-state system, especially in these uncertain times -Smart contracts are criminally undervalued. Programmable money is the future.

k__ 4y ago
lol They will never be silent. The goalposts will move endlessly.
- seibelj 4y ago
  Some people don’t trust the government, other people do. I like a liquid, fungible asset not controlled by the government. Statists don’t. It’s a philosophical debate more than a technical one at this point.
  - wedn3sday 4y ago
    Personally, I like a currency I can walk into a shop and buy a sandwich with.
    - seibelj 4y ago
      If the only use case for crypto was to buy sandwiches then it wouldn't be a trillion dollar asset class. That isn't the main use case at this point
    - bigiain 4y ago
      That makes you <checks notes> a "statist", apparently.
    - cflynnus 4y ago
      In at least one nation state, El Salvador, Bitcoin is an option for buying a sandwich with.
  - mantas 4y ago
    So the world is made of statists and tax evaders.
  - cflynnus 4y ago
    Bitcoin gives individuals the ability to better protect their wealth/savings by storing it in a form where it can easily be hidden (thus protected). It amazes me some people think that's a bad thing.
robin_reala 4y ago
One can be both positive about the benefit that this move brings, yet deeply negative about the overall value of crypto.
- zionic 4y ago
  Perhaps that nuance is achievable, but I have seen none of that here. That said, I fundamentally disagree that crypto is "overall negative", and with the move to PoS the largest negative aspect of crytpo (the environmental cost of PoW) goes away.
  - Sephr 4y ago
    This merge doesn't make the environmental cost go away. It props up past environmental harms on a pedistal.
- joe-collins 4y ago
  This is absolutely where I stand. Hurrah, Ethereum's cost on humanity and the environment is dropping drastically! Unfortunately, it still has a measurable (if no longer grotesque) cost with extremely dubious benefit.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    And what is that cost if not environmental?
    - presentation 4y ago
      Probably crime and wasted human potential
- extragood 4y ago
  It should be rebranded as crypto speculative investment given how infrequently it's actually used as currency.
jitl 4y ago
My stance has been “I’ll believe it when I see it” after years of the merge being “months” away. I’m a skeptic but happy to see a major cryptocurrency switching off the planet burner.
- zionic 4y ago
  >after years of the merge being “months” away It's only been months aways for a few months though. I have endured years of gaslighting comments like this _specifically_ from this asymmetrically moderated community, despite knowing for example in 2017 that PoS was years away. The "maybe this year" started in Jan 2020. COVID happened. They didn't start saying "within a year" again until end of 2021. Meanwhile the _beacon_ chain launched in 2020, which is what's taking over for the PoW chain in ... 1 hour. Maybe you're acting in good faith and you misheard that the beacon chain was launching 2 years ago and thought that was this. But how likely is that really?
  - Nursie 4y ago
    It's been a few months away since at least 2018 - https://medium.com/@jyspark/getting-prepared-for-ethereum-pos-staking-in-2019-3a3855e6a018 https://medium.com/@jyspark/getting-prepared-for-ethereum-po... And I can find talk about it being 'soon' from 2016 - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33802343/when-will-ethereum-switch-to-proof-of-stake https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33802343/when-will-ether... So I think it's perfectly good faith to say we've been hearing about the 'imminent' switch to PoS for several years now.
  - Tenoke 4y ago
    >despite knowing for example in 2017 that PoS was years away Weird since Vitalik said it will take 'maybe a year' and can be ready 'as early in 2018' in 2017. He has admitted many times he had and promoted much shorter timeframes than reality even calling it his biggest mistake in his Twitter AMA last year. https://www.trustnodes.com/2017/09/25/ethereum-may-upgrade-proof-stake-2018-says-vitalik-buterin https://www.trustnodes.com/2017/09/25/ethereum-may-upgrade-p...
- eth_holder99 4y ago
pbreit 4y ago
Can someone summarize what is happening?
- bigiain 4y ago
  <snark> The people who are Etherium-wealthy are changing Etherium to mean they stay wealthy without having to burn the planet solving meaningless puzzles, while at the same time creating an insurmountable barrier to anybody else becoming obscenely Etherium-wealthy like they are. This is apparently a "good thing". The real world continues to not care.
fermentation 4y ago
there’s been much discussion here about how PoS does little to provide a decentralized monetary system since it appears to be built with the idea those with the most money should determine what the “truth” is
- aidenn0 4y ago
  PoW is those with the most wealth can determine what the truth is.
  - cflynnus 4y ago
    I don't think this is correct. The book "The Blocksize War" by Jonathan Bier does a good job of covering this topic.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    No, in PoW those with the most hashrate determine what the order of transactions is. Most of the world's computing power is in personal computers, so it is at least somewhat fairly distributed.
    - aidenn0 4y ago
      In theoretical terms, wealth can be turned into hashrate. In practical terms, most of BTC is mined on dedicated mining rigs by a relatively small number of players.
rvz 4y ago
Yes. The environmental argument of Ethereum 'burning up the planet' is now about to be addressed and that will silence the endless criticism made by the extreme crypto skeptics about Ethereum incinerating the planet. They will now just congratulate the re-centralization of Ethereum running on Proof-of-Stake. The crypto-skeptics will never be silent, but I can assure you that crypto is still here to stay, with some crypto projects surviving and some of them will not survive.
muglug 4y ago
> we're finally about to break away from the shackles of PoW and the crypto skeptics are silent. One very popular cryptocurrency is making the switch. That still leaves Bitcoin, with double the trading volume, and most of the other popular cryptocurrencies. More importantly it doesn't change the fundamental problem with crypto: it's deliberately difficult to regulate, which means that it's still a scammer's paradise. And Ethereum's price can still fluctuate wildly on any given day, making it unsuitable for most real-world transactions.
- Tenoke 4y ago
  >most of the other popular cryptocurrencies. Untrue. Check e.g. top 10, 20 or 50 on Coinmarketcap. Most are PoS. Further, with Ethereum being PoS the mining behind everything except Bitcoin is a rounding error. >And Ethereum's price can still fluctuate wildly on any given day, making it unsuitable for most real-world transactions. You might want to look into stablecoins or more generally into Ethereum if you think using it for daily transactions is the main usecase.
cflynnus 4y ago
Strongly disagree that PoW is a form of "shackles" PoW = bad is an Ethereum marketing narrative. The Bitcoin community has many robust counterarguments to this narrative.

