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Network Software Technology

Ethereum Software Update Planned for September After Successful Test (bloomberg.com) 34

Posted by msmash from the it's-happening dept.
The most ambitious upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain should take place in September, possibly closer to the middle of the month, developers working on the project said during a conference call after what was billed as a final dress rehearsal. From a report: Developers have picked a number of so-called total terminal difficulty required of the final block mined in Ethereum before the network switches to new software. Figuring out the exact date range when the upgrade will occur will require complex calculations, and will be a moving target, depending on changes to the network's use and support, developers said on the call that was broadcast over YouTube on Thursday. The final date range is expected to be approved during another developer call next week, though the software engineers are currently looking at Sept. 16 to Sept. 20.

Called the Merge, the software upgrade has been in the works for years, and it will change the way Ethereum orders transactions to become more energy efficient. Instead of using energy-guzzling computers called miners, the network will deploy so-called validators using staked Ether tokens -- a setup called proof of stake. Following years of delays, the time for the Merge is finally being set after Wednesday's completion of the Goerli merge test, which simulated the Merge on a smaller scale. A few problems popped up during the test, developers reported on the call. Goerli merge, which many celebrated with parties broadcast on YouTube, was the final test before the actual Merge was to take place.
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Ethereum Software Update Planned for September After Successful Test More

Ethereum Software Update Planned for September After Successful Test

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  • What is a stake? (Score:5, Informative)

    by stikves ( 127823 ) on Thursday August 11, 2022 @12:02PM (#62780632) Homepage

    Not that I agree with what they do, but the change is basically this:

    Instead of "Staking" computing power / electricity / GPUs on transaction authenticity, the new way is staking your "Ethers".

    What that means is, previously they had 51% of miners agreeing on transactions to move forward. At any time the block in the chain would be signed off by miner consensus. If you wanted to hack the chain, you had to have more than 51% of the computing power (which was crazy high).

    Now you need to have more than 51% of the money in the staking system. Which is crazy high for Ethereum, but practically very small for any other "alt coin"

    So, this is a unique situation.

    • The beauty of it is that if you hack a coin that you own more than 51% of, you will be the biggest bag holder since everyone will move away from that coin. If you have such high stakes, you are not interested in crashing the coin.

      • If I understand this correctly, you don't need to own 51% of the total number of coins, but only of the staked ones. Staking is like putting your money in a savings account: it earns interest, but (depending on the terms) you may need to leave it in there for a certain amount of time. Now, if most Eth holders consider their money to be savings or a long term investment, rather than spending money or a short term investment they need to be able to unload quickly, then there will be plenty of stakers, and t

      • They didn't though (Score:4)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday August 11, 2022 @12:25PM (#62780716)
        the owners of Ethereum forked the chain not too long ago. Look up "Ethereum Classic". Everyone moved the to owners chain because they had the bulk of the real money (e.g. "fiat" currency). Ethereum Classic is still around, and getting a little boost from miners upset they can't mine anymore, but it's still a fraction of the value of the fork.

        It's not that they're gonna crash the chain, they're gonna manipulate it to make themselves rich. Imagine if the chair of the federal reserve owned 51% of all dollars. That would be the kind of conflict of interest we're talking about here.

        • Ethereum Classic is behind in featureset, behind in developers, and wayyyyyyyyyyyyy behind in txn count. Nobody's using the chain except as a "fuck you" to the Ethereum Foundation over the way they and the miners agreed to handle the DAO hack years ago. Fat lot of good it's done them.

          And no Ethereum Classic wasn't created by a 51% attack so the applicability of that situation to this discussion is scant at best.

          itamihn is generally correct in his assessment. One of Ethereum's features is independent node

          • That's all well and good but the fact that there is a ethereum foundation at all is kind of a red flag. What's the point of having a cryptocurrency with a central governing body like that? Yeah you can fork it but I think the point of me bringing up ethereum classic is that you can't really fork it. The people in charge stay in charge. At that point when I just stick with stable Fiat currencies?

            • LOL once again you sound like a Bitcoin Maximalist. The EF is just the core developers, that's it. Someone had to get it started.

    • just buy up Ether during economic downturns, consolidate it and then control the chain?

      That said, run of the mill currency manipulation is probably easier. Also let's not forget Ethereum has owners, and they forked the chain in the past when they didn't like the results of one of their little experiments. Google "Ethereum Classic".

      Basically, it's not nearly as decentralized as people like to think it is.

      • The PRC already had over 50% of BTC hashrate under its control at one point, and around 80% of BCH, but they never rounded up the miners and attempted at 51% attack on either chain. BTC was (and still is) worth more than ETH. They were either unaware of their position (unlikely) or smart enough to realize that a 51% attack would only be good for nuking the chain for a short while rather than as a solid way to make money.

