ETH Metropolis Hard Fork and the Difficulty Bomb/Block Reward Reduction

[Eyedol-X]

So it's been announced the Metropolis Hard fork coming in around 1 month (end of September) will include the difficulty bomb for ETH.

I've been super busy lately so I may have missed a thread or two on this subject.

Anyone care to speculate or have some info on how high the difficulty will go?

.. My current bet is we will see at least a 4x increase in difficulty.

Edit: Sounds like a Block Reward Reduction is coming first ahead of the bomb https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2116195.msg21163794#msg21163794

[fjriosp]

I think they will delay the Difficulty Bomb 2 years.

The Block time will decrease to 15s again and the ETH reward for find a block will decrease also from 5 to 3.

The difficulty will be reduced because of the Bomb delay, but with the Reward reduction we will receive (aprox) the same  ETH amount from mining.

[Eyedol-X]

I think they will delay the Difficulty Bomb 2 years.

The Block time will decrease to 15s again and the ETH reward for find a block will decrease also from 5 to 3.

The difficulty will be reduced because of the Bomb delay, but with the Reward reduction we will receive (aprox) the same  ETH amount from mining.

Are you saying you think they will delay the difficulty bomb as they have indicated to be included in the upcoming hard fork next month?

What makes you think that they will delay something they have now officially announced is coming?

[64dimensions]

One of the members in the other threads pointed to this reddit page which has lots of info:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining/comments/6t56a0/important_information_from_todays_ethereum_dev/

[Eyedol-X]

https://steemit.com/ethereum/@joshbreslauer/ethereum-metropolis-upgrade-in-late-september

In addition, the so-called Difficulty-Bomb is actually delayed and will be part of the 2nd Hardfork of Metropolis.
The Difficulty Bomb should cause an expanding difficulty in ethereum's mining.
It is an intermediate step for the gradual replacement from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.
This is the so called Ethereum "Ice Age".
But for the next Metropolis HF in September 2017 this should be delayed to the 2nd part and replaced by a simple Block Reward reducement from 5 to 3 ether per block.

So it sounds like this first phase is going to be the block reward reduction from 5 to 3

[Xapodat]

https://steemit.com/ethereum/@joshbreslauer/ethereum-metropolis-upgrade-in-late-september

In addition, the so-called Difficulty-Bomb is actually delayed and will be part of the 2nd Hardfork of Metropolis.
The Difficulty Bomb should cause an expanding difficulty in ethereum's mining.
It is an intermediate step for the gradual replacement from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.
This is the so called Ethereum "Ice Age".
But for the next Metropolis HF in September 2017 this should be delayed to the 2nd part and replaced by a simple Block Reward reducement from 5 to 3 ether per block.

So it sounds like this first phase is going to be the block reward reduction from 5 to 3

That is right. the effect is neutral.

[Vann]

You got it backwards. The ICE AGE effects have been in place since May of this year as preparation for the switch to the POS Casper release, initially planned for later this year. Recently it was announced the switch to POS is not ready to made for what looks like at least 12 months. There was some contention as to whether the ETH developers would delay the programmed difficulty rise and block time increases from the ICE AGE, now that the switch to POS has officially been delayed.

What was confirmed at the last two developer meetings, is the diffusement of the ICE AGE difficulty bomb and block time increases will not happen until they release the next planned fork, in late September or early October this year. At which point the difficulty will go back to being based on the network hash rate, the block times will go back to 15 seconds along with a reduction in the block reward to ~3 ETH at the same time the fork is implemented.

In the meantime the continued planned difficulty and block time increases from the ICE AGE implementation will go on as scheduled. The next being August 25 which is expected to increase the difficulty ~30% from where it is now and then another difficulty ramp up on September 24th. The block times will also go from the current 20 seconds to 25 seconds on August 25th and then to 32 seconds on September 24th.

All of which means starting tomorrow, mining ETH is not going to be very profitable until the next hard fork unless the price goes up substantially from where it is now.

https://etherchain.org/charts/difficultyBomb

[Eyedol-X]

You got it backwards. The ICE AGE effects have been in place since May of this year as preparation for the switch to the POS Casper release, initially planned for later this year. Recently it was announced the switch to POS is not ready to made for what looks like at least 12 months. There was some contention as to whether the ETH developers would delay the programmed difficulty rise and block time increases from the ICE AGE, now that the switch to POS has officially been delayed.

What was confirmed at the last two developer meetings, is the diffusement of the ICE AGE difficulty bomb and block time increases will not happen until they release the next planned fork, in late September or early October this year. At which point the difficulty will go back to being based on the network hash rate, the block times will go back to 15 seconds along with a reduction in the block reward to ~3 ETH at the same time the fork is implemented.

In the meantime the continued planned difficulty and block time increases from the ICE AGE implementation will go on as scheduled. The next being August 25 which is expected to increase the difficulty ~30% from where it is now and then another difficulty ramp up on September 24th. The block times will also go from the current 20 seconds to 25 seconds on August 25th and then to 32 seconds on September 24th.

All of which means starting tomorrow, mining ETH is not going to be very profitable until the next hard fork unless the price goes up substantially from where it is now.

https://etherchain.org/charts/difficultyBomb

Thanks for sharing this info and the chart -- this makes better sense of what I was trying to piece together.