Death of Etheruem mining - Predicitions

[Coinfarm ventures]

I will still stick to my Q4 2022 prediction. The ETH developers are the 'used auto salesmen of tech'. They have delivered late on their promises 90% of the time. The problem this summer is the difficulty bomb, not PoS.

[1714241252]

1714241252

[devil2man]

Do not have to trust the various experts in the sector and the various pseudo news, the tests are well advanced but not yet perfect in my opinion the actual transition to pos will not take place before 2023

[edgycorner]

Personally i will never again listen news or social media. i learnt it in 2018.

This time it's different. Source: Trust me bro  

I will still stick to my Q4 2022 prediction. The ETH developers are the 'used auto salesmen of tech'. They have delivered late on their promises 90% of the time. The problem this summer is the difficulty bomb, not PoS.

Difficulty bomb can be defused or delayed anytime(but before 15th June). It really isn't a problem.

Do not have to trust the various experts in the sector and the various pseudo news, the tests are well advanced but not yet perfect in my opinion the actual transition to pos will not take place before 2023

That's too much extrapolation through distrust.

ETH devs are slow, true. But it's due to their thorough nature. They don't want to release a blunder and crash the crypto sphere.
This merge needs bugless clients, else we will face incidents of slashing, halted chain and even quadratic leak(where majority of your eth will literally burn and you can do nothing about it).

My money is still on August.

[adaseb]

The way the difficulty bomb works is that the block times don’t reduce times until well into the difficulty bomb. So if by Aug they are aiming for the POS, then there is a chance they might just leave the difficulty bomb in there. The times will be slower but issuance will be reduced which is what the devs want.

If we are in some deep bear market then the 30 second block times won’t make a difference because blocks won’t be full and fees might be cheap anyways. It was like this a few years back before they released an update to change the difficulty bomb because we were getting 40 second block times.

Go on etherscan and look at the graphs for block times, you will see what I am talking about.

[Coinfarm ventures]

Go on etherscan and look at the graphs for block times, you will see what I am talking about.

I agree, it took 3 months for the difficulty bomb to start to hurt my mining profit back in 2017. The bomb started exploding in early May, but it wasn't until August that revenue noticeably declined.

To me, whether or not the devs defuse the bomb is like a 'groundhog day' for PoS. If they defuse it, PoS will come later. If they don't, PoS will happen this summer.

[edgycorner]

The way the difficulty bomb works is that the block times don’t reduce times until well into the difficulty bomb. So if by Aug they are aiming for the POS, then there is a chance they might just leave the difficulty bomb in there. The times will be slower but issuance will be reduced which is what the devs want.

If we are in some deep bear market then the 30 second block times won’t make a difference because blocks won’t be full and fees might be cheap anyways. It was like this a few years back before they released an update to change the difficulty bomb because we were getting 40 second block times.

Go on etherscan and look at the graphs for block times, you will see what I am talking about.

Nope.
Difficulty bomb is an exponential function, with 2 to the power of a 100,000 step function of block height(2^x; where x is the step function).

Right now the increasing difficulty is caused by mining(LHR unlock increased diff by like 5%), and thus it is mitigating any effect of the time bomb.

Once we reach a  block, which add another step to x. We will see a humongous increase in the difficulty.

It will be so much that any mining will be deemed useless. The chain will halt and all transactions will stop.

It's literally a bomb. It will explode within seconds, on a particular block height. Bomb will reach that height by 15th of june. By then we might notice an increase by 10 seconds, as we approach the date. The increase will be concentrated towards the end.

[cudapop]

Agenda of core dev meeting #138 (https://github.com/ethereum/pm/issues/518) had this difficulty bomb tracker listed: https://ethresear.ch/t/blocks-per-week-as-an-indicator-of-the-difficulty-bomb/12120/19

Their estimate was by mid-June block times would be around 15 secs (scroll down to the last post entry).

[Coinfarm ventures]

Agenda of core dev meeting #138 (https://github.com/ethereum/pm/issues/518) had this difficulty bomb tracker listed: https://ethresear.ch/t/blocks-per-week-as-an-indicator-of-the-difficulty-bomb/12120/19

Their estimate was by mid-June block times would be around 15 secs (scroll down to the last post entry).

Looks like the real pain will start in September, if ETH price stays constant or falls. This looks identical to the 2017 bomb explosion except with a 1 second faster block time.

[edgycorner]

Agenda of core dev ....

I followed that meeting, and included the gist of it in first reply of this thread.

We have another dev meeting today. Buckle up buckarooo

[cudapop]

I followed that meeting, and included the gist of it in first reply of this thread.

Yes, I read that, so I was surprised when you posted that you expected a +10 sec increase by June 15:

... Bomb will reach that height by 15th of june. By then we might notice an increase by 10 seconds, as we approach the date...

[adaseb]

The way the difficulty bomb works is that the block times don’t reduce times until well into the difficulty bomb. So if by Aug they are aiming for the POS, then there is a chance they might just leave the difficulty bomb in there. The times will be slower but issuance will be reduced which is what the devs want.

If we are in some deep bear market then the 30 second block times won’t make a difference because blocks won’t be full and fees might be cheap anyways. It was like this a few years back before they released an update to change the difficulty bomb because we were getting 40 second block times.

Go on etherscan and look at the graphs for block times, you will see what I am talking about.

Nope.
Difficulty bomb is an exponential function, with 2 to the power of a 100,000 step function of block height(2^x; where x is the step function).

Right now the increasing difficulty is caused by mining(LHR unlock increased diff by like 5%), and thus it is mitigating any effect of the time bomb.

Once we reach a  block, which add another step to x. We will see a humongous increase in the difficulty.

It will be so much that any mining will be deemed useless. The chain will halt and all transactions will stop.