        On top of that, a 51% attack under a PoW scheme is less-risky since you are only riski

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Train0987 ( 1059246 )

      It will be delayed indefinitely. Mark this post.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What are the chances someone is sitting on a vulnerability, to be unleashed as soon as the change goes live?

      It's a credit to Satoshi that bitcoin was secure. A hack in the very early days could have killed crypto currency for good.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Proof of stake generally includes burning the coin as well.

      So yes, you can "win" the block you want into the chain, but the money you used to buy your way in, evaporates. So your goal is to bid, but not too much because you don't want to lose money in the process.

      This obviously won't work for fixed-amount coins like bitcoin, but I think Eth can generate unlimited coins.

      So you can own 51% of all the coin, but if you're not careful how you spend it, you can lose that stake easily enough.

      So you're effectively

    • You're missing the point that 51% of power for alt coins is also very small. A mining farm could easily take over any small coin.

      The difference between PoW and PoS in this respect is that if someone wants to kill a PoW coin all they need is direct some mining power that way. If they already have that, they don't need to invest anything. Someone who wants to kill a PoS coin would have to buy it, and will therefore lose money.

    • > Which is crazy high for Ethereum

      The Federal Reserve has issued more money in a month than the total value of Ether.

      This will become the CBDC infrastructure.

  • There's never a better time to waste electricity by doing useless work. : P

    • The point (in theory) is to actually reduce energy consumption. Ulterior motives may be at play though...

      • Blockchain is a form of currency based on energy consumption.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ET3D ( 1169851 )

          Fiat money consumes power too. Everything is electronic these days.

          The main question is how much power is used.

          Mining (proof-of-work) consumes as much power as it can, as long as it's profitable. With proof-of-work, more efficient processors do nothing to reduce power use, since the algorithm is designed to adjust to the amount of processing power and becomes less efficient the more processing power is in the system.

          Proof-of-stake uses validators, at most one per 32 ETH, so the required power is at worst re

  • It seems electricity is still too cheap if we still can waste it on tulip farming.

  • We've heard this several years in a row now. Until folks running the network have more incentive to change they'll just keep running the old network to maximize fees. I'll believe it when I see it.

    • Node operators will choose whether or not to update to the new system. There's already a few operators that seem to have signaled they're willing to keep the old chain alive (Ethereum 2/ETHW), but not many. It's just going to be Ethereum Classic all over again. No value, no activity . . . just a zombie animated by bitterness.

  • Many blockchains such as Cardano already have POS. How will Ethereum stand out after it also switches to POS? If it does not then its market capitalization will probably get closer to the one of Cardano.

    • People have already had their chance to invest in ADA. Ethereum has first-actor advantage, a larger base of developers, and mind trust. Ethereum already only "stands out" for those reasons - mining doesn't make it a better chain.

      • True, Ethereum is bigger and older, but its switch to POS will not create something that didn't already exist. Others were there much earlier. Ether is keeping its price relative to BTC well above the levels seen in the previous crypto winter because of the upcoming switch to POS. When it happens many people will sell the news and I'm wondering how much will be left.

        • Staying with PoW also doesn't create something that didn't already exist. If people are going to choose Cardano, they could already choose it now. And many have.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ET3D ( 1169851 )

          Not sure why you think people will sell.

          I also don't see what Cardano brings to the table except for PoS. If it loses that advantage over Ethereum, why use it?

          • I think that people will sell because "buy the rummor, sell the news" is what usually happens in markets. I took Cardano only as an example of a PoS blockchain that supports smart contracts. There are others of course. They may not have an advantage over Ethereum, but Ethereum may also not have an advantage over them except for the network effect, which may change. The only singleton is Bitcoin, it will always be the first.

  • "Figuring out the exact date range when the upgrade will occur will require complex calculations, and will be a moving target, depending on changes to the network's use and support"

    If it is a moving target, complex calculations won't do shit, because they'll almost certainly be wrong when it comes to predicting when and how people will act.

    If these kinds of things were predictable, we'd never have recessions or depressions.

    QUIT GETTING BILKED BY ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL AMATEURS.

  • Every single PoS system I've participated in has had consensus problems. That means, the chain "froze" for a time before the issue could be resolved. Some people may put up with Solana going down for 8 hours at a stretch, but when the chain you depend on for everything else stops -- its a deal-breaker. If the ETH devs don't kick the can (again) and put off the "logic bomb", when they finally migrate they may find out that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Posting tokens as a validator is not equiva
  • I do think this Ethereum Merge is actually against the idea of decentralization. Now you need to stake Ethers, which force the valuation of Ether to rise, and make the barrier to entry to be higher than before when it gets more and more expensive. Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic [despace.io] explains the biggest differences between Ethereum and the original Ethereum which is the classic with Proof-of-Work system.

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