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by mule1 1651 days ago
This is all at the sacrifice of decentralization zkrollups and zkporter (one roll up solution) will eventually be able to handle transactions at that clip while being decentralized. The energy consumption point is incorrect as moving to proof of stake Ethereum will be using a fraction of the energy it uses today, however at the cost of capital concentration in the hands of validators which I actually see as a negative for all of these proof of stake blockchains.

I think the scariest thing that people think of and I originally thought when I heard Ethereum will scale with "Layer 2's" is you are sending your money to a blockchain you do not have the keys to do not actually control the funds. The layer 2 scaling solutions will seamlessly interoperate with the current dapps that will be ported over looking seemless for users. You are essentially holding your capital in a contract you can call on at anytime and retrieve to the settlement layer (Ethereum layer 1).

These are the trade off imo and do not make either system better. I just prefer decentralization if I'm holding capital on a blockchain for an extended period of time.

1 comments

What makes you think Solana is Centralized? It runs over 2000 nodes. The number is currently is less than that of Ethereum node count, as the demand is less.

It also would be a fair comparison to compare what is existing today. So, please don't say that Ethereum 2.0 will be far more efficient. By that time Solana would have made great strides too. So, let's compare what is existing today. Ethereum 2.0 is being touted for several years and still not ready. We can compare Ethereum 2.0, when it's ready and there, but not now.

It has 1200 validators, compared to 260,000 on Ethereum, and it's basically impossible for anyone to run a node at home because it requires 300Mbps+ internet connection to run one.

The problem with this you can't yourself verify what is happening on the chain, you have to trust that the node operators are acting in good faith and not censoring transactions or forming cartels to manipulate history.

This is ok if you only have a small amount of money or are using it for games or something that doesn't really matter. But it'll never be able to run the global financial system or store things of large value.

The connection bandwidth, and to a lesser extent the computer hardware, push validators to run in data centers. The reliable fat bandwidth is a big requirement which drives centralization.

If most Solana validators run on AWS, then it is as centralized as the AWS datacenters. I think they have 50+ facilities now.