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    Home Unlabelled Ethereum What happened this week in Ethereum? Week in Ethereum News, Dec 15, 2019

    Ethereum What happened this week in Ethereum? Week in Ethereum News, Dec 15, 2019

    December 15, 2019

    Ethereum What happened this week in Ethereum? Week in Ethereum News, Dec 15, 2019

    What happened this week in Ethereum? Week in Ethereum News, Dec 15, 2019

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 10:56 AM PST

    Super-simplified explanation of the beacon chain (without sharding)

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 04:00 AM PST

    The basic idea — without sharding — is this (the emboldened words are explained below):

    Every 16 seconds, a randomly chosen proposer creates a block (containing all the transactions that have been published since the last block) and then a committee votes on whether to accept the block or whether to skip it (e.g. if it contains double spends). If the committee never receives a block, it also votes to skip it. If a block is skipped, everything that was in the block needs to be included in the next block. Proposers and committee members receive rewards for participating in block creation and voting.

    The proposer and the committee members are chosen from the set of active validators. In order to become a validator, you have to deposit 32 ETH into the staking contract. An active validator can stop being active, but then they have to wait 97 days to get their deposit (and their rewards) back.

    If someone in the committee votes to approve a block that the majority of the committee wants to skip, then that member of the committee is punished in the next block by having some of their deposit removed. The proposer is also punished if their block is skipped (no matter why it was skipped).

    Every time a group of validators wants to skip a block, there is a decision to be made on how to continue the chain of blocks: Either we continue to build the chain on top of the contentious block or we build the future chain on top of the block before that, thus really skipping the block. If validators start to build both possible chains, we have to decide which one is the real chain. This is done by looking at the number of votes from the committee; the chain with the most votes is considered to be the real chain.

    Below I explain the bold words in more detail. Feel free to skip any explanation if you already know the term.

    Transactions

    In the simplest case, a transaction is something like Alice sends Bob 1 ETH. In order to prove that Alice is allowed to make this transaction, she has to sign it with the private key that corresponds to address from where the ETH is taken. So, if Alice sends ETH from the address 0x376a978f98e to 0x097b07c0e07a, then she has to sign it with the private key for the address 0x376a978f98e. This is exactly how it works in basically any other crypto currency including Eth1. Alice then publishes the signed transaction and when it is included in a block on the blockchain, then that transaction is said to be final.

    Double spends

    To continue the example from the previous point: the problem is that Alice can sign multiple transactions. If she has 1 ETH, she can create a transaction that sends 1 ETH to Bob and one that sends 1 ETH to Carol. This is called double spend. To prevent this from happening, we need validators that check if transactions are allowed (is there enough ETH in the source address?) and then make the transactions final. Once the transaction is final, Alice cannot come and claim that she actually wanted to send the money to Dan; the money is now in Bob's account and Alice cannot get it out of there.

    To put it another way: the validators ensure that everyone can always agree on where the ETH is at any given time. If Alice sends out two conflicting transactions, the validators will usually finalize only the one that they received first (but they are free to choose the second).

    Proposers

    Any validator can potentially become a proposer. They are chosen randomly. A proposer gathers transactions that other people published and checks if they're valid.

    The randomness makes sure that a validator does not know when it is their turn to be a proposer. This is important because if they knew this, they could try to cause forks.

    Randomness

    Generating randomness on a blockchain is actually really tricky because you can do no secret computations on the blockchain: all participants in the blockchain need to know whether the computation was done correctly. The beacon chain solves this problem with a mechanism called RANDAO. In RANDAO, a group of participants is asked to each generate their own random number. Then each participant hashes the random number and publishes that hash on the blockchain. After some time, maybe 1000 blocks, the participants publish their unhashed random numbers. The random numbers are all added together to produce a new random number that none of the participants can control. The publication of the hashes is needed to make sure that the participants cannot influence the final random number by first looking at other people's random numbers and then strategically choosing their own number.

    Committee

    The committee has to vote on proposed blocks. In each vote they are staking their deposit: If they vote wrong, they can lose their deposit. If they vote right, they get a reward.

    You can understand this as the committee members betting on whether the block will be accepted. Their deposit is their betting stake.

    With sharding it becomes a bit more complicated. The blocks in the beacon chain don't contain actual transactions. They only contain summaries of what is going on in the shards.

    I hope everything I say is roughly right. Corrections welcome!

    submitted by /u/lehyde
    [link] [comments]

    MetaCartel Ventures Whitepaper (For profit investment DAO focused on DApps)

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 11:29 AM PST

    Reduction of the block reward in upcoming ice-age delay fork

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 03:33 PM PST

    As evidenced by multiple posts being voted up to the top, there is a strong will from this community to have a block reward reduction in Muir Glacier along with the delaying of the ice age.

