EIP Discussion - Proof of Work Incentive Structure and Difficulty Bomb

[atlanticcrypto]

Presentation on EIP-1295 here:

https://tinyurl.com/ycjec3no

[urbanczyks]

Let's fork and make it ASIC resistant.

[devMagics]

me and all miners friends how love ethereum hate asic centralization idea and bitmain manipulation and cheating so please fork to stand up in face of fire that will destroy the crypto currency idea

[romanap25]

I currently run a small 400 GPU mining farm in the UK. Im gonna be blunt and honest. I would like to say that without us, GPU miners, Etherium would not be the second largest crypto currency right now. We supported the network from the start and even now when we run our farms at a loss we still believe in it. I personally think that its only fair to fork and make mining ASIC resistant so we can mine as much Etherium as we can and hopefully let us make the money we all spent on setting up our farms back. This will not affect you work on Casper but hopefully this will help us make some money before Casper is Implemented. So yeah im in favor of making it ASIC resistant to see if the difficulty drops.

[JK20202020]

I have built a 105 GPU farm just to support ETH. Haven't switched coins, not selling em. Respecting your work as developers, I would like to request a full ASIC resistant fork. Bitmain has been full of mallpractice, releasing miners after using them just to have their scam IPO to pass.

I am supporting your network to the fullest and hope that you will stick true to the people that have been there for you since the beginning.

[nikvladan]

I totally agree with Vosk, he always knows what is best for miners.

[gcivanov]

Please fork ETH ! Change the algorithm to ASIC resistance. The ASIC miners are going to destroy the network.

[myseLFFF]

I believe a fork on Ethereums PoW is the way to go. The impact of ASIC miners is a negative one, the comunity is around GPU, not around a monopolized company such as Bitmain who put their profits and bcash above anything else. I do believe fork is the only way to push ASISCs/BitMains etc off the way.

[WJVcrypto]

My belief is that ETH should fork, to enable it to stay relevant and relatively decentralized. In preventing ASIC mining, it can remain focused on the idea of decentralized currency regardless of whether it is Fiat or Crypto. Crypto currency's creation was an effort to offer a decentralized currency that could be used worldwide and would not be controlled by any one entity. Enabling centralization just defeats the purpose and places ETH and others in the same basket as every centralized Fiat currency.

[Cryptominetech]

The other solution to this guys is to also look at ETC..It's holding strong, its Dagger Hashimoto, & it's POW. To my knowledge they have no FUBAR ideas of going some form of POS like casper and they are ASIC resistant, as far as I'm aware. Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum & just possibly will be the next network that I support long term.....we will have to see.........

[motababravo]

Please fork of ASIC's and give more hope for residential miners. Without your support we're all going to gain loses on a daily basis, which will make us drop of it.

[UncleBob2]

Please make Ethereum's ASIC resistance and address the uncle issue.

[crypto4techs]

I support a fork of ETH to a newer ASIC resistant algo. I have supported ETH for close to a year now and will continue to support it with the algo change.

[lonelyminer]

Hello, I'am small miner, have 1 ETH rig (135 Mh). When first ETH Asics arrived I was disappointed with decision that ETH will not fork . It looks to me that Vitalik&Devs are somehow distanced from community and miners. This is a second chance, so ... please make ETH algorithm Asic resistant .

[ra-dave]

I support the fork. Bitmain and others are terrible for crypto.

[atlanticcrypto]

Hello fellow Ethereum miners,

Thank you to all who have commented.

Like many of you, my serious entry into cryptocurrency and Ethereum was through mining. It was a way for me to be involved in providing infrastructure to a new technology, to learn the intricacies of that technology and to be rewarded financially along the way. I have always looked at an investment in mining hardware as a direct (albeit de-levered) investment into Ethereum itself.

Along the way, I had become so enraptured by the technologies I was being exposed to that I transitioned my career to work on providing flexible GPU computing resources to blockchain networks full time. We believe Ethereum has been and continues to be the most promising platform for smart contracts and a plethora of distributed use cases.

Unfortunately, like many of you, we believe that the current discussion around issuance reduction severely increases the risks to network security. We also believe that a network composed of ASIC computing resources like the Bitmain Antminer E3 and Innosilicon A10 will decrease the underlying purchasing power of Ether while adding to centralization.

