Ethereum developers proposed a 75% cut in block rewards. The move drew criticism from miners.
The EIP-2878 proposal, published by ConsenSys managing director John Lilic, aims to reduce ETH inflation and preserve purchasing power.
Block rewards in the Ethereum network have been reduced twice: from 5 to 3 ETH (-40%) and from 3 to 2 ETH (-33%). If the new proposal is implemented, it would drop to 0.5 ETH.
Product manager Tim Beiko believes that such a drastic change could threaten network security. In particular, he sees an elevated risk of 51% attacks.
CEO Bit Capital Group Jimmy Tommes noted that developers should not try to equate Ethereum’s inflation with Bitcoin’s metric, as the BTC network is much older and serves different purposes.
“It’s frustrating to be treated as a necessary evil, cutting payments to the minimum possible level so that we can continue to operate long enough to transition to version 2.0,” he said.
Another user believes that any reduction in block rewards will force GPU miners to leave the network. As a result, Ethereum would come under full ASIC control, he says.
As of the end of July, ETH miners’ revenues rose by 60% in a month as the cryptocurrency price rose 40%. The rise comes amid sharp increase in network fees.
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