Ethereum Core Devs Meeting 54 Agenda

[Souptacular]

Ethereum Core Devs Meeting 54 Agenda

• Meeting Date/Time: Friday 1 February 2019 at 14:00 UTC
• Meeting Duration 1.5 hours
• YouTube Live Stream Link
• Livepeer Stream Link

Agenda

1. Roadmap
   a) Constantinople - Ropsten fork?
   b) Istanbul Hardfork Roadmap
   c) Outlook: PoS finality gadget on PoW chain (Serenity)
   d) ProgPoW audit?
2. Working Group Updates
   a) Ethereum 1.x Stanford Meetings Overview
   b) State Rent
   c) EWasm
   d) Pruning/Sync
   e) Simulation
3. Testing Updates (time allowing)
4. Client Updates (time allowing)
   a) Geth
   b) Parity Ethereum
   c) Aleth/eth
   d) Trinity/PyEVM
   e) EthereumJS
   f) EthereumJ/Harmony
   g) Pantheon
   h) Turbo Geth
   i) Nimbus
   j) Mana/Exthereum
5. Research Updates (time allowing)

[lrettig]

For the record, this is my recollection of how we arrived at 7.28M, feel free to tweak if I've gotten anything wrong:

1. @vbuterin suggested six weeks, which he said would put us around block 7.25-7.3M.
2. A couple of folks including myself asked if we could do it sooner, but the consensus was that we wanted a bit more time for updating tests, maybe rolling out on a new testnet, etc.
3. @5chdn proposed Feb. 27, which falls on a Wednesday, and also happens to be during a quiet week between ETHDenver and EthCC.
4. I used a simulation script to look at predicted block times and numbers, with the latest block height, difficulty, and timestamp. All of the details were shared to AllCoreDevs, starting here.
5. I did sensitivity analysis on network hashpower and current average blocktime. Based on this analysis I expect block 7.28M to occur between 00:00 and 09:00 UTC on 2019-02-27, the target date,

@naikmyeong we agreed that it makes sense to target upgrades to occur mid-week so it's more likely developers will be online and so that people aren't forced to work weekends.

[5chdn]

1. March 1 is a Friday
2. Epoch does not matter
3. It's decided already

[RSAManagement]

I made this reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/aiy5ns/uncle_rates_more_node_efficiency_or_less/
and this spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SZn6_MuOciDI_B20KqqeHtpK9yAhHIgGdpVH-SDLRnU/edit?usp=sharing

because I'm seriously worried and scared about how uncle rates are going down.
Uncle rates are going down linearly since mid 2018, so it is hard to say that is because of more efficient nodes, one of the most important bug in this area was fixed just recently ( parity client, #9954) .

So i think that the problem is more and more centralization on the ethereum blockchain for two reason:

1. falling price in fiat currency (less minig reward in fiat currency)
2. asics mining

The first issue is something that could be adjusted by economic incentives (disincentives) given enough time BUT if we are experiencing ( and I think so) a massive switch on asics mining every single day with ethash is very dangerus for the future of the entire project as a truly decentralized blockchain.

In my opinion the ProgPow (or other asic resistant algos) implementation actually is the most important issue by far, even far more the important CostantiNOPEles saga. Please take it in consideration.

[5chdn]

Could you elaborate how you connect uncle rates with ASICs?

[RSAManagement]

@5chdn sure, I know in deep a medium sized mining farm with a good ( i think) efficiency and actually they are in the position to quit ether mining or swich to asics, .
I think that the actual reward/difficulty ratio for GPU mining is telling that there are more and more players that are mining with "better" hardware than GPU only and thatthis GPU unconfortable enviorment started with asics arrival on the market, not only because the price drop.
I'm sorry because I can't produce in deep analysis with numbers and clearly the actual low ether mining reward for GPU miniers could be just temporary.
In my experience Asics are the foundation of big centralized mininig farms, expecialy if there is one or two producers/miners/stakeholders, bitcoin is an example of what I mean.

Big miners are more efficient, they use professional or custom services for transactions and new blocks propagation, I suppose that how the actual uncle rate is dropping is directly related with more centralizzation over big mining farms that are using asics mining.

[5chdn]

Big miners are more efficient

But we would see their hashrate somewhere, and I don't see any significant portion that could be a new ASIC mining farm here:

• https://etherscan.io/stat/miner?range=7&blocktype=blocks
• https://etherscan.io/stat/miner?range=7&blocktype=uncles

If these farms use some of the existing pools, I don't see how this should impact uncle rates.

The five biggest unknown miners from that chart that could be indeed mining farms, accounting for 4.1371% of the network hashrate. This does not allow the conclusion that they are the main driver behind reduced uncle rates.

[RSAManagement]

The five biggest unknown miners from that chart that could be indeed mining farms, accounting for 4.1371% of the network hashrate. This does not allow the conclusion that they are the main driver behind reduced uncle rates.

Good point, so we can speculate that the linear uncle rate reduction is because of:

1. better blocks and transaction propagation because of better propagation services used by mining pools.
2. better blocks and transaction propagation, and faster DB handling because of better nodes topology.
3. less medium sized or little GPU miners

I don't know how many asics farms are connected with pools so I can't give any opinion on it, but in my experience point 3 remain an issue. Anyway I would be really glad to be wrong.

[bmann]

I'm not sure when / where to put this on the agenda, so please let me know if there is a better spot for this,

I worked to support @AlexeyAkhunov in putting together a post-Stanford EthRoadmap AMA on Feb 6th. See https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/eth-roadmap-ama-webinar-feb-6th-8am-pst-1700-utc-1/2518 for details. Consider this a call for participation, I think @AlexeyAkhunov is talking to some of you about presenting.

Given the shifting schedules of Constantinople / Istanbul, is it useful to plan ahead for the rest of the year and start making plans for any in-person meetings? I have suggested an in-person meeting the day after ETHCC in Paris here https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/eth1x-istanbul-prep-meeting/2396

I realize that's only ~6 weeks from now, so tight timing that may not be worth it. If people want to plan further ahead, I'd be happy to help support the process.

[atlanticcrypto]

I'd like to directly refute RSAManagement's claims here.

The uncle rate has been dropping substantially due to pre-fork adoption of new Parity/Geth client versions across the network. It was a blanket rollout of the better block propagation technology over a short window of time. It is not driven by some special "better propagation services used by mining pools" - the competitive technology advantages you believe exist at the large miner level are big foot sightings. You would be embarrassed at the way many of these firms/facilities operate.

I'm not sure how lowered uncle rates is a scary thing - it theoretically increases total network throughput via lowered block times and higher miner reward per block.

[salanki]

I second @atlanticcrypto's experience. I attribute lower uncle rates to better client code and less gas per block than during the peak a year ago.

[AndreaLanfranchi]

I'm quite surprised next agenda does not include any discussion about possible PoW algo change.
My personal feeling is that a considerable audience of individual miners is awaiting for a clear statement whether this path will or won't be considered as a future implementation: the no-committal attitude experienced until now is, imho, damaging the image of ethereum.
Any statement (for or against) must be quickly achieved: any decision is better than this hanging around.
My two cents.

[Daft-Wullie]

I second the opinion expressed by @AndreaLanfranchi in the post above.
I personally like ProgPOW but at this point i feel like what most hobbyist miners like me who do it mostly to support the network want more than anything is clarity on this issue. Even if ProgPOW is deemed non viable it should be evaluated in the near future.

[AndreaLanfranchi]

Apparently there is a deliberate intention no to face the matter.
Originally ProgPoW topic was in agenda and then silently removed.