Ethereum Core Devs Meeting 45 Agenda
lrettig opened this issue ยท 143 comments
Ethereum Core Devs Meeting 45 Agenda
Meeting Date/Time: Friday 24 August 2018 at 14:00 UTC
Meeting Duration 1.5 hours
YouTube Live Stream Link
Livepeer Stream Link
Constantinople Progress
Agenda
- Testing
- Client Updates
- Research Updates
- Constantinople
a. EIP 1014 Issues
b. EIP 1218: Simpler blockhash refactoring. Looks like we are dropping this one unless someone speaks up, like, immediately.
c. EIP 1283: 1283 is moving forward per discussions on the previous call and the core devs chat room. - Three competing EIPs to delay the difficulty bomb and reduce/maintain the block reward:
a. EIP-858 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 1 ETH per block.
b. EIP-1234 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 2 ETH.
c. EIP-1295 - Delay bomb, keep rewards to 3 ETH, change other factors such as POW incentive structure.
There is renewed interest from miners to implement ProgPoW.
Different articles/links regarding potential issuance reduction conversation:
- A Case for Ethereum Block Reward Reduction to 2 ETH in Constantinople (EIP-1234)
- Reddit discussion of the above article
- Coinvote (79 participants): What should be done regarding proof-of-work issuance until Casper is ready?
- FEM Forum: EIP-1234 vs EIP-1227: Constantinople Difficulty Bomb & Block reward
- Bitfly Twitter Post on Miner Opinion
- FEM Forum: Final Request From the GPU Mining Community
- EIP 1295 Presentation
- Ethereumโs Economic Breakpoint: An Analysis
Can we please talk about forking these ASICs again? EIP 958
This was posted in the Magicians Forum and seemed pertinent.
https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/final-request-from-the-gpu-mining-community/1050/4
It also talks about adding EIP 958 to the discussion around the difficulty bomb.
@lrettig when discussing miner sentiment (especially if some miners are able to join the call) I would love it for Miner Hashrate Signaling to be included in the discussion.
Specifically:
- What if any changes to the protocol need to be made to allow this to happen?
- Is this a candidate for an EIP?
- Could the changes required be made at the client level alone?
- Would miners like to see this implemented?
- How would miners like to see this implemented?
I would like to participate this call and "champion" EIP-1218 which would indeed be very useful for trustless light client syncing. Actually I would like to propose a slightly extended version of it where the same contract would also store the total difficulty. I will write a short doc about the reasons why I think this should be included too.
I'll be around to champion 1234 this week. I was sick during the last meeting, sorry.
Just some thoughts that I will raise before the call:
858: this does not address the difficulty bomb at all. Unless someone champions to discuss this, we should drop it in this discussion. I just brought it up recently because I'm pedantic and this indirectly conflicts 1234 but should not be the focus part of this debate.it does now.- 1227: I have not seen a single voice (apart from the author) that wants to increase the block reward, so it's safe to say we go with either status quo or reduce it (1234). Can provide some references at the call.
Also, now that hybrid Casper is off the table, we should discuss 958 again (ASIC resistance), there is a strong community sentiment in favour of having this dealt with. Edit: Just noticed, 958 is not an actual EIP. Not sure how to discuss this properly then.
the three EIPs related to issuance are worthless unless they include an ASIC forking algo change of some sort. The majority of ether is being mined by large asic farms and bitmain in particular, when pos launches they will hold the majority of mined ether. For the good of the protocol they should be forked off if you intend to reduce issuance in a meaningful way
@5chdn, 858 shouldn't be discussed because it's justification is not necessarily tied to the delay of the difficulty bomb? That seems strange when it's received community support through numerous discussions as well as a coinvote. EIP 858 could be edited to include a difficulty bomb delay or a separate EIP could be authored. Without a bomb delay the network would halt. Nobody is arguing for that.
@lrettig Please include EIP-1295 in this discussion (https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/blob/master/EIPS/eip-1295.md)
Small fix for EIP-1014: ethereum/EIPs#1247.
Since it will hopefully make the relevant discussions easier I've made modifications (pending pull request) to EIP 858 to include delaying the difficulty bomb.
A small update on EIP-1283: Based on work by @chfast (ethereum/tests#483), I added 17 test cases to the spec, with the two additional ones testing a slot being reset and then set again (https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/blob/master/EIPS/eip-1283.md#test-cases).
Presentation on EIP-1295 can be found here:
@sorpaas can you add the two additional test cases to ethereum/tests#483 ?
Can we drop EIP-1227- Delay bomb and increase block reward to 5 ETH? It looks like a joke...
Edit: let me make myself clear:
Looking at the current price situation, if inflation i.e miners rewards remain the same or even worse increase, then thatโs straight to double digits and then forget the network security, investors and minersโ profits. Itโll all go down in flame. Even Joe Lubin, super bullish on everything Ethereum fears about price going to unsustainable levels.
If rewards reduction means a change in the algo to limit asics then fine. Anyhow mining will end when POS is launched but what is of the utmost importance is what happens in the meantime. Do we let it all go down the toilets because we canโt make a common sense decision or do we act like rational people and let the journey continue. Iโm working an a dapp to be supported on Ethereum and would love nothing more than to be able to continue my journey as well...
Hereโs what we can expect from miners in opposition to the block reward reduction EIPs, along with thoughts on each one.
