Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
August 24, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- For those of you that
remember Bitcoin’s eventual fork in 2017 and
the events that led up to it, it is safe to say you also remember
that these events definitely involved a few phone calls between
groups of influential community members.
Now, it is almost as if we have
come full circle with Ethereum’s conference call,
which should have already occurred by press time, today. To add to
this, an almost direct connection can be drawn between the two
networks and the purpose of their conference calls. In short,
Ethereum is also facing very specific difficulties related to its
future.
As is mentioned in Coindesk’s
report that came out today on the subject,
the network is trying to reach some sort of consensus on issues
like whether or not to slow down what is called a difficulty bomb, as well as how
to combat the inflation of Ether. On top of
all of this, the network’s users and developers are also trying to
decide the merits as well as disadvantages of making
Ethereum, ASIC resistant.
If you are not already aware of
their basic definitions, then these issues might bear a bit of
explaining to provide you with the needed context for this debate.
For starters, a difficulty bomb is essentially a number of lines of
computer code that is designed to gradually increase the difficulty
of mining on a Blockchain network.
In Ethereum’s case, this means that
eventually, its native currency might become much more valuable not
just because of growing utility, but also because it will be
impossible to mine it, due to the increasing computing
requirements. Suffice it to say for now that the major issue here
is whether or not to delay Ethereum’s difficulty bomb.
As of now, it is still set to
reactivate in 2019 to coincide with Ethereum’s planned shift from
Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. As this shift
was now been delayed, some leaders in the Ethereum community are
also proposing a delay of the difficulty bomb. On the other hand,
detractors of this option are pointing out that delaying the bomb
means decreasing block rewards in a way that is proportional with
the delay.
If this is not done, it will
apparently becoming progressively easier to mine and therefore,
miners will also gain progressively higher rewards that are not
truly based on the work that they do.
In terms of dealing with Ethereum’s
inflation, the situation may be a lot simpler to solve. Vitalik
Buterin’s latest idea on the subject was apparently to cap Ether
creation at 120 million coins, in order to make the cap exactly two
times the original amount that was raised in 2014 to fund the
network. According to him, this could impact inflation in a
positive way. Even so, the key word here is “could.”
Finally, there’s ASIC resistance,
as mentioned above. If the majority of the Ethereum community votes
in favor of such a change, then it is possible that the Bitmains of the mining
space would be blocked from ever achieving a majority of the
Ethereum network’s hash rate. While this does seem to be the best
decision in terms of preserving decentralization, Vitalik and
others who stand behind him also make a valid point in opposition
to this path.
In theory, no network can be ASIC
resistant forever. The very definition of an ASIC in the context of
the Blockchain industry is a computer chip that specializes in
solving a specific kind of Proof of Work algorithm. Even now, some
networks like Zcash, which had been planning to become ASIC
resistant, have now decided to abandon these plans for the same
reasons that Buterin and others have stated. It just will not last
forever.
With the conference call going on
as of 2 pm UTC time, it remains to be seen if the community will
decide on any course of action related these issues, or if the
debate will continue unresolved.
In the end, at some juncture,
decisions will have to be made that fit with the overall
community’s vision of what Ethereum should be over the long
term.
By: BGN Editorial Staff
News:
Ethereum
(ETH)
Cryptocurrency