by zionic 4y ago

k__ 4y ago

lol They will never be silent. The goalposts will move endlessly.

seibelj 4y ago
Some people don’t trust the government, other people do. I like a liquid, fungible asset not controlled by the government. Statists don’t. It’s a philosophical debate more than a technical one at this point.
- wedn3sday 4y ago
  Personally, I like a currency I can walk into a shop and buy a sandwich with.
  - seibelj 4y ago
    If the only use case for crypto was to buy sandwiches then it wouldn't be a trillion dollar asset class. That isn't the main use case at this point
  - bigiain 4y ago
    That makes you <checks notes> a "statist", apparently.
  - cflynnus 4y ago
    In at least one nation state, El Salvador, Bitcoin is an option for buying a sandwich with.
- mantas 4y ago
  So the world is made of statists and tax evaders.
- cflynnus 4y ago
  Bitcoin gives individuals the ability to better protect their wealth/savings by storing it in a form where it can easily be hidden (thus protected). It amazes me some people think that's a bad thing.

robin_reala 4y ago

One can be both positive about the benefit that this move brings, yet deeply negative about the overall value of crypto.

zionic 4y ago
Perhaps that nuance is achievable, but I have seen none of that here. That said, I fundamentally disagree that crypto is "overall negative", and with the move to PoS the largest negative aspect of crytpo (the environmental cost of PoW) goes away.
- Sephr 4y ago
  This merge doesn't make the environmental cost go away. It props up past environmental harms on a pedistal.
joe-collins 4y ago
This is absolutely where I stand. Hurrah, Ethereum's cost on humanity and the environment is dropping drastically! Unfortunately, it still has a measurable (if no longer grotesque) cost with extremely dubious benefit.
- colordrops 4y ago
  And what is that cost if not environmental?
  - presentation 4y ago
    Probably crime and wasted human potential
extragood 4y ago
It should be rebranded as crypto speculative investment given how infrequently it's actually used as currency.

jitl 4y ago

My stance has been “I’ll believe it when I see it” after years of the merge being “months” away. I’m a skeptic but happy to see a major cryptocurrency switching off the planet burner.