But Iโm going to have to shut off my operations!
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Mining is a commoditized, highly competitive business. Without continuous price growth, mining costs will trend up towards mining revenue in the long term. Therefore, no matter if the inflation is 7% or 50%, some miners will always be at risk of becoming unprofitable when inflation decreases. We are not in a unique situation here.
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If miners shut off their operations, it will be the least efficient miners shutting off first. This lowers difficulty and increases profitability for remaining miners until we reach an equilibrium. It's perfectly normal for the least-efficient miners to reach a point where they must upgrade their hardware/operational efficiency or risk becoming unprofitable. This is normal.
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Based on historical data, reduction in block reward has a very small effect on hashrate. (source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DlTEyKBV4AERGtB.jpg:large). If a miner does need to shut down because of a reduction in block reward with Constantinople, that means they were probably in the bottom few percent of miners by efficiency.
This is catching us completely by surprise!
The difficulty bomb is hard-coded into the protocol, which would have gradually decreased mining revenues in the status quo. Last year, the difficulty bomb delay was coupled with a corresponding reduction in per-block-reward. A reduction in block reward with Constantinople is not unexpected news.
Ethereum hashrate will plummet, causing the network to be vulnerable to attacks!
Based on historical data, reduction in block reward has a very small effect on hashrate. (source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DlTEyKBV4AERGtB.jpg:large). Hashrate is currently well over 3x what is was at this time last year.
Bitmain will control the network if we decrease inflation, because ASICS
Thereโs no evidence of this. The Antminer E3 is marginally more efficient than the 1080 Ti in terms of hashes per unit electricity. Also, Bitmain has little to no ETH on their balance sheet according to their IPO docs. Yes, the new (not yet shipped/verified) Innosilicon A10 may be more efficient per hash than the 1080 ti but is also well over $5000 USD. And the NVIDIA 2080 Ti is also coming in September. Overall, this is not yet a major threat to the network and shouldnโt preclude a reward reduction at this time. There will always be competing hardware, and some people will always have access to better hardware than others. Though I do agree that it may be worth adding additional ASIC resistance into the protocol (but Iโm not too informed on the tradeoffs to consider in that decision)
Based on historical data, reduction in block reward has a very small effect on hashrate. (source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DlTEyKBV4AERGtB.jpg:large). If a miner does need to shut down because of a reduction in block reward with Constantinople, that means they were probably in the bottom few percent of miners by efficiency.
Ethereum hashrate will plummet, causing the network to be vulnerable to attacks!
Based on historical data, reduction in block reward has a very small effect on hashrate. (source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DlTEyKBV4AERGtB.jpg:large). Hashrate is currently well over 3x what is was at this time last year.
You cannot use a scenario with a coincident price surge as supporting evidence. What would have happened if price had dropped? What would have happened if price had stayed the same?
If your only historical reference is an upward sloping trajectory - it's not usable for scenario analysis.
You cannot use a scenario with a coincident price surge as supporting evidence. What would have happened if price had dropped? What would have happened if price had stayed the same?
If your only historical reference is an upward sloping trajectory - it's not usable for scenario analysis.
Look at the dates from 5/9 to now. Block rewards have dropped and hashrate has continued increasing. There's no period in history where a block reward has ever caused a massive decrease in hashrate. None. In all cases the hashrate reduction has been small and temporary. Would love to see data supporting otherwise.
It just doesn't make sense to say that block reward reduction from $17.5M/day to $10M/day coincides with a +5% increase in hashrate but another drop to $6.6M/day (what it would be at 2 ETH/block assuming no price change) would cause a massive, network-threatening drop in hashrate. Its just conjecture.
Block rewards haven't dropped - total issuance has dropped due to a reduction in Uncle rates - partially driven by a reduction in network throughput. Reduce the headline Block Reward and I almost guarantee you those Uncle rates are going to skyrocket.
What are the medium term purchasing power implications of ETH if hashrate takes a large step down and ASICs become a larger portion of the network composition (which is a result of reducing the Block Reward directly)?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QSRTTPqmga3OOniGpQLtMqEahAHxESxMlfWN9v1AI2E/edit?usp=sharing
This shows mining margins net of electricity cost on a daily basis for a GPU and ASIC miner at current network hashrate and price.
As the headline Block Reward is reduced, the network ratio of ASIC to GPU will increase, both instantaneously as GPUs are priced out, as well as over time as the ASIC is significantly more economic in a low price environment. You can see from the waterfall sheet that high electricity price GPU miners (typically hobbyists, the truly decentralized) will be quickly priced out.
As is widely accepted, as ASICs become a larger portion of network composition, the network will theoretically become more centralized.
No one truly belives bitmain is not hashing away in secret with thousands of thier E3 miners right? look at what happened with monero, they denied that they had secret mining farms but once monero announced thier fork Bitmain and other asic companies suddenly had cryptonite asics for sale.
And bitmain is not alone , there are lots of asic companies that do not sell gear to the public as well.
Again reducing issuance without a corresponding algo change to at the very least find out the REAL gpu and decentralized etherum hash rate is a half ass solution.
Ethier do both or leave it alone
Hey all!
Tomorrow is the meeting and one of the agenda topics is potential issuance reduction. I have invited a number of guest participants to explain their opinion.
