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Are you referring to the “nothing at stake” problem? Ethereum’s PoS is designed to protect against validators signing transactions across multiple forks of the

Are you referring to the “nothing at stake” problem? Ethereum’s PoS is designed to protect against validators signing transactions across multiple forks of the same network. The Gasper “finality” and “fork choice” rules ensure that one chain is always selected by the validator set to be the “real” canonical chain for the network. What might eventually happen is that some % of the validators exit Ethereum mainnet and enter their deposit into an another blockchain, perhaps giving it a different name and set of features and tradeoffs. More details: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/a/591 https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/a/591 https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/08/01/introducing-casper-friendly-ghost https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/08/01/introducing-casper-frie...

Legogris 4y ago
I think they're referring more to a scenario like a contention in which chain constitutes ETH Mainnet in the first place. Like fork split like the following: 45% of validators sign on fork A 45% of validators sign on fork B 10% of validators sign both A and B (coincidentally such that they get evenly slashed between the two) That is, there question of what "Ethereum Mainnet" is will not be clear-cut and depending on who you ask.
- Galanwe 4y ago
  This seems like a false problem. The state you are describing is not stable, as validators have an incentive 1) to validate, instead of just sitting doing nothing 2) to choose the chain with the most likely chance of being the next main, otherwise they will be slashed As soon as even the slightiest imbalance appears between the two forks, it will bias validators to choose one against the other and thus exponentially make it the preferred fork.
  - Legogris 4y ago
    That's assuming validators are economically rational actors and that external incentives don't outweigh enclosed ones.
    - affinepplan 4y ago
      > and that external incentives don't outweigh enclosed ones. I think this is actually the most commonly overlooked assumption. The protocol seems very robust, *assuming* perfect information (aka all incentives are known to the system). I encountered this problem a few years back when trying to design a protocol for a decentralized prediction market. It's very hard to account for hedges or huge bets on other markets.
- mattdesl 4y ago
  In this scenario, the 10% would be forced to exit as their deposit would be slashed, and would drop below the required minimum for a security deposit. So within a short period, you would end up with 50% signing on A, and 50% signing on B. These would have to have different network or chain IDs to avoid slashing events. One of them, presumably B, would have had to actually change this number from whatever the previously standard/agreed-upon chain ID is. I could imagine this scenario happening in a contentious split or attack, but it would create two very clearly different blockchains with different goals and needs, like what happened with Eth and EthClassic, or Eth and EthPoW.
stickfigure 4y ago
In a hard fork, anything can change. Including whatever rules you think exist about chain validation.

Legogris 4y ago

I think they're referring more to a scenario like a contention in which chain constitutes ETH Mainnet in the first place. Like fork split like the following: 45% of validators sign on fork A 45% of validators sign on fork B 10% of validators sign both A and B (coincidentally such that they get evenly slashed between the two) That is, there question of what "Ethereum Mainnet" is will not be clear-cut and depending on who you ask.

Galanwe 4y ago
This seems like a false problem. The state you are describing is not stable, as validators have an incentive 1) to validate, instead of just sitting doing nothing 2) to choose the chain with the most likely chance of being the next main, otherwise they will be slashed As soon as even the slightiest imbalance appears between the two forks, it will bias validators to choose one against the other and thus exponentially make it the preferred fork.
- Legogris 4y ago
  That's assuming validators are economically rational actors and that external incentives don't outweigh enclosed ones.
  - affinepplan 4y ago
    > and that external incentives don't outweigh enclosed ones. I think this is actually the most commonly overlooked assumption. The protocol seems very robust, *assuming* perfect information (aka all incentives are known to the system). I encountered this problem a few years back when trying to design a protocol for a decentralized prediction market. It's very hard to account for hedges or huge bets on other markets.
mattdesl 4y ago
In this scenario, the 10% would be forced to exit as their deposit would be slashed, and would drop below the required minimum for a security deposit. So within a short period, you would end up with 50% signing on A, and 50% signing on B. These would have to have different network or chain IDs to avoid slashing events. One of them, presumably B, would have had to actually change this number from whatever the previously standard/agreed-upon chain ID is. I could imagine this scenario happening in a contentious split or attack, but it would create two very clearly different blockchains with different goals and needs, like what happened with Eth and EthClassic, or Eth and EthPoW.

stickfigure 4y ago

In a hard fork, anything can change. Including whatever rules you think exist about chain validation.