Ethereum’s London hard fork, also known as EIP 1559, took place on Aug. 5. The backwards-incompatible upgrade reignited community debate over hard forks, soft forks and the best methods – most foolproof, least polarizing – to bring about change to a network.
Join hosts Adam B. Levine, Jonathan Mohan and Andreas M. Antonopoulos as they explore the various ways in which consensus has been reached recently across the two largest protocols. The differences in technology and underlying philosophy means some solutions are more enticing to Ethereum and others to Bitcoin.
Ethereum maintains a so-called “difficulty bomb,” whose fuse is lengthened with every upgrade. If it ever goes off, miners would face exponentially harder work and proportionally diminished rewards, forcing them to switch from the pre-fork chain to the upgraded one. Bitcoin’s equivalent to the difficulty bomb, the User Activated Soft Fork (UASF), accomplishes the same thing by other means. Are these mechanisms the proverbial ‘Chekhov’s Gun,’ inevitably to be used in some later act, or simply empty threats to coerce miners into compliance?
Listen to this episode of “Speaking of Bitcoin” for an in-depth explainer of how wide-spread change occurs across decentralized networks and what changes might be in store for the future.
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This episode featured Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Jonathan Mohan. It was edited by Jonas, our theme song comes courtesy of Jared Rubens and todays music during the break was Sloth Beats by Gurty Beats. Today's album art features a photo by Anita Jankovic/Unsplash, modified by Speaking of Bitcoin.
Have any questions or comments? Send Adam an email at adam@speakingofbitcoin.show
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/originalltb/messageA Final Discussion
Update 6/19/2022
SOB #502 When the Referees Play Favorites (Part 1)
SOB #501 When More Is Less
SOB #500 Three Rules to Remember After Mailchimp Breach
SOB #503 The Check Engine Light and the Space Shuttle
SOB #499 New Lessons From the Island of Stone Bitcoins
SOB #498 Rights Versus Privileges in a Global Financial System
Quick SOB Update (More frequent episodes coming... now)
SOB #496 The Ups and Downs of Crypto Loans
SOB #497 A Brief Look at Bitcoin Maximalism
SOB # 495 First Practices Aren’t Best Practices
SOB #494 Bitcoin Security and a Rogue Power Plant
SOB #493 The Endowment Effect, HODLing and the Impossible Self-Appraisal
SOB #492 Can Stablecoins Survive?
SOB #491 The Jokes Wear Thin as Inflation Becomes Normal
SOB #490 Checking in on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network
SOB #489 Big Gaming Signals NFTS Are Closer to Mainstream
SOB #488 How Far We've Come (And How Much Stayed the Same)
SOB #487 If Facebook Can't Run A Global Currency, Who Could?
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