EthereumPoW to Remove EIP1559 – Trustnodes

EthereumPoW, a proposed chain-split fork to keep the current ethereum Proof of Work chain once eth merges to Proof of Stake this September, is to remove EIP1559.

Known as the burning, EIP1559 stabilizes fees while addressing network spam from miners by burning some of the network fees. However, the EthereumPoW project says:

“EIP-1559 was an attempt to create a bullish narrative at the expense of the miners.” In further making their aims clear, the project promises the:

“Abolition of EIP-1559. In a truly open and inclusive system/society, there is no justification for punishing one group of participants in favor of another.”

The project further claims that miners should be given “political influence,” stating:

“As one of the most important pillars of any Proof-of-Work (PoW) network, miners naturally are a political force and should wield some political power and influence.”

The removal of EIP1559, which so far has burned close to 2.6 million eth worth $4.7 billion, will make ETHW even more inflationary than it would have been by having a far higher issuance of 13,000 eth a day, as opposed to eth on the Beacon Chain at about 2,000 eth a day.

The price of ETHW thus plunged on the Poloniex futures market when we whispered on these pages their plans to remove EIP1559 a couple of days ago.

It now being official may well mean it is priced in, but the removal of the burning is a clear sign that this project has no plan to be neutral and objective, more than a miners’ chain where they yield total ‘power’ and ‘influence.’

That’s because there was no consultation, discussion, or debate with current eth holders regarding the removal of this EIP.

If there was, we would expect the vast majority to be against such proposition as without the EIP, gaming the ethereum network to artificially increase fees would be far too easy and free for miners.

Trustnodes reported back in 2020 about miners spamming the network with 50 million transactions in total, continuing at a rate of thousands a day.

The EIP was proposed shortly after with the full and complete consensus of all ethereans, which is why no chain-split fork was proposed over the matter at the time.

Its removal now diverges from eth, with ETHW no longer able to say – objectively or impartially speaking – that it is just eth but with Proof of Work.

Instead, the removal of the burning makes this effectively a completely different chain that in some ways has no relation to eth whatever.

Keeping Issuance at 6x higher would have been bad enough, but understandable and with room to speculate survival might eventually have forced them to bring it in line with Beacon eth’s supply of 2,000.

This own goal in regards to the burning however may well be sufficient to kill the project before it’s even off the ground as it might not leave room for neutrality because it’s just not how you run a decentralized network.

The only way the Proof of Work chain can reasonably continue beyond a few weeks or a month, therefore, may be if somehow devs take control of this project and miners are sent back to the ‘farm’ instead of ‘policy’ decisions.

Because if they’re in charge, then it’s like putting kids in charge of the candy store. Sure, all candy free and only for children, no adults, but once the candy in store is consumed, there won’t be a store any more.

This fork may still allow us to see what part of the network can run on its own however, without any reliance on any third party that has sufficient control to break the dapp, but in its current state it is not quite a proper fork as this isn’t eth, just PoW; it is more miners running amok.

That courts a warning however as in about two decades when we look around and find we’ve become web2, it may well be this very moment that can be pointed as a moment when a collective decision was made against decentralization due to, arguably, an irrational fear of forks which translates to opting in favor of not giving the market – the public – a reasonable choice.

On the other hand there will be choice, just not on a single parameter. If some ethereum PoW project can’t deliver a proper fork, then bitcoin of course will be the real Proof of Work chain, and so competition can continue there.

Which may be enough to not move as fast as web2 towards corporatization, because at the end of the day it is no one’s fault these miners lack a bit of sense.