zionic 4y ago
>after years of the merge being “months” away It's only been months aways for a few months though. I have endured years of gaslighting comments like this _specifically_ from this asymmetrically moderated community, despite knowing for example in 2017 that PoS was years away. The "maybe this year" started in Jan 2020. COVID happened. They didn't start saying "within a year" again until end of 2021. Meanwhile the _beacon_ chain launched in 2020, which is what's taking over for the PoW chain in ... 1 hour. Maybe you're acting in good faith and you misheard that the beacon chain was launching 2 years ago and thought that was this. But how likely is that really?
- Nursie 4y ago
  It's been a few months away since at least 2018 - https://medium.com/@jyspark/getting-prepared-for-ethereum-pos-staking-in-2019-3a3855e6a018 https://medium.com/@jyspark/getting-prepared-for-ethereum-po... And I can find talk about it being 'soon' from 2016 - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33802343/when-will-ethereum-switch-to-proof-of-stake https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33802343/when-will-ether... So I think it's perfectly good faith to say we've been hearing about the 'imminent' switch to PoS for several years now.
- Tenoke 4y ago
  >despite knowing for example in 2017 that PoS was years away Weird since Vitalik said it will take 'maybe a year' and can be ready 'as early in 2018' in 2017. He has admitted many times he had and promoted much shorter timeframes than reality even calling it his biggest mistake in his Twitter AMA last year. https://www.trustnodes.com/2017/09/25/ethereum-may-upgrade-proof-stake-2018-says-vitalik-buterin https://www.trustnodes.com/2017/09/25/ethereum-may-upgrade-p...
eth_holder99 4y ago

pbreit 4y ago

Can someone summarize what is happening?

bigiain 4y ago
<snark> The people who are Etherium-wealthy are changing Etherium to mean they stay wealthy without having to burn the planet solving meaningless puzzles, while at the same time creating an insurmountable barrier to anybody else becoming obscenely Etherium-wealthy like they are. This is apparently a "good thing". The real world continues to not care.

fermentation 4y ago

there’s been much discussion here about how PoS does little to provide a decentralized monetary system since it appears to be built with the idea those with the most money should determine what the “truth” is

aidenn0 4y ago
PoW is those with the most wealth can determine what the truth is.
- cflynnus 4y ago
  I don't think this is correct. The book "The Blocksize War" by Jonathan Bier does a good job of covering this topic.
- cowtools 4y ago
  No, in PoW those with the most hashrate determine what the order of transactions is. Most of the world's computing power is in personal computers, so it is at least somewhat fairly distributed.
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    In theoretical terms, wealth can be turned into hashrate. In practical terms, most of BTC is mined on dedicated mining rigs by a relatively small number of players.

rvz 4y ago

Yes. The environmental argument of Ethereum 'burning up the planet' is now about to be addressed and that will silence the endless criticism made by the extreme crypto skeptics about Ethereum incinerating the planet. They will now just congratulate the re-centralization of Ethereum running on Proof-of-Stake. The crypto-skeptics will never be silent, but I can assure you that crypto is still here to stay, with some crypto projects surviving and some of them will not survive.

muglug 4y ago

> we're finally about to break away from the shackles of PoW and the crypto skeptics are silent. One very popular cryptocurrency is making the switch. That still leaves Bitcoin, with double the trading volume, and most of the other popular cryptocurrencies. More importantly it doesn't change the fundamental problem with crypto: it's deliberately difficult to regulate, which means that it's still a scammer's paradise. And Ethereum's price can still fluctuate wildly on any given day, making it unsuitable for most real-world transactions.

Tenoke 4y ago
>most of the other popular cryptocurrencies. Untrue. Check e.g. top 10, 20 or 50 on Coinmarketcap. Most are PoS. Further, with Ethereum being PoS the mining behind everything except Bitcoin is a rounding error. >And Ethereum's price can still fluctuate wildly on any given day, making it unsuitable for most real-world transactions. You might want to look into stablecoins or more generally into Ethereum if you think using it for daily transactions is the main usecase.

cflynnus 4y ago

Strongly disagree that PoW is a form of "shackles" PoW = bad is an Ethereum marketing narrative. The Bitcoin community has many robust counterarguments to this narrative.