Ethereum Watch

In a meeting on Friday, August 31, to discuss the upcoming Constantinople hard fork, the core devs reached consensus regarding the issuance of Ether (ETH) block rewards. There were three primary choices: EIP 858 to reduce the reward to 1 ETH per block; EIP 1234 to reduce it to 2; and EIP 1295 to keep it at 3. The group decided to include EIP 1234 as part of Constantinople. Piper Merriam of the Trinity Ethereum client team indicated that this EIP was broadly supported as a conservative choice.

Afri Schoedon of Parity said on Reddit after the meeting: 

During meeting 45 last week, proponents of EIP 1234 supported the proposal for various reasons, including to better align the value of the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks and to address the overpayment of miners. Additionally, it was noted that this EIP would reduce the inflation rate, which would be a safe move if there happened to be another delay in Casper implementation.

Although a decision was made, the proposal remains in draft state. There will be slight changes before the EIP is finalized, though Hudson Jameson of the Ethereum Foundation said this should occur between today’s call and the next meeting.

Reddit users joined the discussion, commenting on the finality of the decision. One poster told others to “be aware that this is just a rough consensus between a few developers” and that the decision would not “be finalized until the Constantinople fork actually ends up being the new representation of ETH.” Another commenter echoed this sentiment, noting that “real consensus occurs” when the hard fork is implemented.

However, some expressed the opinion that the decision was “pretty much a done deal.”

The core devs also discussed ProgPoW, a proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm intended to even the playing field between ASIC and GPU mining rigs, though some of the meeting’s attendees expressed uncertainty regarding its viability. Merriam admitted he was not an expert on ProgPoW, but he was still not thrilled about using developer time to work on another PoW algorithm.

With EIP 1234 to be included, the Constantinople hard fork features various other proposals, such as EIPs 145, 1014, 1052, and 1283.

Daniel Putney is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He received his bachelor’s degree in English writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his free time, he writes poetry, plays the piano, and fangirls over fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs, and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.

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