How to get 100% “for” with a 25% turnout. The power of mining pools in the history of Ethereum
As you know from the previous news , in order to prevent the person who “attacked” The DAO’s contract in the Ethereum network to use the “stolen” money, miners should decide by updating the client and indicating the corresponding flag: for / against money blocking. Counting of votes is carried out through the so-called “gas limit” of the block with the number 1800000, if it falls below 4000k - there will be a blockage. As can be seen from the graph, in less than 2 days of voting - a positive verdict is reached :
In essence, this means that 50% of the computing power of the entire network has already been transferred to an updated client, where the disputed funds will be blocked with the onset of the 1,800,000 block and only a few "trustees" will be able to use them in the future. At a minimum, funds will not be able to cash a person who, as some believe, got them dishonestly. A significant role in this outcome was played by large mining pools.
The role of mining pools in voting
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A brief technical excursion: as part of the blockchain technology, all transaction data is stored in blocks of transactions, which are recorded in the “chain” of the so-called “miners”. First, the miner accepts the list of transactions that users would like to write to the system, the contents of the block are fixed and to add the block to the chain, the miner's computer must perform some mathematical calculations, taking into account the information about the previous block, its new block and a certain random number called Nonce . The result of the calculation is the so-called hash (in fact, just a number), and for a successful chain entry, this hash must be lower than the system-defined value. If the hash is higher than this value - Nonce changes and the check goes again, if a successful hash is found - the block is recorded in the chain, and all new operations for all other miners should refer to this block just recorded as the last one. Each miner must go through millions of hashes before writing his block into a chain and get an award for it, while there is a chance not to receive a single successful hash for a very long time and, in fact, to use its computational power in an empty, without an award in the form of "coins Ethereum.
In order to be guaranteed reward for their calculations - the miner can join the so-called pool , which, due to the large total computing power, is more likely to get a “successful” hash and, accordingly, the reward. Payments to miners are made constantly, in proportion to his contribution to the computing power of the system, thus - miners receive a stable income, regardless of their "luck".
The desire to “reduce risks” leads to the fact that many pools are created and most of the computing power of the entire Ethereum network is concentrated in them, for example, the largest pool of Dwarfpool currently accounts for 27.4% of the entire network, followed by Ethpool / Ethermine from 19%. Full details of percentages can be found here .
Each pool independently decides what to do in the history of the fall of The DAO and the largest of them held an internal vote to make a decision, and as a result, Dwarfpool , Ethpool and Ethermine spoke in favor of the soft-fork , referring to the voting results, and translated their total computing power on the new version of the client with change support.
Let's take a look at the absolute figures: of the users of Dwarfpool , the largest pool, only users with 25% of all computing power expressed their opinions, 22% were in favor of soft-fork, this is about 6% of all computing power of the Ethereum network. Nevertheless, due to the extrapolation of their votes to the rest of the pool, all 27.4% of the capacities belonging to the pool ultimately support the implementation of the soft fork. The same order of numbers, in the region of 73-74% of those who did not vote, passively cast their votes in favor of the fork, we also have with Ethpool / Ethermine pools .
Thus, the presence of pools played a significant role in voting “for” soft-fork and helped to achieve the required number of votes in a very short period of time. The results are not final at the moment, and will come into force only with the recording of the block number 1800000, which will occur, approximately, on Thursday, but the probability of a change in the situation is extremely small.
In essence, this means that 50% of the computing power of the entire network has already been transferred to an updated client, where the disputed funds will be blocked with the onset of the 1,800,000 block and only a few "trustees" will be able to use them in the future. At a minimum, funds will not be able to cash a person who, as some believe, got them dishonestly. A significant role in this outcome was played by large mining pools.
The role of mining pools in voting
')
A brief technical excursion: as part of the blockchain technology, all transaction data is stored in blocks of transactions, which are recorded in the “chain” of the so-called “miners”. First, the miner accepts the list of transactions that users would like to write to the system, the contents of the block are fixed and to add the block to the chain, the miner's computer must perform some mathematical calculations, taking into account the information about the previous block, its new block and a certain random number called Nonce . The result of the calculation is the so-called hash (in fact, just a number), and for a successful chain entry, this hash must be lower than the system-defined value. If the hash is higher than this value - Nonce changes and the check goes again, if a successful hash is found - the block is recorded in the chain, and all new operations for all other miners should refer to this block just recorded as the last one. Each miner must go through millions of hashes before writing his block into a chain and get an award for it, while there is a chance not to receive a single successful hash for a very long time and, in fact, to use its computational power in an empty, without an award in the form of "coins Ethereum.
In order to be guaranteed reward for their calculations - the miner can join the so-called pool , which, due to the large total computing power, is more likely to get a “successful” hash and, accordingly, the reward. Payments to miners are made constantly, in proportion to his contribution to the computing power of the system, thus - miners receive a stable income, regardless of their "luck".
The desire to “reduce risks” leads to the fact that many pools are created and most of the computing power of the entire Ethereum network is concentrated in them, for example, the largest pool of Dwarfpool currently accounts for 27.4% of the entire network, followed by Ethpool / Ethermine from 19%. Full details of percentages can be found here .
Each pool independently decides what to do in the history of the fall of The DAO and the largest of them held an internal vote to make a decision, and as a result, Dwarfpool , Ethpool and Ethermine spoke in favor of the soft-fork , referring to the voting results, and translated their total computing power on the new version of the client with change support.
Let's take a look at the absolute figures: of the users of Dwarfpool , the largest pool, only users with 25% of all computing power expressed their opinions, 22% were in favor of soft-fork, this is about 6% of all computing power of the Ethereum network. Nevertheless, due to the extrapolation of their votes to the rest of the pool, all 27.4% of the capacities belonging to the pool ultimately support the implementation of the soft fork. The same order of numbers, in the region of 73-74% of those who did not vote, passively cast their votes in favor of the fork, we also have with Ethpool / Ethermine pools .
Thus, the presence of pools played a significant role in voting “for” soft-fork and helped to achieve the required number of votes in a very short period of time. The results are not final at the moment, and will come into force only with the recording of the block number 1800000, which will occur, approximately, on Thursday, but the probability of a change in the situation is extremely small.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/372421/
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