This includes:
- a large mining pool.
- a statement from the largest mining pool (pasted below).
- a few smaller miners.
- 2 Redditors in favor of an issuance reduction.
This is in addition to the normal participants and core developers.
I sent an e-mail to these participants and will re-post it here for the sake of transparency:
Thank you for participating in the All Core Devs call tomorrow to discuss issuance reduction. It means a lot to get different perspectives from different stakeholders in the ecosystem.
The meeting starts at 10AM US Eastern Time, 14:00 UTC (https://savvytime.com/converter/gmt-to-germany-berlin-united-kingdom-london-ny-new-york-city-ca-san-francisco-china-shanghai-japan-tokyo/2pm).
The agenda for the meeting is located here: #54
Here is how I imagine things going down:
- We discuss agenda items 1-4.
- Agenda item 5 is issuance reduction. I will have each participant involved in the discussion quickly introduce themselves and which EIP they support (if any). Please keep your intro to under 30 seconds.
- We will first discuss if there should be a reduction in issuance at all.
- We will use rough consensus to determine if there should be a reduction. If so we will discuss how much of a reduction.
Here is where I think things stand right now. Miners seem to care more about implementing a new PoW algorithm in order to disable ASICs from mining on the network. There may be able to be a sort of compromise between issuance reduction and implementation of a new PoW algortihm such as ProgPoW (https://github.com/ifdefelse/ProgPOW#progpow---a-programmatic-proof-of-work). The timing of such a change is still up in the air, but as it stands getting it into Constantinople seems unlikely due to our timeline to prevent block times from increasing drastically. All of the above is speculation, but something to keep in mind.
Here is the statement from Ethermine mining pool:
We have reached out to our miners and from their response it is clear that the most important point for them is to include a PoW change to obsolescence ASICS. Regarding the block reward, their opinion is somewhat ambivalent, some prefer an increase (obviously), some argue for it to remain the same and a small fraction wants it to be reduced. Regarding the difficulty bomb most of the argue for a delay and no complete removal. This is also the position Ethermine will take as a proxy for our miners.
Aion is an Erc20 token and they have forked to a unique specification of Equihash , although i would prefer the Devs to pursue Cryptonite variant 2 , since Ethereum has been traditionally an Amd heavy algorithm similar to monero.
cn v 2 also will use far leas power thab the existing dagger algorithm and also provide much better resistance to fpgas as well.
No one truly belives bitmain is not hashing away in secret with thousands of thier E3 miners right? look at what happened with monero, they denied that they had secret mining farms but once monero announced thier fork Bitmain and other asic companies suddenly had cryptonite asics for sale.
This is a conspiracy theory that has been proven false. Bitmain released its IPO investor docs last week. Their share of revenue from mining operations is small and shrinking (<10%). Nearly all their revenue is from selling mining equipment. Unless you think they are lying to their investors....
proven false by who? Bitmain is a chinese company no one except a few insiders truly knows what is really on thier books.
Even if they are not mining directly as they claim I would expect they have some subsidaries not linked directly to the parent that they have sold thousands of Asics to.
Remeber the hash rate spikes of oct 2017 and January 2018 , were all in times of extreme gpu shortages. A basic brand rx580 was selling for $700 , A nvidia 1070ti was at $900 and all retailers were limiting sales to 1 gpu per month in somecases or 1 of any brand per order.
yet the hashrate went up that month from 200k if i remeber to 240k
No one could sell that many gpus at the time. The october jump was even a worse scenario.... gpus were basically unavailable
to the point larger farms were renting entire aircraft to buy directly from the source.
In that case the hash rate went from 90k to 150k in two months.
If you cant put two and two together still , you must work for an Asic manufacturer lol
I am tickled pink to see a resurgance in ProgPoW interest. Know that if the Ethereum community decides to adopt ProgPoW, they will have the full support of IfDefElse, SQRL (http://squirrelsresearch.com/) and Mineority (https://mineority.io/) behind them, and our assistance in implementation in consensus level code.
We support decentralized hardware, and decentralized mining, first and foremost.
This paper analyzing attack scenarios on Ethereum's proof of work is probably relevant:
https://fc18.ifca.ai/bitcoin/papers/bitcoin18-final17.pdf
According to the paper, a 51% attack via AWS rentals would cost $1 million/hr, and a bribery attack would only be $125K/hr assuming miners are susceptible.
We need a 1.5 to 2Eth per block reduction tomorrow or it could be disastrous for this whole ecosystem.
When they did not make a decision two weeks ago we slid from $515 to now $273. If the core dev doesn't reduce the inflation the market will do it for them. This whole crypto space is 20% of what it was when we were dishing out 3Eth / block. The market will just not allow the miners to profit at a tune of $3,000,000,000 in mining awards. It is absolutely wasteful and irresponsible. The market is 20% what it was in Jan so miners should also receive 20% or .6 Eth/block at this point to equal the same decline that holders and developers have to bear.
There is basically zero profit right now for normal gpu miners , The majority of the inflatonary eth you are so worried about is going to large asic mega farms. Dropping the issuance with no algo change basically seeds the entire pow network to them and thier Ilk.
No sane proposal would advocate for this
Lol if you think its bad for the holders of eth imgine the pain for miners , 20 percent less value of the mined asset and a 30 percent increase in the global hashrate as the sugar on top.