    All delays to date have come with a reduction and there is no good reason why this status quo should be changed.

    As I pointed out in a previous post, we are currently overpaying for security.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/e4mhtj/comment/f9d811n

    Today we already pay a higher reward than bitcoin, and Bitcoin will have a block reward reduction in May, which will reduce their yearly inflation to 1.6%. If we do not reduce the ETH block reward we will be paying 4.6%.

    The fact that we are now at 2 ETH also shows this number was merely just a 'guess' as it is a round number not based on extensive optimization metrics or formulae. There is no reason why '2' ETH should have been assumed to be optimal then, or that it is now.

    It seems likely that a number between 1 and 2 is more efficient. Perhaps the optimal number is 1.72368421.

    The fact is, nobody has done up-to-date, extensive analysis on current economic situation, and there is no reason to state anything less than '2' is unsafe without sound reasoning and actual data. Leaving the reward at '2' is just as incorrect as setting it to any other number. A detailed analysis should be done to determine how low the reward can be safely set.

    I will be working on this in the coming days and will post my findings here, and i encourage others in the community to do the same.

    submitted by /u/Crypto_Economist42
    [link] [comments]

    Kyber Ecosystem Report #9: Read about how we surpassed USD 400 million in volume, our new DeFi integrations, and more!

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 05:55 AM PST

    Check out these showcase projects in the community forum: �� Enervator by Steve Huckle; �� Well Timed by Luis Schliesske & Hilmar X; �� Cypherbabies by Juliana Passos

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 03:13 PM PST

    Fidelity Digital Assets CEO: Institutional Support for Ethereum Could Arrive in 2020

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 08:19 AM PST

    ETH 2 Phase 0 delayed?

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 01:57 AM PST

    Justin Drake is asking for July 2020 launch instead of Q1 2020. Can someone confirm the delay is real?

    https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/1524

    submitted by /u/monero_rs
    [link] [comments]

    Zero Knowledge Protocol Study Guide

    Posted: 14 Dec 2019 10:43 PM PST

    I am interested in learning more about ZK-SNARKS, ZK-STARKS, ZK-ROLLUP and the protocol in general from a developer/research perspective.

    Are there any resources you can link below or give some topics I should look deeper into to gain a better understanding?

    submitted by /u/kronos322
    [link] [comments]

    Nike Get Patents to Issue Tokens in Eth Blockchain

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 01:43 AM PST

    Let's calculate the profitability of 51% attacking ETH

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 10:25 AM PST

    Reduce block reward in upcoming Muir Glacier fork.

    Posted: 14 Dec 2019 10:43 PM PST

    As evidenced by consistent upvotes directly to the top, there is a clear will by this community to have a block reward reduction in Muir Glacier along with the delaying of the ice age.

    All delays to date have come with a reduction and there is no reason why this shouldn't either.

    As I pointed out in a previous post, we are currently overpaying for security.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/e4mhtj/comment/f9d811n

    Today we already pay a higher reward than bitcoin, and Bitcoin will have a block reward reduction in May, which will reduce their yearly inflation to 1.6%. If we do not reduce the ETH block reward we will be paying 4.6%.

    The fact that we are now at 2 ETH also shows this number was merely just a 'guess' as it is a round number not based on extensive optimization metrics or forumlas. There is no reason why 2 ETH should have been assumed to be optimal then, or that it is now.

    It seems likely that a number between 1 and 2 is more efficient.

    Perhaps the optimal number is 1.72368421.

    Nobody has done extensive analysis and there is no reason to state anything less than '2' is unsafe without sound reasoning and actual data.

    Leaving the reward at '2' is just as incorrect as setting it to any other number.

    A detailed analysis should be done to determine how low the reward can be safely set.

    I will be working on this in the coming days and will post my findings here, and i encourage others in the community to do the same.

    submitted by /u/Crypto_Economist42
    [link] [comments]

    Any alternatives to Wyre (sendWyre.com) with better fees ?

    Posted: 15 Dec 2019 05:55 AM PST

    Do you have any alternatives to Wyre(www.sendwyre.com) ? They take care of KYC/AML stuff so you don't have to deal with any money transmission license.

    Their ACH fees are "okay" but card fees are like 2.9%+. So I was looking for similar service with a cheaper fees. Just curious.

    submitted by /u/Matiabi
    [link] [comments]

    Push back MIN_GENESIS_TIME #1524

    Posted: 14 Dec 2019 04:13 PM PST
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