We have proposed EIP-1295 as an adjustment to the Uncle Reward structure to realign incentives of large mining pools. We believe the outcome of the EIP will make the network stronger and the resulting issuance decrease (11.4%) will directly bolster the underlying purchasing power of Ether. We also believe that the maintenance of the Block Reward at 3 ETH will continue rewarding honest, interest-aligned miners for their significant contributions to network security and the overall adoption of the ETH network.

Over the coming days, we will be presenting analysis via Medium and other outlets to share our logic behind, and quantification of, many drivers that lead us to propose EIP-1295 and our conclusion that any additional reduction in issuance is significantly detrimental to network security. We will link all parts of our analysis here: https://medium.com/@brianventuro/eth-issuance-part-1-dd6e9acc00b7

We hope everyone will read our analysis and make their opinions heard.

With all my best, Brian Venturo CTO @ Atlantic Crypto

[UsertJonPizza]

Ethereum needs a fork, even if you just move to some other known algo. Just leaving it allows too much chance of a attack of 51%. You don't need to start making a whole new algo however, your resources should go to PoS. I understand that hardforks open vulnerabilities, but the risk of a 51 is greater.

[SolWax]

People who say fork against FPGA i am guessing know nothing about them, and imo that fight isn't worth the time or effort to fight for (there are waayyyyyy less fpga mining Ether than there are cloud mining scam contracts and twitter giveaways). People who say fork from asics are basing the fight on decetralization and the whole "asic resistance" baseplate Ether was build on. If you say you're going to do something, do it. Firm believer. GPU invested miners are seeing diminishing returns, wether it be due to cold markets or asic deployment is another story. In reality, a fork isn't going to fix that. Forking from asic invested miners is going to piss off a lot of people, but so is not forking and remaining "asic resistance". There are 2 major GPU manufactures, Nvidia and AMD. There are also 2 major asic manufacturers, and 2 major FPGA ones. The fight for decentralization is over. The only fighting chance here "do what you said you would do" and remain asic resistant, which to me is enough to stand ground on. I have never own an asic or an fpga, just using my head here...to mine on asic it what, 2 steps? Plug it in and run a couple command lines? For GPU, mining is a little more work, and hardware / software options with more then 2 options (refering to asics). To make a truely Proof of Work algo is one that mines on FPGAs, it takes years of experience to get one of those things running on mining. Manufactures haven't built mining FPGAs, the community members have modified them and software (more decentralized then our GPU rigs) to mine.... A person that can't hold to their word is dead to me...I have never touched, mined, exchanged Ether asics or FPGAs.

[yanivkalfa]

@atlanticcrypto

Block Reward at 3 ETH will continue rewarding honest, interest-aligned miners for their significant contributions to network security and the overall adoption of the ETH network.

That's all fine, but if asics continue the way they are - us honest, interest-aligned miners will not be rewarded.

[johncastorina]

A coin/project advertised as ASIC resistant should be ASIC resistant. When an ASIC presents itself for said coin and devs do not immediately take action and fork to render ASICs from bad actors useless, you look like frauds, sellouts and Bitmain co-conspirators.

How much stock is Bitmain promising you guys for not forking?

[alionas3]

I have been mining ETH for 2 years, and this year was the worst, ASICS increased the difficulty so ETH is not possible to mine profitably anymore in my country, so today I shut down all my ETH miners, i felt sad for it, did not realized that it will went down so fast, we need to fork eth and ban asic miners somehow, otherwise, the network will be held by big companies, not by us, people.

[vapordwarf]

Bitmain and ASICs in general are anti-decentralization. The average person interested in crypto is hardly going to have an 80-100 decibel ASIC in their home. However, we pretty much all have CPUs and GPUs. You can't get much more decentralized than that. Trading the centralization of big government for that of one or a handful of mega-corporations is hardly an improvement. Ethereum needs this advantage over Bitcoin to help secure its place as the cryptocurrency the world needs as well as living up to what cryptocurrency was supposed to be all about.

[michstuff]

Eth fork is at 5 past 12...if they do not do it fast bitmain Wil only get more power and make crypto as bad as today's stocks on Wallstreet...

[jbrown239]

I vote to fork and change the proof of work algorithm and maintain the ASIC resistance that everyone was sold on from the beginning. There will most likely be a better option in the future, but for now we have to stick with decentralization and to do that we need to stick with GPU mining.

[Ironworker613]

I vote for a Fork! I want to keep supporting it, but its getting really hard to do that!