Most miners I know have already quit
Yes, there are entirely way too many miners at this stage. A tsunami of miners flowed in back in January when this space was overheating. Now that this space has declined 80% to 90%, unfortunately, this space cannot support a billion miners anymore. What can I say? No one said life was fair. We all suffering here not just miners. No one has $3,000,000,000 to give to a billion miners anymore.
Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. It's like pulling a cavity tooth. Yes, it hurts for a day but then you come out on the other end and you get better health afterward.
Trust me as an economist, once Eth price starts to go back up miners will be happy again.
A billion gpus? you cant be serious, Nivida and Amd combined canโt produce enough gpus to explain to total ethereum hash rate.
50% or more of the pow network is owned by asics and specialized hardware like fpgas ans asics.
There can be a fair playing feild again if the developers implement the proposed algo change , which should go hand in hand with issuance reduction if that passes.
I cannot speak to the hardware aspect. This is not my specialty. But I do understand there is a correlation between speed and the cost of the hardware. So it seems the more money you throw at it the more Eth you are able to mine.
As an economist, all I know is that we need a swift 1.5 to 2 Eth / block reduction like a month ago.
I've also heard when Eth price starts to decline, miners start to sell their hardware and buy Eth. Sometimes it is better to just buy Eth than to mine Eth especially when you can now buy 5 Eth for the price of 1 Eth back in January.
So you would prefer that the entire eth hashrate is run by asiscs
You most definitely know nothing about hardware or decentralized blockchains.
please stick to youe voodo economics.
For the reccord I was an economics minor in college even got recommended for the graduate program...
there were no classes on block chain based economies no one really knows what a reduction of issuance along with the pushing out of gpu miners will do for the price , its all speculation.
I can guarantee though it wonโt be good in the long term if only Asics can secure the network. You think fees and gas is high now ?
๐๐๐
A billion gpus? you cant be serious, Nivida and Amd combined canโt produce enough gpus to explain to total ethereum hash rate.
Current ETH hashrate is around 3 TH/s, roughly half of which was added during Jan-Mar. A typical GPU (GTX 1070 or RX 580) is around 30 MH/s. So there are on the order of 10 million GPUs hashing on the network, and roughly 5 million were added during Jan-Mar of this year.
AMD + Nvidia ship 20-25 million GPUs per quarter: https://www.jonpeddie.com/store/market-watch
Miners buying 20-25% of the typical GPU supply for the quarter is completely believable, and would explain the channel shortages and inflated prices.
Let us not forget the Ethereum community does not coddle to the whims nor exist to serve the miners. The miners exist to serve Ethereum. Getting any Eth through mining is a privilege, not a right.
Putting in the difficulty bomb was the right move. And we must follow the spirit of the difficulty bomb and make it harder and harder to mine Eth.
If the core devs are indecisive this morning again and we fail to cut the inflation significantly ASAP then we go down a death spiral that we may not recover from where prices get cut in half and miners bitch about not making enough money etc. Pick your poison, the miners will never get their $3,000,000,000 not in this market no way hosay.
Let us not forget the Ethereum community does not coddle to the whims nor exist to serve the miners. The miners exist to serve Ethereum. Getting any Eth through mining is a privilege, not a right.
I cannot totally agree with you there. It may be a privilege, but the community should not expect miners to lose money. Mining costs money (hardware investment + electricity), most miners are not doing it for the good of the community, they are making an investment. Once mining becomes unprofitable (like right now), they will stop mining and simply buy ETH, like you said above.
Let us not forget the Ethereum community does not coddle to the whims nor exist to serve the miners.
This is also true for investors. Investors are the only group in the ecosystem that advocates for decreased issuance, apart from maybe ASIC miners (due to their increased market share of the hashrate), because they're the ones who care about price when, ultimately, the price only matters to the point where it drives new developer and user interest in the ecosystem.
A high ETH price negatively affects existing users, because cost of transactions rise.
@vbuterin @OhGodAGirl @Souptacular @5chdn @sorpaas @chfast @lrettig If ProgPOW is rejected today EOSC development team will launch a hardfork of ethereum with ProgPOW implementation.
This is not a joke
Why bother, there is already ETC.
Today is a major day for the future of Ethereum. Letโs be rational and put logic and common sense first! Donโt mess it up, crypto is watching!
Bingo we need more Eth buyers, not miners.
This is the perfect thrust we need to put us on the right trajectory.
@johnEth: This whole crypto space is 20% of what it was when we were dishing out 3Eth / block. The market will just not allow the miners to profit at a tune of $3,000,000,000 in mining awards.
It is absolutely wasteful and irresponsible. The market is 20% what it was in Jan so miners should also receive 20% or .6 Eth/block at this point to equal the same decline that holders and developers have to bear.
You do realize that miners already make 20% of what they used to make, as the mining reward is in ETH and not in USD? What you are arguing for is that miners should be making 20%*20% of what they were making previously, basically you want to reduce miner revenue by 96%. That's a great way to alienate the providers who secure and run the network.
I listened to the meeting, it was a sham imo , they had mining pools , but no small to mid size miners , all they kept talking about is issuance and prog pow , like there are not other asic resistant algos available
@olalawal: Agreed. The decision on which PoW to choose can be handled later, the decision to try to combat ASICs or not is really what it is about.
