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by incrudible 1859 days ago
> Miners do not decide or approve which set of consensus rules people decide to use, though they can, at a potentially quite significant loss, disrupt the functioning of the network somewhat.

Miners are users. If they don't mine the blocks, the system literally doesn't work. Suppose that a large majority of miners refuses to upgrade for some reason. One part of the users can upgrade and wait for new blocks for a long time, while the users that don't upgrade can actually use the system as if nothing happened. Who is going to throw in the towel first? Maybe it's the miners, maybe it's the ETH holders, you can't know.
1 comments
CryptoPunk 1858 days ago
No, other users can easily institute a new lower difficulty in the upgrade to counteract the drop in POW from the defection of miners.

The subservience of miners to users at large in the determination of the market leading fork is best exemplified in the scenario of users switching to a PoS chain. In this case the miners have no power to sabotage the upgraded chain.

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incrudible 1858 days ago
> No, other users can easily institute a new lower difficulty in the upgrade to counteract the drop in POW from the defection of miners.

Sure, you can alternatively anticipate that your fork will not get miner support and give it low difficulty, leaving it vulnerable to spam instead.

It doesn't change the fact that this fork now only has a tiny share of the hashrate, no better than some random altcoin. Why should it be considered the "real" chain? Because it has Vitalik Buterin's face on it? Maybe that works for Ethereum, but it wouldn't work for Bitcoin.

> The subservience of miners to users at large in the determination of the market leading fork is best exemplified in the scenario of users switching to a PoS chain.

...which hasn't happened yet. Of course, if your users don't care about hashrate or PoW, you can transition the software to anything. Maybe that's true for Ethereum. That doesn't make miners subservient. Either they're highly influential (PoW) or they're not part of the picture at all (PoS). There's no scenario in which you can force miners to adopt some change.

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CryptoPunk 1858 days ago
>>There's no scenario in which you can force miners to adopt some change.

Your point was that miners' cooperation is required to successfully upgrade:

>>One part of the users can upgrade and wait for new blocks for a long time, while the users that don't upgrade can actually use the system as if nothing happened

My point is that an upgrade can be implemented without any cooperation from miners. A change to PoS would be the exemplar of that.

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incrudible 1858 days ago
> Your point was that miners' cooperation is required to successfully upgrade

I didn't say that. My point is that miners will decide which chain gets the bigger hashrate and that chain is likely to be adopted as the "real" chain by users, if it's the vast majority of the miners. Furthermore, the prospect that there is no miner support would make users reluctant to upgrade in the first place.

> My point is that an upgrade can be implemented without any cooperation from miners. A change to PoS would be the exemplar of that.

What do you mean by "upgrade" then? Bitcoin was "upgraded" to Bitcoin Cash, an arguably better blockchain. Some people even consider it the "real" Bitcoin, but that's a minority opinion.

> A change to PoS would be the exemplar of that.

You can't use an event that hasn't happened yet as evidence to support your argument. Maybe there will be a flawless transition to PoS in Ethereum, due to influence of developers and the prospect of lower transaction fees. Maybe there will be ETH2 and ETH at the end, traded as distinct assets.

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exo762 1857 days ago
> I didn't say that. My point is that miners will decide which chain gets the bigger hashrate and that chain is likely to be adopted as the "real" chain by users, if it's the vast majority of the miners. Furthermore, the prospect that there is no miner support would make users reluctant to upgrade in the first place.

Miners follow money. Users "decide" about prices. Miners are subservient and largely irrelevant. "Don't talk to the staff".

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incrudible 1857 days ago
If miners are largely irrelevant, why is the technologically inferior blockchain called Bitcoin, the superior one called Bitcoin Cash? Why do people pay outrageous fees on the Bitcoin chain and why is a Bitcoin unit worth 20x more than Bitcoin Cash? Why does every proposal without miner majority support fail? Why is Bitcoin called the most secure blockchain?
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CryptoPunk 1857 days ago
>>My point is that miners will decide which chain gets the bigger hashrate and that chain is likely to be adopted as the "real" chain by users, if it's the vast majority of the miners.

If that were true, then an upgrade that switches to PoS, i.e. a hashrate of zero, couldn't succeed, and it's safe to Ethereum's upgrade will succeed.

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incrudible 1857 days ago
It is true for Bitcoin. People who buy into Ethereum are buying into a cult of personality, so it might not be true in that particular case. We will see.
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