[fragman78]

I have supported Ethereum since late 2015, and I always considered it as great technology. However, last months showed to GPU miners community how difficult is to survive with such a vast difficulty mainly delivered by ASICS hardware. Nowadays, I am not able to run my rigs in Ethereum network which I believe is one of the most technically advanced and it has a high potential to be the number one in crypto. In my opinion, it cannot be achieved if ASICS miners will dominate the network. We all know what happened to Bitcoin, one company - Bitmain controls more than 50% of hash power. That situation is far away from decentralization, which is the foundation of cryptocurrencies. Mining concentration from ASICs has resulted that it become the domain of huge data centers located in areas where electricity is cheap. As a result of ACISs, the idea of an average person mining profitably with their CPU or GPU disappeared. Bitcoin is no longer decentralized, and it requires millions of dollars of capital to participate. Is it something the Ethereum Foundation will accept and don't support the community?

Bitmain's monopoly continues to grow. In the community, Bitmain has gained a reputation of a "greedy bunch," I am pretty sure that Ehereum ASICS are connected on their farm for months making GPU mining mostly unprofitable. I would like to Ethereum to fork due to a simple fact. Do you want to support Bitmain monopoly with its huge profits or you will help the community of miners who were with Ethereum from the beginning?

[ijardine]

No more ASIC you can see what mess Bitmain IPO is right now, they could even go under holding all their bcash. RUN from ASIC do not WALK

[Zeebort]

Please vote to keep Ethereum decentralized.
Fork to resistance from asics, total destructive domination.

[lebuawu]

Please fork eth to be asic resistance. Not sure it's already late or not, because I believe bitmain already got a lot of eth so they still can dump all of them to make the price even more worst. Another reason maybe because of gpu miner already lost faith to eth, so they will not hold again. Just like what happen to monero right now.

[GiGiRolodex]

I have committed by time, energy and resources to mine ETH. I fell in love with ETH when I first learned of the project and it is the only thing I mine. I am not rich nor is my one rig that impressive, but wasn't the whole idea to include everyone when it came to supporting the block chain? Please fork ETH and remember that in every revolution, there are everyday people that have an idea and support that idea.

[atlanticcrypto]

We published Part 2 of our series discussing the ETH Issuance and ASIC debate.

Part 2 - Deflation - https://medium.com/@brianventuro/eth-issuance-part-2-deflation-13775c651a42

[atlanticcrypto]

We published Part 3 of our series discussing the ETH Issuance and ASIC debate.

Part 3 - Security - https://medium.com/@brianventuro/eth-issuance-part-3-security-6506b15f803f

[vapor7]

It's important not to underestimate the value of decentralization and how issuance and the mining algorithm play into it. Small scale hobbyist miners are the ones who contribute the great majority of the decentralization, and although they have low hash power individually, they collectively can add up to a large piece of the total. However, as things stand now, most hobbyist miners are barely breaking even on mining Ethereum at best. Bear in mind, they're likely not running the most efficient setups possible or paying super low electric rates the way large scale operations certainly are. Consideration needs to be taken of what will happen with these hobbyists, because if a significant issuance reduction is implemented without also eliminating and mitigating against ASICs at the same time, essentially no hobbyist miner will be able to continue operation. All that will be left are huge players and ASICs (and ASIC manufacturers). It will centralize the network enormously, both geographically and in terms of the number of individuals controlling the extant hashpower. We've already seen problems in the past with certain mining pools refusing to raise the gas limits or intentionally mining only empty blocks. There are all kinds of ways an adversarial mining cartel can screw with the network and damage its reputation if they think it's in their interests to do so. The way to combat that threat is to maintain as much decentralization as is reasonably possible between now and proof of stake. Issuance can and probably should be reduced somewhat, but it shouldn't be done at the expense of much of the network's decentralization. If issuance is to be reduced, please make sure to change the mining algorithm at least a little bit at the same time to break any true ASICs, and look at switching to ProgPOW as soon as possible to help keep mining feasible for hobbyist individuals worldwide. This is in everybody's best interests (except for ASIC manufacturers).

[vikrant1011]

I believe that one day cryptocurrency will become main stream and we will stop depending on fiat currencies. For that to happen the mining difficulty needs to be in check.

Miners exist to solve a problem but if people start exploiting it by creating asic machines, then its bad for the coin and its future.

Mining should be decentralized and if a big player installed a bunch of asics, then we'll be completely dependent on them to chart the course of the coin.

We can't wait for this to happen. We have to fork n disable the use of powerful machines for now and finally move to proof of stake in future.

