Vitalik Buterin Addresses Threats To Ethereum's Decentralization In New Blog Post (theblock.co) 26
In a new blog post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared his thoughts on three issues core to Ethereum's decentralization: MEV, liquid staking, and the hardware requirements of nodes. The Block reports: In his post, published on May 17, Buterin first addresses the issue of MEV, or the financial gain that sophisticated node operators can capture by reordering the transactions within a block. Buterin characterizes the two approaches to MEV as "minimization" (reducing MEV through smart protocol design, such as CowSwap) and "quarantining" (attempting to reduce or eliminate MEV altogether through in-protocol techniques). While MEV quarantining seems like an alluring option, Buterin notes that the prospect comes with some centralization risks. "If builders have the power to exclude transactions from a block entirely, there are attacks that can quite easily arise," Buterin noted. However, Buterin championed the builders working on MEV quarantining through concepts like transaction inclusion lists, which "take away the builder's ability to push transactions out of the block entirely." "I think ideas in this direction - really pushing the quarantine box to be as small as possible - are really interesting, and I'm in favor of going in that direction," Buterin concluded.
Buterin also addressed the relatively low number of solo Ethereum stakers, as most stakers choose to stake with a staking provider, either a centralized offering like Coinbase or a decentralized offering like Lido or RocketPool, given the complexity, hardware requirement, and 32 eth minimum needed to operate an Ethereum node solo. While Buterin acknowledges the progress being made to reduce the cost and complexity around running a solo node, he also noted "once again there is more that we could do," perhaps through reducing the time to withdraw staked ether or reducing the 32 eth minimum requirement to become a solo staker. "Incorrect answers could lead Ethereum down a path of centralization and 're-creating the traditional financial system with extra steps'; correct answers could create a shining example of a successful ecosystem with a wide and diverse set of solo stakers and highly decentralized staking pools," Buterin wrote. [...]
Buterin finished his post by imploring the Ethereum ecosystem to tackle the hard questions rather than shy away from them. "...We should have deep respect for the properties that make Ethereum unique, and continue to work to maintain and improve on those properties as Ethereum scales," Buterin wrote. Buterin added today, in a post on X, that he was pleased to see civil debate among community members. "I'm really proud that ethereum does not have any culture of trying to prevent people from speaking their minds, even when they have very negative feelings toward major things in the protocol or ecosystem. Some wave the ideal of 'open discourse' as a flag, some take it seriously," Buterin wrote.
Buterin also addressed the relatively low number of solo Ethereum stakers, as most stakers choose to stake with a staking provider, either a centralized offering like Coinbase or a decentralized offering like Lido or RocketPool, given the complexity, hardware requirement, and 32 eth minimum needed to operate an Ethereum node solo. While Buterin acknowledges the progress being made to reduce the cost and complexity around running a solo node, he also noted "once again there is more that we could do," perhaps through reducing the time to withdraw staked ether or reducing the 32 eth minimum requirement to become a solo staker. "Incorrect answers could lead Ethereum down a path of centralization and 're-creating the traditional financial system with extra steps'; correct answers could create a shining example of a successful ecosystem with a wide and diverse set of solo stakers and highly decentralized staking pools," Buterin wrote. [...]
Buterin finished his post by imploring the Ethereum ecosystem to tackle the hard questions rather than shy away from them. "...We should have deep respect for the properties that make Ethereum unique, and continue to work to maintain and improve on those properties as Ethereum scales," Buterin wrote. Buterin added today, in a post on X, that he was pleased to see civil debate among community members. "I'm really proud that ethereum does not have any culture of trying to prevent people from speaking their minds, even when they have very negative feelings toward major things in the protocol or ecosystem. Some wave the ideal of 'open discourse' as a flag, some take it seriously," Buterin wrote.
And On And On And ON (Score:1, Redundant)
Got to keep pumping the scam
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it is verrrry important that fake coins not become centralized for "reasons".
Re: (Score:1)
I wouldn't really call cryptocurrency a scam. Bitcoin gained about $10,000, and is at 71k right now. If it were a scam, it wouldn't be rising. (No, I'm not going to say that BTC is going anywhere, as it doesn't take much to kick the price up or down.)
Ethereum brings alone one critical thing... a universally accepted blockchain. This allows people to sign documents and put hashes on the blockchain, ensuring a distributed ledger and log, with timestamps. For example, if I were doing a copyright and put a
Re: (Score:2)
" If it were a scam, it wouldn't be rising"
Do you even know how Ponzi schemes work? It all depends on getting more suckers into the ecosystem so you can cash out and leave them holding an empty bag.And as you've seen with all the constant rugpulls - it's a fucking scam - as clearly shown here. [web3isgoinggreat.com]
Re: (Score:2)
HA! As if time determines a ponzi scheme. Madoff opened his business in 1960 and was caught in 2008.
