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- EIP-3368 proposes to raise the block reward to 3 ETH with gradual decay every quarter for the next three years to 1 ETH – a workaround to the drastic EIP-1559 proposal.
- The new EIP hasn’t received much support, but it seems to have done enough to avoid the “show of force” by some miners on April 1.
For weeks now, Ethereum miners and developers have not seen eye to eye over the future of the blockchain network. The controversial Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 has pit the two groups on opposite sides. However, a new proposal by one prominent miner is seeking to find a middle ground between the two warring factions.
EIP-3368 was drafted by Michael Carter, one of the most influential Ethereum miners, popular for his YouTube channel, Bits Be Trippin. It proposes to raise the block reward from the current 2 Ether to 3 Ether and start a decay schedule for the next two years. This reward will decay with every block till it gets to 1 Ether after 4,724,000 blocks.
In a follow-up YouTube video, Carter told his 57,000 subscribers that his new proposal isn’t to enrich the miners. Rather, he’s wholly interested in ensuring the miners are incentivized enough to ensure the Ethereum network is secure.
“It’s a by-product of the security ecosystem – the economic incentive that upholds that network – and when you attack it, you’re reducing your security profile. It literally is upholding a network’s security profile through an incentive. So, when you change that incentive, it changes the security model. They are part and parcel of each other,” he stated.
Miners, developers and users divided on EIP-3368
Tim Beiko, one of the most influential Ethereum developers shared the EIP on Twitter. He, however, pointed out that the proposal has yet to be accepted by the Ethereum community. “It’s only been proposed and seems like the most tangible thing to come out of miner conversations in the past few weeks,” he observed.
Coming out of my twitter break to share this: miners’ “counter proposal” to 1559 is EIP-3368, which would raise the block reward to 3 ETH and lower 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
The proposal has received support from some factions in the industry, most notably the miners. It would raise their revenue from gas fees by 50%. Red Panda Mining, the miner who started the social media movement in which the miners pledged to revolt against EIP-1559, is among those in support. He revealed that he has backed down from the April 1 “show of force.”
As CNF reported, on this day, a majority of the miners had pledged to direct their hash power to Ethermine, a mining pool opposing the upgrade.
We have been heard. EIP-3368 has been proposed. Reward to 3 ETH but drops 0.25 every quarter till 1 ETH over 2 years. I am going to rescind from the show of force to @etherchain_org April 1st and so should all of you (unless you were already on ethermine)
— Red Panda Mining (@RedPandaMining) March 13, 2021
However, not everyone in the Ethereum community is behind EIP-3368. Some miners have pledged to continue with their planned revolt on April 1. They believe that the new proposal doesn’t do enough to protect their interests.
“What we need now is an alt coin to focus on building up to replace eth. For GPU mining… sooner than later,” one of them stated.
On Ethereum Magicians, a community platform for the second-largest cryptocurrency, the debate was just as heated. Some called out the miners who they feel are maximizing gains at the expense of the users.
“It reads like a subsidy of users to miners to delay impending change. Why? How are miners entitled to stability and ease of change? Why start from 3 ETH, why not start from 2 ETH instead, if the purpose is simply to ease change. […] You don’t socialize profits, then you don’t socialize losses,” one user observed.
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