@salanki exactly, the algo change to even hex,x16 , eqihash flavors or eveb progpow or cn variant 2 , was not even discussed in any seriousness.
The true Asics hashrate needs to be flushed out NOW even if some brands of cards are not as good on the new algo as others at the very least we can find out the ASIC penetration percentage
I have never been so concerned about the future of Ethereum and I've been part of the community since the early stages. Basically we are being held hostages by a group of people that is going to be obsolete sometimes soon (When POS damnit?). While we're waiting for interests alignment with POS (validators are investors with a single agenda) we're running the risk that ETH will trade at double digits in the fall and we all know the consequences of it. People running out, miners not buying ETH because inflation will still be too high, dev salaries not paid, black swan event, bye bye Ethereum and all its potential. Unless EOS (which I don't like) hard forks it and proposes inflation reduction in the form of EIP-1234 or 858 and then what happens?
We're at a turning point where a big decision has to be made. Is ASIC a bigger threat than reducing inflation? absolutely not, POS is around the corner!!! I'm certain miners with cheaper electricity will continue mining with rewards at 2 ETH as their holdings will gain in price. That's simple. We are overpaying for security right now and if we don't do anything about it, it could get ugly and fast!!
Use common sense, look forward and don't abide by one group's agenda. EIP 1234 now!!
Combat ASICS, fully agree, going for ProgPow is just doing a 360 turn and ending up with the same issue and worse.
Here's some very interesting replies to the "ProgPow" idea.
Further no comment
@Eliovp agreed fully.
One concerning thing i heard in the meeting was one of the panel members stating that due to dagger hashimoto being memory hard there are no intrinsic advantages for Asics such as the bitmain E3.
If you remeber after the cn7 fork bitmain was worried about ethereum forking as well and listed thier E3 batch one at $800!!
thats means they make these things for far less than the price of one GPU.
thats 7 gpus worth of hash for $250 lets say production cost. You cant eveb buy a new gpu for that.
Memory bandwidth doesnโt matter when they can use cheap ddr3 in huge banks since its dirt cheap.
also factor in economies of scale and the advantages ballon even more.
@olalawal the cost for new equipment is not really a concern if we don't want hashrate to grow or if we want it to decline (my preference).
@olalawal: The point that panelist missed is that by building specialized hardware (with a lot of cheap GDDR3 modules) they are making it much cheaper and more efficient than a GPU miner available to anyone. It is not an ASIC specifically that makes it that much better, it's a combination of customized hardware for this specific purpose.
@cslarson: The cost of equipment is still a concern when one party (the ASIC vendor) can build a lot of highly efficient equipment cheaper than anyone else did. It allows them to with little capital add enough hashrate to push normal GPU-miners into loss. This will make the regular GPU hashrate disappear and all of a sudden one actor has control of the network.
They do not have to build miners to match 51% of the hash rate today. With an issuance reduction it is already hard to make a profit for most miners. If the ASIC vendor has a 2x more efficient miner, he would just have to add ~20% of the hashrate to push most people into the red while he remains in the black.
It is naive to believe that more than a few percent of the network hashrate are miners who mine "for the good of the network" and do not care about profits. People in general don't like losing money, and will support ETH buy buying ETH instead of spending it on electricity.
One important point that was missed during the meeting is that during the last reward reduction, it wasn't a direct issuance reduction as the block time was reset at the same time. The issuance of ETH generated/day was essentially the same, which is why it had a smaller impact on miners.
@salanki the problem with your logic is that people won't "buy ETH instead of spending it on electricity", they'll wait for the price to drop even more as inflation will still be way too high. This will bring the price to such unsustainable levels that the majority will take their loss and move away.
@nico9111: Doesn't really matter what they do with their money for my argument, I just tried to illustrate that no one will mine ETH when it is cheaper to buy it. The point with that post is that there is a risk of losing security due to centralization if not acting against ASICs, regardless of issuance. If we act against ASICs and lower the issuance at least we know what the network demographics will be the same, albeit smaller.
Network hashrate growth has been hugely supportive of the purchasing power of ETH. To not recognize this is to not understand Proof of Work economics.
When you do not change supply of a good (constant block reward), but increase demand for a good (increased hashpower), the economic value of that good increases. Look at the amount of electricity spent to mine 1 ETH as a basis for purchasing power - it is the minimum purchasing power of ETH. It is why Proof of Work systems with fixed issuance are so damn valuable.
@olalawal In the current Dagger Hashimoto implementation there is power savings to be gained by switching to a dedicated piece of hardware, considering you can strip away the core and just have a ton of DDR3/DDR4/GDDR5. There is also the financial savings, as you pointed out.
ProgPoW utilizes the core in order to minimize that advantage that dedicated hardware can gain.
Remember - ASICs aren't the future. Programmable hardware, be it FPGAs or GPUs, are. The things you mine your coins on should be usable for a better tomorrow, as well as a better today.
For visibility, I'm cross-posting my post on reddit titled A comprehensive review of miner arguments against issuance reduction
First I wanted to start by saying Hudson Jameson did a phenomenal job wrangling all these different stakeholders to the core devs meeting today and playing the part of an effective, neutral moderator. It was a really interesting meeting and great to hear all viewpoints. I'm sure many of you live streamed it as well.
