andreaorru

If all goes well, 2022 [0]. The transition will happen in multiple phases. IMHO it's very interesting from a software engineering perspective.

- The Beacon Chain is already live (since December last year). It's going to act as the coordinating entity in the PoS system. Future validators are already staking Ether on it.

- Shard chains support is expected to be launched later this year. The plan is to have 64 shards to improve scalability. Together with Layer 2 solutions (which are on the verge of becoming mainstream, e.g. Jack Dorsey's tweet was minted using a L2) that will bring the throughput to ~100-200k transactions per second.

- The last step is "docking" the old Ethereum Mainnet to the Beacon Chain as one of the shards of the new PoS system.

[0] https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/

Have you played Aavegotchi? [0]

[0] https://www.aavegotchi.com/

Just want to point out that Ethereum 2.0 will be Proof of Stake, so moving forward the ecological argument is moot.

ASICs.

For those numbers you would be going through OTC, not buying on the open market, so the fees would likely be much lower.

It is relevant because I don't think the rest of the projects will end up absorbing all of Ethereum's hashrate. First of all, some of the current miners will sell their hardware and stake ETH instead, becoming validators.

Secondly, I tend to think there'll be a mass extinction event, where most useless projects will eventually die off. You can mine all you want, but if there's no real utility in yet another PoW project (and there isn't), you won't be able to sell the coins at a price that justifies running the operation.

The hash rate for all the other projects beside Ethereum is minuscule.

Sure, some of it will move to other currencies, but my guess would be it won't be anywhere near 100% as you're suggesting.

While I'm optimistic on PoS and excited about Ethereum adopting it, I think Bitcoin and PoW are being unjustly demonized and the issue is far more complex than what meets the eye.

I found this analysis insightful: https://coinshares.com/insights/beware-of-lazy-research-bitc...

Also this Twitter thread (12 tweets) and all the articles linked inside it: https://twitter.com/yassineARK/status/1360343401627979778

There are a few (mostly Bitcoin forks), and you can probably make some profit mining them, but they are not big enough to have a significant impact on the global demand for GPUs.

At this point, most crypto projects with any real traction (with the obvious exception of Bitcoin) are either ERC-20 tokens running on Ethereum, or other PoS chains that claim to be better than Ethereum (i.e. Cardano).

Bitcoin isn't mined with GPUs anymore.

Yes! In fact that's one of the goals of the transition.

Yep. You can run a validator node by staking at least 32 ETH (or any amount through a staking pool).

Nodes will still verify transactions and execute smart contracts, of course. But there's no hash lottery to be won for mining blocks.

Cool experiment. But I don't recommend getting into Ethereum mining now, as the network is on the verge of switching to Proof of Stake as part of the migration to Ethereum 2.0.

I guess we'll know more in the next few hours.

I'm also confused by the contradicting news. CryptoTwitter (and the markets) reacted enthusiastically...

"Contrary to online speculation, there was no finding that Tether ever issued tethers [USDT] without backing, or to manipulate crypto prices," said Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor. [0]

[0] https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/95207/bitfinex-tether-ne...

EDIT: For some reason I'm being downvoted, but I'm genuinely curious to understand why this news is being simultaneously interpreted in two opposite ways.

That's not entirely correct. Less than half of the demand for gold is for jewellery, and only a tiny percentage is used for technology. Almost half of it is held in vaults to act as a store of value. [0]

Regardless of what the percentages are, the price of gold is mostly determined by speculation. It varies wildly during periods of economic uncertainty. Arguably, not because there's more or less demand for its industrial use cases, but precisely for the reason I mentioned: a big part of its value derives from being perceived as a safe haven for storing wealth and as a hedge against inflation.

Bitcoin positions itself as a direct competitor in that sense. Its main narrative in the past few years has been "digital gold" or "gold 2.0". It has some of the same properties of gold (scarce, difficult to produce) and some better ones (fast and easy to transfer, easily auditable, impossible to steal or confiscate).

I don't think Bitcoin is suited to be used as a currency to i.e. buy coffee. But it doesn't have to do that in order to succeed. Stablecoins are a better tool for that use case.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I've read the entire article but it seems to discount the thesis that the technological revolution played a primary role.

It seems to me that like most macroeconomics issues, it's a multivariate phenomenon, so correlational studies can only get you so far.

Do you have books you would recommend on the subject?

What's your opinion on Layer 2 technologies like ZK and Optimistic Rollups?

Very possible. In that case, joke is on me. :)

I'm perplexed. I don't think we're looking at the same content. Perhaps you haven't read the entire thread but just the first 6 tweets?

Thanks, that looks amazing. It's gonna take me a while to digest it though. :)

Does the article conclude that the correlation with the US going off the gold standard, and consequent change in monetary policy, is completely spurious?

And yet...

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com

Look up "social recovery wallets" (i.e. Argent).

Here's an article by Vitalik Buterin himself making a case for it: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html

Disingenuous. That's not the only argument that is being presented.

I'm having your same exact doubts. The quality of the conversation about cryptocurrencies here on HN is abysmal. Misinformation, or outdated information, is rampant.

Maybe that's the case for everything else that is discussed here, but I just don't have enough domain knowledge to be able to tell...

Of course, I've read everything, including the article by Nic Carter [1] (which I highly recommend) and all his related articles on the subject.

The comparison with gold mining is quite apt actually - one of the use cases for Bitcoin is to act as a store of value and hedge against inflation, precisely like gold.

[1] https://www.coindesk.com/the-last-word-on-bitcoins-energy-co...

The energy argument has been debunked over and over again.

I recommend you read this thread by Yassine Elmanjdra (analyst at ARK Invest): https://twitter.com/yassineARK/status/1360343382556483587?s=...

Is Amazon still just an online book store?

How about optimistic and ZK rollups?