The merge was a milestone for Ethereum. The second-largest blockchain managed to change its consensus mechanism during full operation and thus significantly reduce the energy consumption of its own network. This is good for the climate, but raised fears in advance that Ethereum would become significantly more centralized by switching to Proof of Stake (PoS). But how concerned do you really need to be? BTC-ECHO asked a developer from the Ethereum Foundation.
Marius van der Wijden has been a member of the Foundation since 2020. He dared his first field tests in 2017 with the programming of mining software. Van der Wijden was also involved in the development of the Merge. Much of the development time was spent on research, he says. Concrete solutions have only started to be implemented in the last year and a half.
BTC-ECHO: The merge is complete and has thus sealed the end of mining at Ethereum. Feel sorry for the miners?
Marius van der Wijden: Yes and no. I started writing mining software myself. On the day of the merge I looked at the old forums and got a little sad because it was a very nice community.
At the same time, the energy consumption was so extremely high and I’m glad that I don’t have anything to do with it anymore. In my eyes, everyone, even Bitcoin proponents, should have seen in the end that the move was “net positive”. You don’t need two major proof-of-work (PoW) based cryptocurrencies in my opinion. I would even say: You don’t need PoW cryptocurrency at all.
But to answer the question: It is a crying and a laughing eye.
BTC-ECHO: In the run-up to the merger, fears of a possible centralization of the network were omnipresent. How centralized is Ethereum after the update?
van der Wijden: We don’t know exactly yet. The problem is that large staking providers have emerged. Lido for example. But they don’t give me as big a headache as big exchanges that offer staking. I’m more concerned about that.
The same applies to companies that get into the matter. I think it’s good if you want to contribute to network stability as a validator. However, if you stake as a company yourself, I take a critical view of that because they have a financial advantage.
At least it’s not like proof-of-work systems anymore, where companies can just go to the retailer and buy graphics cards with a 30 percent discount. But of course, with more companies comes more centralization.
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BTC-ECHO: After the sanctioning of Tornado Cash, around half of the blocks on the Ethereum network appear to no longer be validated. Censorship resistance works differently, right?
van der Wijden: It’s not that the blocks are no longer validated, but that 50 percent of validators no longer execute sanctioned transactions on their blocks. However, they still accept other blocks that contain transactions from the Mixing Service.
For me personally, that’s a cause for concern. Especially since many of the big stakers accepted the ban very willingly. The focus here is on maximizing profits.
I’ve talked a lot about the sanctions in general. A majority of the people I spoke to think the sanctions are unenforceable anyway. There is currently a court case against the decision.
In principle, the network must not censor. It must be neutral and uncapturable.
BTC-ECHO: Thank you for the interview.
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