Iโm an Ethereum investor and active user, and I took notes on the most prominent miner arguments against issuance reduction along with my thoughts on each. Would love to hear any thoughts or any ones I may have missed.
GPUs that leave network after issuance reduction can be used to attack Network Security (Xin Xu)
Xin Xu argues that a decline in issuance from 3 to 2 (33%) will cause a drop in hashrate by 33%, and that such a large drop in hashrate will lead to an influx of GPUs on the market that can be used to attack Ethereum. This argument is predicated on the idea that hashrate will drop significantly. However, any drop in hashrate will decrease difficulty so mathematically a 33% drop in issuance should have at most a ~22% impact to total hashrate assuming a linear relationship. I don't believe that a drop in Ethereum Network Hashrate from current levels (280 TH/s) to January 2018 levels (230 TH/s) is a doomsday scenario. And the real drop will certainly be much lower for two reasons. 1) Historical data shows that hashrate is extremely resilient against drops in price as well as issuance (source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DlTEyKBV4AERGtB.jpg:large). 2) Historical data also shows that all Ethereum and Bitcoin issuance reductions were followed by price increases which could partially or completely offset the decline in hashrate.
Issuance Reduction will drive a dramatic shift in hardware composition of the network (Brian Venturo)
Brian Venturo argues that a reduction in issuance will price out GPU miners and cause the network to dramatically shift towards ASIC miners in the short term, increasing mining centralization. However, miners on the call pointed out that currently available ASICS (Antminer E3) is in-line with top GPUs in terms of mining efficiency. Itโs only when we compare claims from as-yet unreleased ASIC manufacturers (Innosilicon A10) to 2-year old GPU technology (GTX 1080) that we see any risk of an efficiency gap. Second, the total Ethereum network hashrate is 280 TH/s. This is equivalent to 577,000 Innosilicon A10s, which would cost $3.3 Billion (at $5700 each). Any shift of even 10-20% in Ethereum network hardware composition will be slow and steady, and as we heard on the call, miners looking to spend significant capital on new hardware are considering major ROI headwinds from 1) upcoming shift to PoS and 2) possible exploration of new ASIC-resistant algos like ProgPOW. Both of these would brick current generation ASICS while GPUS would retain their resale value. More work needs to be done exploring ASIC-resistant POW algorithms, and there's no reason why issuance-reduction EIPs should be roadblocked in the interim.
EIP 1295 as an alternative (Brian Venturo)
Brian Venturo cites the current rules around Uncle and Nephew rewards as causing weird incentives that miners are exploiting to maximize uncle rate and squeeze higher issuance out of the network. This is a super interesting point, and one that I would love to see explored in more detail (as the downstream implications could be quite complex) in addition to EIP-1234. Thereโs no reason why 1295 is mutually exclusive with EIP-1234, and positioning it that way is a clever tactic to delay any issuance reduction. Brian himself suggested an issuance reduction in 2019 on top of EIP-1295.
My Final thought
I am in full support of EIP-1234 as a moderate issuance reduction to reduce Ethereum inflation and the amount we are overpaying miners for security. Looking back on it, last yearโs 40% reduction from 5 eth/block to 3 eth/block has turned out to be a phenomenally good decision. Since then, hashrates have increased 3x while price has declined 20% (was $330 pre-fork), all while we reduced inflation by 40%. Another modest issuance reduction is a prudent decision that is a natural step in Ethereumโs growth and consistent with the original vision for inflation. In contrast, a difficulty bomb delay without a corresponding issuance reduction should be viewed as an issuance increase.
The quicker we can get this decision behind us, the better. As long as this question looms, investors will lack confidence in Ethereumโs monetary policy, and mining stakeholders will have massive incentive to decrease Ethereum price until Constantinople to increase the chance they can mine at inflated rates through 2019
@Souptacular I would like to propose something to you and the EF. I understand that no central body should make decision in regards to governance and that a community based approach is favored. Anyhow, I was quite surprised and frustrated that for such an important discussion regarding the future of Ethereum, no-one was assigned to give voice to the chat (members of the Ethereum community), to dapp developers, to investors but mainly to Ethereum developers and miners. Also, at no point in time was referenced a carbon vote process and a quick how-to proceed to vote (not everybody is familiar on how to do it). My point is that even though the EF is not meant to govern the ecosystem, it should at least assign someone organized and who is able to get to the point to be the voice for the community in voting mechanism and chatters, redditors, twittters etc... there are analytic tools that can be easily verified to suggest that a preference among a group is for this or that...
Donโt get me wrong, I realize this is not your job overall to handle that kind of thing but as the host of such an important topic, it is expected of you or at least the EF to properly handle that. Thanks
It was a pretty one sided discussion which is why it comes out seeming that there was consensus regarding issuance reduction with no pow algo change which is totally false. A poll on bitcointalk where alot of miners of all types freqent will easily prove as a majority they totally disagree with the above summary by @cheeselord1
we ๐ฏ disagree with your final thoughts as a community, either leave things as they are and march towards pos with the exiting issuance rate OR fix the root problem of hashrate centralization by adopting a fork.
Sometimes the hardest path is the correct one, if it was easy to half ass fix the inflation problem and not fix the centralization issues we would not be discussing this at all.