It's literally a bomb. It will explode within seconds, on a particular block height. Bomb will reach that height by 15th of june. By then we might notice an increase by 10 seconds, as we approach the date. The increase will be concentrated towards the end.

So the difficulty bomb has been updated? So you are saying that as soon as June 15 it will immediately increase by 10 seconds?

Because before when the bomb hit you wouldn’t notice it until a few weeks and then as the month when on it started to get pretty much. And the devs just left it for some reason. So maybe now they will prevent it from happening but with the ETH devs you never know what really will happen.

[edgycorner]

Yes, I read that, so I was surprised when you posted that you expected a +10 sec increase by June 15:

According to my estimate, the difficulty will explode at block #15000000
Before reaching #15000000, there's going to be one more difficulty adjustment by the bomb equation at #14900000. Which won't be significant but will definitely delay per block time by at least 5 second or maybe even by 10 seconds. Unless the devs defuse or delay the bomb before #14900000, which can be done quite easily at anytime.

[edgycorner]

Vitalik cements my original prediction of a merge in August 
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining/comments/utqthe/vitalik_at_eth_shanghai_may_20_on_the_merge_if/

[ololajulo]

Vitalik cements my original prediction of a merge in August 
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining/comments/utqthe/vitalik_at_eth_shanghai_may_20_on_the_merge_if/

Vitalik upheld the launch this year but he is not sure of the predicted August. There are chances date might change if any problem comes up in the block. It actually not far from the previous estimated date of June 2022, more also the roadmap has been updated and published. I am not sure it might have much of impact on Ethereum, altcoin and overall market. Bear market has not been proven otherwise with such development however I think this could be the first in the next phase into the coming cycle

[cudapop]

More blocktime estimates have been posted at: https://ethresear.ch/t/blocks-per-week-as-an-indicator-of-the-difficulty-bomb/12120/22 (see last post/graph)

Jun 15 estimated block times: ~15 secs
July 15 estimated block times: ~18 secs
Aug 15 estimated block times: ~21 secs

Vitalik in a previous core dev call said they can tolerate 20-25 sec block times as they've done in the past.

So given the schedule for the upcoming Ropsten testnet merge on Jun 8, plus two weeks running on Ropsten, then a further two testnet merges running for two weeks each, followed by a couple of weeks to schedule mainnet merge, brings it to around mid-Aug.

If their estimates of 21 secs in mid-Aug is correct then they might not delay the bomb anymore (barring any issues during the upcoming testnet merges).

[edgycorner]

More blocktime estimates have been posted at: https://ethresear.ch/t/blocks-per-week-as-an-indicator-of-the-difficulty-bomb/12120/22 (see last post/graph)

Jun 15 estimated block times: ~15 secs
July 15 estimated block times: ~18 secs
Aug 15 estimated block times: ~21 secs

Vitalik in a previous core dev call said they can tolerate 20-25 sec block times as they've done in the past.

So given the schedule for the upcoming Ropsten testnet merge on Jun 8, plus two weeks running on Ropsten, then a further two testnet merges running for two weeks each, followed by a couple of weeks to schedule mainnet merge, brings it to around mid-Aug.

If their estimates of 21 secs in mid-Aug is correct then they might not delay the bomb anymore (barring any issues during the upcoming testnet merges).

I was expecting a more steep decline in block time.
They are indeed serious about pushing the merge before this coming fall.
As a result, the GPU market is already crashing. I sold my 2-year-old GPUs last week at MSRP, and now I can buy "new" AIB GPUs at a better price. Funny.

[FP91G]

More blocktime estimates have been posted at: https://ethresear.ch/t/blocks-per-week-as-an-indicator-of-the-difficulty-bomb/12120/22 (see last post/graph)

Jun 15 estimated block times: ~15 secs
July 15 estimated block times: ~18 secs
Aug 15 estimated block times: ~21 secs

Vitalik in a previous core dev call said they can tolerate 20-25 sec block times as they've done in the past.

So given the schedule for the upcoming Ropsten testnet merge on Jun 8, plus two weeks running on Ropsten, then a further two testnet merges running for two weeks each, followed by a couple of weeks to schedule mainnet merge, brings it to around mid-Aug.

If their estimates of 21 secs in mid-Aug is correct then they might not delay the bomb anymore (barring any issues during the upcoming testnet merges).

Anyway, more information about the end of mining will be in July. If there are problems during testing, then you will probably have to move the difficulty bomb. Developers will probably not allow more than 25 seconds for a block, but miners will soon notice a decrease in profit.

[cudapop]

Core dev call just wrapped up, devs sound like they are no longer ok with having 20+ sec block times by Aug.

No decision yet on pushing the bomb, but an EIP will be drafted to push the bomb by 400,000 blocks in order to ensure Aug block times in the 13 sec range. They will decide on that EIP in the next core dev call.

[Coinfarm ventures]

No decision yet on pushing the bomb, but an EIP will be drafted to push the bomb by 400,000 blocks

That's not much. Only 60 days, but it's better than nothing.

[edgycorner]

Core dev call just wrapped up, devs sound like they are no longer ok with having 20+ sec block times by Aug.

No decision yet on pushing the bomb, but an EIP will be drafted to push the bomb by 400,000 blocks in order to ensure Aug block times in the 13 sec range. They will decide on that EIP in the next core dev call.

Have they decided upon the block numbers already?
According to Tim's wrap https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1530281870608322560, it's going to be around a 3-month delay.
And this update will come with bellatrix hard fork, so at least one month from now.
1 month for update+3 month of delay = total 4 months of delay from today.

That's almost mid of September, my prediction of August no longer stands lol
It's probably going to be September. R.I.P to those who had money on August

Unless,,, it's really a 400,000 blockdelay(and thus 2 months and not 3). Making it August again !