Popular science: The brutal truth that ETH pledgers need to face

Editor's Note: This article comes fromEthereum enthusiasts (ID: ethfans)Editor's Note: This article comes from

Ethereum enthusiasts (ID: ethfans)

Ethereum enthusiasts (ID: ethfans)

, Author: Adrian Sutton, translation & proofreading: Min Min & A Jian, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.

Editor's note: The content of this article is, in a sense, a cliché. The author of Ethereum every week also made a comment when collecting this article, "those truths didn't seem that hard to me", which means, "I don't think there is anything difficult to accept anyway". In fact, the risks associated with validator operations are not difficult to accept, but the long-term uncertainty is difficult to accept.

If you plan to pledge ETH on the beacon chain, you must first understand the whole picture of this matter. Many articles are written about how simple, cool, sensible, and decent it is to be a staker. Here I want to emphasize the cruel truth that you need to accept before entering the pit...

Since most people understand this part, I will briefly go over it without explaining it in detail.

punish

Withdrawal is not open yet

punish

confiscated

Rewards on the beacon chain are not automatic - you need to run a node and (make it) perform certain duties. If the node you are running fails, not only will you not be rewarded, but you will also be punished.

If many verifiers fail to perform their duties well during the same period of time, resulting in the failure of the beacon chain to finalize blocks, the penalty will be increased.

confiscated

If you sign two blocks/checkpoints that compete with each other (showing that you contradict yourself), you get slashed. Slashing is more severe than punishment, and will result in your validator node being kicked out of the validator team, making it impossible to earn more rewards (and unable to withdraw). The size of the slash depends on the number of validators slashed in the same time period (it can vary from 0.5 ETH to 32 ETH).

(Translator's Note: The penalty is mainly for the behavior of the verifier being offline; the penalty is mainly for the verifier to initiate some behaviors that are harmful to the consensus. Since the verifier's behavior is automated through the client software, these two types of failures can It comes down to poor network/wrong redundancy choice/client software bug/cyber attack. Overall, though, the penalties are much less severe than fines.)

The reward will automatically decrease as the number of validators increases

As the number of validators increases, the reward automatically decreases. So, you might earn 0.00004 ETH for generating a correct attestation last week, only 0.00003 ETH this week, and even less next week.

Therefore, you need to accept the following main principles:

main principles

Securing Ethereum at the lowest possible cost

The purpose of Ethereum is to protect the security of the blockchain at the lowest possible cost. This is true whether it is the mining mechanism of Ethereum 1.0 or the validator mechanism of Ethereum 2.0. This is why the reward automatically decreases as the number of validators increases. Ethereum does not need to provide much incentive, because only a certain number of validators is enough to protect its security.

If people think that the security of Ethereum is still too high in the future, the algorithm can be modified to further reduce the reward. Therefore, there is no guarantee of how much reward a validator can get.

In fact, proposals to lower the reward have already been submitted. Lowering the rewards for the first upgrade in the future has been considered, but ultimately deemed unnecessary. Specifically, the proposal proposes that there should be an upper limit on the number of active validators at any one time period, and the rest of the validators will go dormant (so they cannot receive any rewards), and the dormant validators will be randomly selected, and so on. go down. This is not considered necessary because even if the number of validators continues to increase at the maximum rate, the cap will not be reached for at least another year. However, this proposal is also possible because it would significantly reduce the load on nodes.

Ethereum puts itself first

Whenever there is a trade-off between individual or group interests and the security and reliability of Ethereum, the Ethereum protocol and its developers have always put the Ethereum blockchain first. After all, if something goes wrong on the Ethereum blockchain, no one benefits from it.

For example, in the Beacon Chain, there is a long wait before the deposit becomes valid - the Ethereum blockchain wants to ensure that the set of validators does not grow so fast that it poses a security risk. For stakers, waiting more than two weeks to become a validator is indeed pitiful.

Note that Ethereum does not intentionally make things difficult for users. If the Ethereum blockchain works well no matter what, the Ethereum protocol will take care of all participants as much as possible. It's also about securing Ethereum at the lowest possible cost, and if we improve the staking experience (while not compromising security), people may be willing to accept lower rewards.

The purpose of Ethereum is not to make stakers rich

This is really just an extension of the two points above, but it's worth further clarification. While staking is fun, it's really just a means to implement security on the Ethereum blockchain. You may not have noticed this, because the only function of the beacon chain at present is staking, but this is only temporary. Eventually, Ethereum 1.0 will merge with Ethereum 2.0, and the purpose of all pledges is to ensure the security of contracts and transactions on the chain.

Remember, stakers are service providers in the Ethereum network who are rewarded for providing services.

changes don't stop

good news

Ethereum is a blockchain that is constantly changing and upgrading. With the introduction of Ethereum 2.0 technology, Ethereum will usher in a series of major changes, but it will never stop there. After all, there are always new ideas popping up and new problems to solve.

These changes are huge for Ethereum as a whole, but may not be the same for specific individuals or groups. That said, stakers may need to commit more resources (for example, stakers need to run a full Ethereum 1.0 node in order to achieve a merger), and other factors such as the rewards they can receive will also be affected. This moment, that moment also.