Devโs donโt take the easy route do whats needed for the long term. We need to know how much ASICs dominate the network, this is the only true way to do it
Fork to progpow or cn variant 2 as linked in one of my prior posts
Is like to see a poll on here and on the bitcointalk, mining altcoins thread
Somone throw up a poll
q1 Reduce eth issuance per block only
q2 Reduce eth iasuance per block AND impement an anti ASIC fork
q3 leave things as the now
of course the pol needs to be one vote per
Incomplete poll, theres nothing about an asic resistant fork as an option, why even link that worthless poll
The main topic that needs deliberation is the rewards issuance model to follow. Once the community agree on this number we can set another poll to vote on asic resistance. Itโs a valuable poll thatโs going on right now that the community is voting on. I agree though that next step should be to agree on asic resistance or not...
That poll has 86 participants.
There are approximately 228,000 community members mining on the top 6 pools. They were represented today by SparkPool and Ethermine. Don't forget them.
Do not invalidate a miner's opinion because they are a miner - they choose to invest in the Ethereum ecosystem in a different manner - their hardware, while holding some optionality, is directly tied to the value of Ethereum, just like your holdings.
The ecosystem wants the price of Ethereum to go higher. It's better for investors and miners alike. Doing so by messing with monetary policy in large fits and jumps can only work for so long.
@atlanticrypto 86 votes now, waiting for the miners to vote too. Nobody invalidates anybody. Just vote...
we will not vote on a poll that does not cover our MAIN concern, there is no point
then propose a carbonvote on etherchain.org that covers:
a. EIP-858 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 1 ETH per block.
b. EIP-858 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 1 ETH per block. + ProgPOW
c. EIP-1234 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 2 ETH
d. EIP-1234 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 2 ETH+ ProgPOW.
e. EIP-1295 - Delay bomb, keep rewards to 3 ETH,
f. EIP-1295 - Delay bomb, keep rewards to 3 ETH, + ProgPOW
and see where it goes.
If this is something you really want, you have to go ahead with it. It's an open based community. No one makes any unilateral decision before a voting happens which means the community needs to get its act together and make reasonable proposals to be voted upon. That's what Hudson Jameson meant when he said that the community needs to act to get things done and not just let it go hoping things go their way...
@nico9111 but even that list doesn't cover all the options. Sounds like there's no chance ProgPOW can happen in Constantinople. Simply not enough time for such a large and complex change. So there would need to be differentiation, e.g. between
(b-1) EIP-858 - Delay bomb now. In the next HF, reduce block reward to 1 ETH per block and implement ProgPOW
(b-2) EIP-858 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 1 ETH per block now. In the next HF, Implement ProgPOW
@cheeselord1 good points indeed. Timing and technical realities are issues to take into account.
Since everybody seem fine with delay bomb now, all EIP votes should include it. And since ProgPow won't realistically be implemented in Constantinople, the following EIP proposals should be:
a. EIP-858 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 1 ETH per block now + NO ProgPOW in next HF
b. EIP-858 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 1 ETH per block now + YES ProgPOW in next HF
c. EIP-1234 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 2 ETH now + NO ProgPOW in next HF
d. EIP-1234 - Delay bomb and reduce block reward to 2 ETH now + YES ProgPOW in next HF
e. EIP-1295 - Delay bomb, keep rewards to 3 ETH now + NO ProgPOW in next HF
f. EIP-1295 - Delay bomb, keep rewards to 3 ETH now + YES ProgPOW in next HF
How about that?
when is the next HF scheduled? and algo change is a trivial update if an existing Algo is used in the iterim.
Progpow could be implemented in the next HF so I gets the testing it needs.
Miners need relief from the asics now , especially if the block reward is dampened
I believe Hudson Jameson said something like 6 to 8 months after if I'm not mistaking.
@olalwal cool:) we 're moving forward. Who is an Etherchain carbonvote specialist? This proposal combination seems fair.
@nico9111
why are we married to progpow though, I am in support of it but it has not been implemented in any live blockchains as far as I know yet , which creates a risk...there are other asic resistant algorithms out there.
I would prefer if you modified the vote to
: ProgPow or a proven Asic Resistant Algorithm
I believe progpow is predominant bc it mirrors ethash enough to be recognizable by miner ETH devs, but different enough to block the current wave of ASICs. Not arguing for or against... just trying to answer.
Also only proposed EIP.
@jean-m-cyr thatโs understandable, @OhGodAGirl was involved with the delopment of ProgPow , she can provide further insights, honestly if it is a simple block of code that needs to be changed I donโt see why this canโt happen in the current proposed HF
I think the best path forward would be decreasing issuance to 2 ETH per block and at the same time kick ASICs off in Constatinople HF. It doesn't matter if it's ProgPOW or another algo like Monero's Cnv2 (which is already deployment ready). So for Constatinople take whichever algo is deployable, and in the end (maybe fork after constatinople) introduce ProgPOW (if it can't be finished/deployed by constatinople).
ASICs need to be off the network fast and not in a year. End-users don't even care if the POW changes and it has no effect on the underlying protocol whatsoever, so Ethereum could as well just take a Monero approach and change POW every 6 months until POS, which is a rather trivial thing to do.
Also I disapprove that there's no ASIC resistant option in the poll above. They have to be dealt with at the same time as miners are also part of the community, securing the network.
