Although miners insist that the concentration of more than 51% of the network's hash power will not be used to attack Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin and the team of developers are preparing to resist an alleged and possible attack.
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder and developer of Ethereum, The second blockchain most important of the markets, commented that the network development team would not be intimidated by the miners' threats to fork the network, if the EIP-1559 improvement proposal, scheduled to be activated this July in the “London” fork.
Currently, Buterin and the Ethereum team are organizing solutions to help them mitigate the risks of a possible 51% attack. Let us remember that a 51% attack is one in which one or more malicious agents, who manage to control at least this amount of hash power, will be able to do whatever they want with the network; from reversing or deleting transactions, double spending or even taking the network out of service.
The measure presented by Buterin and his team seeks to be a response that can prevent miners dissatisfied with the activation of EIP-1559, which will lead to a significant decrease in the cost of network commissions, from carrying out a security attack. 51%. He document under the name, “Fast merge via branch choice change”, explains how Ethereum and Ethereum 2.0 can quickly merge to prioritize the proof-of-stake protocol, proof of stake (PoS). Buterin explains that the only change required on the Ethereum side is for the miners' clients to have a communication channel with one of the trusted nodes of the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain, and for the clients to change their choice to the network. validation instead of the mining network, avoiding a disruptive event on the Ethereum network. According to Buterin, the merger measure could even “make the transition of protocols more fluid and efficient.”
It may interest you: Ethereum miners seek to support Ethermine's position against EIP-1559
An invitation to stop the activation of EIP-1559
For context, the two largest ETH mining pools on the network, Sparkpool (25% of hash rate) and Etheremine (21,2% of hash rate), are inviting small and medium-sized miners to concentrate power of hash rate of the network in Ethermine, as a demonstration of the organization of the miners, who are an important part of the network.
This call, as explained by those responsible for the pools, will help demonstrate the discontent of the miners with the implementation of EIP-1559, which will considerably reduce their profits and income. However, for developers and the Ethereum crypto community in general, the activation of this improvement proposal is essential to reduce the high commission costs that users must pay, and to guarantee the future of the network, which is losing ground. compared to other blockchains that offer more viable options, such as Polkadot and Cardano.
The reduction in commission rates and the future of the network were the main reasons why the developers and various community actors reached the agreement to activate EIP-1559, despite the refusal of several of the miners. Now, the largest mining pools are organizing to orchestrate a “demonstration”, in which they prove that they can organize and control 51% of the network, starting next April 1, for 51 consecutive hours.
A debate in the mining community
It seems that more and more Ethereum miners are joining Ethermine and Sparkpool's call to stop the integration of EIP-1559 into the mainnet. The miners have even created the website "stopeip1559.org", in which they are demonstrating their support for the position taken by the large mining pools.
On this portal it can be seen that 12 of the 20 mining pools that participate in Ethereum are against the activation of EIP-1559. The main reason for the refusal of these miner organizations is that the proposal will end up “burning all transaction fees instead of giving them to honest miners.” According to the miners, burning commission fees is the same as simply burning a tip in front of a waiter “while you laugh at him.”
On the other hand, miners against the proposal also point out that reducing miners' profits will put the future of the network at stake, considering that the arrival of Ethereum 2.0 leaves "less at stake for miners." Meanwhile, mining pools such as F2Pool, Poolin, among others, consider it prudent to activate EIP-1559 to guarantee the usability of the network.
It is no secret that high commissions are leading protocols such as SushiSwap, Compound, dYdX, 1inch, among others, to migrate to other more accessible and economical blockchain networks. In the case of users, many are also choosing to use other blockchains to carry out their transactions, since the high fees in ETH are leaving the network only accessible to companies, corporations or whales; and not for ordinary users interested in making small transactions with that cryptocurrency.
Advantages and risks in Ethereum
Ethereum is the leading network for the development of endless decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts (smart contracts), and even for the development of the protocols that form the ecosystem DeFi, which is currently capitalized at more than $44.000 billion together. But, despite its development and the set of innovative tools it offers, commission rates have become a barrier to entry into its ecosystems; transforming the network into an unviable one for small investors and common users.
This reality is giving its competitors the opportunity to present themselves as more feasible and viable options, which is undoubtedly attracting thousands of users who seek economy and scalability when making their transactions.
On the other hand, Ethereum 2.0, still in development, is shown as the hope for lower fees, and a greater boost for the world's second largest cryptocurrency. In any case, a fully functional ETH 2.0 is still a long way off, while its main features are still being developed and the ETH 1.0 network is the one that supports the greatest advance of Ethereum as an ecosystem.
Continue reading: Optimistic Rollups, the imminent solution to scale Ethereum “100 times”
