Ethereum at the center of centralization debate as SEC lays claim
Ethereum’s transition to PoS was celebrated as a key upgrade. However, a month after the move, centralization concerns are mounting high. Ethereum went through a key network upgrade on Sept. 15, shifting from its proof-of-work (PoW) mining consensus to a proof-of-stake (PoS) one. The key upgrade is dubbed the Merge. The Merge was slated as a critical change for the Ethereum network that would make it more energy efficient, with later improvements to scalability and decentralization to come. A little over a month later, however, some industry observers fear the PoS transition has pushed....
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At the crux of the block-size limit debate in Bitcoin is an argument between scaling and securing the network. Although raising the block-size limit would allow more transactions to be processed in each block, it could also limit the ability for individuals in some parts of the world to run a full node or participate in the mining process. This problem would arise due to the increased costs of processing a greater number of transactions every 10 minutes as a full node. Blockstream co-founder and President Adam Back recently discussed the security vs. scalability debate on an episode of....
Two weeks ago Ethereum launched Frontier, the first live release of the network. And Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin joined the latest Epicenter Bitcoin podcast episode to discuss where the platform is headed next. But even as the discussion revolved around the much-awaited launch, it kept bouncing back to the developer's thoughts on big picture cryptocurrency questions, including governance (how to reach decisions about protocol changes) and scalability (how the protocol can support many transactions without compromising decentralization). The question of governance has been on people's....
It seems like the Bitcoin Center in New York City (just 100 feet from the NYSE) is getting into a number of different activities. From bitcoin classes, to hackathons, to in-person trading - the center is adding something else: debates. The Center has organized a debate on bitcoin, and named Andrew Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital and Jeffrey Tucker of Liberty.me as the two opponents. The purpose? "To discuss divergent, uniform views on Bitcoin". Schiff specializes in communications for media and clients at Euro Pacific Capital, and Tucker has written a number of books and contributes to the....
Not that anyone is asking, but Coin Center inserted itself into the debate at hand. Is the Post-Merge Ethereum a security now? Moving from Proof-Of-Work to Proof-Of-Stake without pausing the operation was quite a feat, but it came with a cost. Many things are completely different at this stage, and those new characteristics might put […]
For many, Bitmain’s recent announcement of the realization of a major data center in northwestern China served as a reminder of the level of mining centralization in Bitcoin. Although the Beijing-based company will not own the entire complex, and the whole facility will not necessarily be dedicated to bitcoin mining, in theory over half of all hash power securing the Bitcoin network could be concentrated in a single data center. For some, this is reason for concern. If bitcoin mining is dominated by one or even several data centers, these could represent a single point of failure —....