Re: (Score:1)
For example, if I were doing a copyright and put a signed copy of the material on the ETH blockchain, it is 100% proof that it was made at a certain point in time.
but then you have to come back to reality and realise the blockchain does nothing to prove you signed the contract, and only proves you have access to a node on a blockchain somewhere - back to square one
he won't address the main problem (Score:2)
Crypto other than bitcoin are mostly scams. Nobody cares if a scam is decentralized.
It's still tremendously useful (Score:3)
Something I wonder is how many of the crypto scams aren't actually scams but are just money laundering. You set up a fake crypto coin and then you get "ripped off" to the tune of millions of dollars. It would be easy to imagine that money just going to whoever you're actually laundering the money for in exchange for a cut of it. It would be an incredibly effective way to launder money.
Re: (Score:2)
So either crypto is facilitating crime or it's directly a crime
Re: (Score:2)
Describe how one launders money on the Ethereum blockchain.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
would it? The whole point of money laundering is to convert funds with some kind of taint to ones without it.
There are really two situations. You have unaccounted for funds, a duffel bag full of cash you got from the Biden campaign for services stuffing ballot drop boxes for example, or you have accounted for funds say 100000x capital gains from crypto speculating.
Having your coins *cough* stolen *cough* solves the first half the second class of laundering problem. You remove the money from account without
Re: (Score:2)
As a user why would I want to pay a transaction fee? The reason credit card companies can get away with it is because they have effectively hidden the same transaction fees from the public.
Re: (Score:2)
If Ethereum were working better, it would also hide transaction fees from the public. End users really shouldn't be expected to use clunky wallet software or interact directly with the base chain.
Re: (Score:2)
Base chain fees are always going to be high on Ethereum. Fees to use L2 and even L3 protocols are (or could be) much lower. The ship has already sailed on improving base chain throughput enough to lower fees.
Re: (Score:2)
People have shown to not want to put up with that and hop on to a different chain instead. Many people would rather move to Litecoin instead of deal with Bitcoin's L2s, many would rather move to Solana or other "eth killers" than deal with L2s.
Re: (Score:2)
Bitcoin only has one L2: Lightning. If you can call it an L2. Anyway it sucks. There's a fairly large amount of traffic on Ethereum L2s, enough that they were getting a little expensive to use for awhile there. Eventually most base chain activity on Ethereum will be nothing but resolving transactions from L2s, except for old schoolers or exchanges that stubbornly refuse to support L2s at all.
Solana is... look you either love it or hate it, but I personally don't see it as "the solution" to high Ethereum
Re: (Score:2)
Ethereum L2s do lower transaction fees, but let's say you want to launch a crypto project. How do you choose between Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimisim, Base, Ronin, other L2s?
Each of these layers has their own liquidity and they don't talk to each other easily. You need to bridge between them constantly.
I'm not saying Solana is great. It crashes under stress. I was just pointing out that people flock to other blockchains because i
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't heard of Liquid, and while I hope it works out better than LN, I'm not holding my breath. Ditto for Fedimints.
The bridging issue between Ethereum L2s is ultimately the fault of the EF relying on third parties to handle scaling. The EF knew that L2s would be necessary for scaling yet never endorsed a single L2 nor attempted to integrate a particular L2 into the official Ethereum code base. Sure competition can be good and all, but in this case a standardized L2 would be of great use to the overall
Hey, (Score:3)
"Hey, go find your own corner, buddy. This one's taken."
You can beat all the crypto investments. (Score:3, Insightful)
Investment or gambling? What percentage can you make. What risk can you afford.
I'll show you a loss-proof technique.
Do you love to gamble? There are cities (Monaco, Macau, Las Vegas. etc) that allow you to do that. Your money is safe coming in. Your money is safe going out if you have any. If they cheat you, regulators will investigate.
Crypto is gambling without any of those protections.
Do you love to invest? There are exchanges all over the world (NASDAQ, FOREX, etc.) that allow you to do that. Your money is safe coming in... safe going out if you have any, and if they cheat you, regulators will investigate.
ETHEREUM IS NOT AN INVESTMENT. It doesn't meet any of the criteria to be one. Seriously. It's a number. You're gambling someone else will want your number later for more. That's a gamble, not an investment.
Put your currency under the bedmat. Risk: 0%. Profit: 0%. Loss: 0%. Being yet another idiot being a sucker for cryptobros: 0%.
Re: (Score:2)
Loss: 0%
Unfortunately, that's not true. Inflation is eating people's savings at rates completely unsustainable for anyone who expects something still relevant under that mattress in 30 years. Basic saving accounts don't help much either, they offer (from my personal limited experience) 5% growth when inflation is at 10%. A basic calculator like https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/c... [bls.gov] shows in 30 years you'd have less than half your money left. That is what drives people to crazy investment schemes - the hopelessness of t
A few good men (Score:2)
Vitalik Buterin is someone I actually appreciate in crypto. He's still trying to make ETH match the ideal of crypto, not its real nature.
The problem is, regardless of what's being done, crypto is inherently driven by greed. That's the only motivation for people to participate in a crypto protocol, and once that's the motivation, most people who flock to use it will put greed in front of anything else. It's why people will always try to game the system.
It's nice to see the algorithmic attempts to combat this