A new proposal to improve Ethereum (EIP) emerged when miners opposed proposed changes to the network’s fee market. While some see the proposal as a means of easing tension between the miners and developers of Ethereum, the EIP appears to have received little support from the community.
In recent weeks, tensions have increased over EIP-1559 – an upgrade slated to be incorporated in July that is designed to discipline Ethereum’s volatile fee market while significantly impacting miners’ revenues.
The new proposal, EIP-3368, advocates that block rewards be increased immediately to 3 ethers from 1559 in the two years following implementation and then reduced to 1 ether to cope with the impact of the transition from Ethereum to proof-of-stake on miners reduce.
On March 13, Ethereum developer Tim Beiko went on Twitter to share EIP-3368 and encouraged the Ethereum community to have a heated debate over the proposal. While Beiko emphasized that 3368 is “not yet accepted” or “planned for a fork”, the developer described the proposal as “the most tangible thing to come out of miners’ talks [regarding 1559] in recent weeks. “
Coming off my twitter break to share this: The miners’ “counter-proposal” to 1559 is EIP-3368 which would increase the block reward to 3 ETH and decrease it to 1 ETH over ~ 2 years. @BitsBeTrippin should present it at the next AllCoreDevs. @ EthMagicians thread: https://t.co/CLxc30AUPf
– Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) March 12, 2021
While many mining pools have long spoken out against EIP-1559, prominent miners threatened to organize a “show of force” in which the 1559 opponents would divert their hash power to a single pool for 51 hours.
In response to EIP-3368, Red Panda Mining, a social influencer and crypto miner who, among other things, pushed for a miners’ revolt, pledged its support for the proposal and announced that they will “step back from the show of force”:
We were heard. EIP-3368 has been suggested. Reward to 3 ETH, but decreases quarterly by 0.25 to 1 ETH over 2 years. I’ll be stepping back from the show of force at @etherchain_org on April 1st, and so should all of you (unless you’ve already been on Ethermine).
– Red Panda Mining (@RedPandaMining) March 13, 2021
While Red Panda and Beiko’s comments suggest that Ethereum’s miners and developers could work towards a compromise, discussions of EIP-3368 on the Ethereum Magicians forums suggest that the Ethereum community is still very divided is.
User “green” describes the proposal as “a subsidy from users to miners to delay upcoming changes” and adds:
“The personal business decisions of the miners are not the concern of the users of Ethereum. You don’t socialize gains, then you don’t socialize losses. “
Other forum visitors stressed the efforts of Ethereum’s core developers to accelerate the chain-amalgamation of the existing network with Eth2, referring to 3368 as merely delaying the inevitable. “DCInvestor” said, “Furthermore, adapting this shape will only delay the inevitable as we are rapidly approaching a merger of eth1 and eth2 where the rewards for PoW mining will be zero.”
“IMO, we should avoid actions that, given this reality, encourage further investment by miners in mining hardware,” they added.
There also appears to be resistance to EIP-3358 within the mining community. Numerous replies to Red Panda on Twitter suggest that many miners still want to use force.