[aecoiner1]

I've dedicated quite a significant amount of GPU mining resource exclusively to ETH because I firmly believe in the coin's value (irrelevant to its current or previous rates), providing infrastructure to a new technology, but most importantly its decentralized model. if ETH had not been built around GPU hardware mining and only focused on ASIC I would never had invested in the first place. There is a lot to be said about the GPU mining community and the power and support it has already been providing to build and support the ETH network. I believe everyone deserves a stake in this project while maintaining the decentralized balance which cannot be maintained exclusively with ASICS.

[tomonanda]

People which trusted in ETH project and have invested into it from the begining have been expecting a support from the managment but still nothing! We all know that ASIC damages ETH project so please fork it asap and look after the people that help you! not a greedy Bitmain like company with interests to dominate and control crypto market. - Thank you

[rencoinproject]

ETH should fork to keep off ASICS. A lot of people got into crypto because they could mine it, participate at the most basic level in crypto. By killing off GPU mining which is in essence what letting ASICS remain means, ETH is saying they don't want the community, that they don't value the community that has been built around the coin. ETH exploded to where it is today because of the many GPU miners who mine(d), sold, hodl(ed) and continue to contribute to it. Keeping ETH ASIC resistant ensures that ETH remains decentralized. and prevents the likes of Bitmain, who have proven to be bad actors from dominating the network. - Thank you

[Xcelerater]

ETH was supported and secured by GPU miners from the beggining. We're still around securing the network but we are being pushed out by centralised power. We know POS is coming and if that is good for ETH than thats the path we should take but I dont see how ASICS taking over the network and ETH becoming more centralised and at risk of 51% attacks is good at all.

[andydoucet]

Ethereum was meant to be an ASIC resistant coin, as is what the algo was built upon, why are the devs not forking immediately? Also, proof of stake is a bad idea when coupled with the difficulty bomb. It's literally ruining the coin. What's the point of switching over when the coin is worthless?

[romanap25]

I thought only politicians promised one thing and did never deliver it. We were promised an ASIC resistant mining and now have to convince developers to keep their promise. I thought the reason decentralized crypto currency was created to give community a voice.

[AdobeWriter]

It's about time to take action against ASIC mining of ETH! Get Ethereum back home to GPU miners and the decentralization they provide!

[CryptoBlockchainTechnologies]

I listened to the conference call a few days ago and would like to provide the input that you solicited during the call as a large Ethereum miner (+500 GPUs). I know you are trying to strike a balance to ensure the miner community accepts the mining reward changes and difficulty bomb. I have a solution that I think would make this a lot easier.

To be quite honest most GPU miners are now barely breaking even after electricity costs due to the current state of the market and increased ASIC mining pushing up difficulty. Any reduction in rewards without a likewise reduction in difficulty would leave only ASICs on your network. I think I can speak for the mining community by saying we would be extremely open to outright reductions in rewards with the difficulty bomb reward removal if you were to include an anti ASIC POW mining algorithm change simultaneously. We know once ASICs are off the network we will again be on equal footing with other fellow GPU miners and profits should resume to where we are not mining for a loss.

I realize Anti ASIC POW change was part of an EIP a few months back but you never finished the work but did agree it would need to be part of a fork with other EIPs. It seems this would be the best time to implement a POW algorithm change along side the reward reduction and difficulty bomb removal. I know you would hands down win over the mining community if you finally took serious the amount of profits ASICs are costing the community and forked them off.

I am in favor of EIP1295 only if combined in same fork to change POW algorithm to remove ASICs.

[labudic]

I agree that ethereum is build to be resistant to centralisation.Just bring strong fork and remove ASICS.GPU is good for ethereum and dont change POW to POS.In my humble opinion it ruin the coin.

[ever]

Please fork eth to be asic resistant

[lonelyminer]

I was reading comments, and 90% of participants want to fork against Asics. Unfortunately , I am very sceptical that this will happen. Why ? Because Vitalik& Devs dont't care so much about us, small miners. They are now in different "world" and don't feel connection with people who put own hard earned $ in rigs to support ETH. Doesn't matter how some people are smart and make innovation, human nature stay the same. Interest rule the world.

[romanap25]

none of them care about miners, they just want the price to go up because they hold their coins.

[Xcelerater]

Time will only tell. Vitalik and Devs said that the coin is supposed to be asic resistant. The crypto community will remember whether they mean what they say or if they have changed and are back peddling on their word.