Universal Coordinated Time on August 18th and all over the world people are dialling in to a fortnightly “core developers” Zoom call, which is broadcast live on YouTube to anyone who wants to watch. None of the participants have their cameras on. Most appear as just black squares with names—including one labelled Vitalik, behind which lurks Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of Ethereum.
The idea for the Ethereum blockchain was first published in 2014 by Mr Buterin. As with Bitcoin, it is a large database of all the transactions that have ever taken place in the cryptocurrency. But Mr Buterin’s crucial insight was that the blockchain could do much more than that—it could also keep track of lines of code.
To implement a change like the merge requires sufficient consensus among the interested parties. All the major clients must agree to write the software, enough nodes must update their software and all the real-world applications layered on the blockchain—like stablecoins backed by dollars in bank accounts—must accept the new merged chain is the one that will maintain the status of their assets. It can be surreal to watch this happening in real time.
For a split this time, “there basically needs to be one single miner in the world who decides they want to continue with the proof of work,” meaning there almost certainly will be one, says Justin Drake of the Ethereum Foundation. The question is how many miners stick and how many twist. Chandler Guo, who supported the Ethereum Classic fork in 2016, is attempting to organise miners around a proof-of-work token called “”. “I fork Ethereum once, I will fork it again!” he has said.
The change also reduces the need for specialised mining hardware. Nvidia, a chipmaker, makes graphics cards for gaming that can also be used for mining ether. From May to July, in part fuelled by rumours of an impending merge, revenues from its chips fell by half compared with the previous three months. On eBay prices of second-hand graphic cards are tumbling.
Hardly.
And the plane is guaranteed to crash.
Except an aeroplane has that whole.. you know, gravity problem.
You debase yourself by wasting ink on such a stupid topic.
The medias convenience to not draw parrallels between the cost (in terms of energy usage) of running the entire banking sector or online gaming v crypto mining, continues on unabated.
Mariano97157747 :)
_HectorJose_ :)
Very advanced new technology.
For more honest technical reporting on what this all means, I'd recommend reading this instead...
Hardly monumental, hardly important.
But is now subject to control/centralization by a small group of large holders, who can now unilaterally make decisions about Ethereum’s future. Proof of work matters. There’s a reason it’s used. Proof of stake is just the same system that already exists in the world.
Ceiling Unlimited Visibility Unlimited
Messure of troy ounce,weith in gram ,clear in carst's...?
this is some scary crazy $hit…!
False. The primary use cases remain money laundering, ransomware, and grift. The balance of vaguely legitimate uses amount to DRM. There is still no problem best solved by this technology. And the transaction rate requires actual applications use 'off chain' shim hacks.
SorunsalElliTon stevedabitcoin eness_turann HASOsyalmedya Türkçe ne demek istediği tamam ama bu Economist ne demek istiyor tam olarak? Uçuyor muyuz? Dibe doğru sürüklenme devam mı? Yorumlarınız nedir?
yio, useless usecase, but still in TWh ...
Nah. Not interested.
'we fixed our decentralized currency by centralizing it'
AXA oktaviaamfs axamandiri Forbes AXAIndonesia aiainsurancelk AIAIndonesia Prudential Pru_UK myprudential
🥱🥱🥱
Stop promoting shitcoins.
That moment you realize cardano , solana , Avalanche and many others are already operating with PoS for a while now.....
Price go down then go up
Nope! So wrong: must have a fortune in the cryptocurrency bullshit. Pay attention to the countries that adopted Bitcoin and are now so totally done with it. The plan for a digital everything is ludicrous, Insidious, and really really creepy.
Get away from me with that shit
It still needs some useful application. Other than scams and avoiding regulatory oversight. PS my Rasberry pi is faster than BTC.
Still a Ponzi scheme though
Actually the future of crypto is at work in Ethereum's switch
Why ain't none bothered on talking about this. . ...
You want to know the future of crypto? Easy: 0, its 0.
Wow!
What kind of future has something that doesn't even exists in the present time?
Looking forward to good news
What happens if I use this ... .
ethereum is a quasi-decentralized network.
Ethereum isn't decentralised, and proof of stake will make it worse.
Ethereum isn't decentralized.