I believe the best path forward to improve the health of our Ethereum ecosystem is a compromise where each party gets something they want.
1.) Reduce issuance by 40% to 1.8 ETH/ block (This is based on our most successful reduction from 5 ETH to 3 ETH. This should be done next month with the Constantinople update since it is a simple algorithmic change.)
2.) Institute some type of ASIC resistance be it ProgPOW or some other form.
Issuance reduction will inject confidence by not wastefully over spending and positively affect the price. Some type of ASIC resistance maybe ProgPOW will support miners and increase security although we are already at 3x the security of Bitcoin.
@johnEth yes the best case scenario in my opinion and fair for all parties. If we have to put a vote upon it we have to make proposals for carbonvote. It'll also help define a better way for the community to govern itself fairly and openly. We got to learn from it and set up tangible standards that will define Ethereum for years to come!
Here is the current profitability with a 2000 mhs farm , *edited to include power costs for 77 gpus hashing at 28 mhs each pulling 150 watts ( normally 130ish but added a few watts to factor in efficiency loss and motherboard/cpu/memory)
-$380 made by the farm the entire month after power
Now here is an updated chart with issuance reduced to 2 and with a pow fork where the hash rate goes down by 50 % due to asics being forked.
-$900 usd made the entire month for the farm
as you can see the profitablity is way better with a fork even with the issuance reduction.
Finally this chart shows issuance resuction with no fork, a farm of 2000mhs is basically running deep in the negative.
-.70 cents made by the farm for the entire month!
its pretty plain to see what will happen if you do one without the other.
Also bitmain is doung this new kyc thing where they are gathering user data for purchased equipment.
Its the Chinese government putting pressure on bitmain to disclose who is buying crypto mining equipment since unlike GPUs where you can use for rendering, gaming, folding etc.
Are these the people you want to give the keys to your car?
Even Zcash is regretting handing their network over the ASICS , They are a privacy oriented coin, with no more GPU miners , now ASIC manufacturer's are requiring buyers of the ASIC's used o the Zcash network to register their personal information LOL .
Ethereum is not a privacy based coin but this just illustrates the dangers of handing over your network to an unconcerned uncaring centralized 3rd party.
https://forum.z.cash/t/bitmain-real-name-authentication/30967/61
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Ethereum mining is what ultimately led to cryptocurrency consuming my life (in an amazing way), and that would have never happened if Ethereum was previously an ASIC mined coin. The grassroots impact of ETH GPU mining should not be overlooked. ProgPoW seems to be the best available option to preserve this, if the developers deem it worthy to be preserved.
Absolutely agree. Exactly the same for me.
I was looking to be part of the network and help make it better and at the same time make money off of it without having to resort to speculative trading.
And the bridge between the two worlds was a GPU, and I already had one in my PC! I tried it and I liked it and basically got into crypto.
Now if an ASIC was required all this would have never happened. I think decentralized GPU mining led a lot of people into crypto, let's keep it that way.
Etherium is the 2nd most important crypto, but it might disappear. A fork would bring back the grass root miners. ProgPoW is the way to go.
We all know that the day GPU and ASIC mining for ETH comes to an end is on the horizon; it's baked into the plan. Let's celebrate the waning of this golden era of GPU mining for ETH with a little in it for everybody.
Seriously, I'd support a reduction in block rewards to 2 ETH (meet you half way). Investors predict that would affect the valuation? Add to that a tweak to ethash to disable ASICs. There may be much simpler tweaks than ProgPow that can be applied to ethash to disable ASICs. Far less disruptive for ALL the codebases affected... maybe even deliverable for the next fork?
So much misinformation about ProgPoW here, and what it does, and how it works.
First and foremost, it's not just a tweak that invalidates ASICs. Anyone involved in the development of hardware knows that these tweaks don't actually do anything when a sequencer and a creative architecture team comes into play, and with the development frame of ASICs, you're looking at about two months before a new revision with an alt-mask comes out.
Secondly, CNv2 and all Cryptonite variants are historically flawed. On a side note, when you go to tune something for multiple variations of a hardware, you run into the issue of actually becoming less centralized-resistant. It's (part) of the reason why ProgPoW is tied to 32-bit, rather than 64-bit.
Thirdly, ProgPoW actually takes very little work to implement in Constantinople. It requires client asistance, but that's about it. The hard part - the GPU architecture - is done. With enough serious adoption, I wager that larger companies will even throw their development efforts behind it. The ask for CNv2 to be adopted is baffling to me, because anyone in the know already knows that there are masks for the damn thing. Should I just start a Medium page, with designs for all these algorithms? If you don't believe me, go believe someone who lives and breaths silicon (someone like David Vorick, for instance).
Fourth, just because code hasn't seen widespread adoption in mainnet coins, doesn't mean it is a risk to implement. That is why the code is open source - you can pretty much catch any issue before being deployed. That's called peer review, folks. Innovation requires taking a chance sometimes.
You don't want to break existing ASICs, you want to tune the algorithm to a piece of hardware (a GPU) that everyone has access to, that is used for other things (not just cryptocurrency mining), and has natural resale value. Actually, there's a ton of neat tricks you can do (like ensuring its specialized on a single card, rather than multiple to benefit Average Joe Miner).
Fifth, ProgPoW is designed to not break ASICs, but to encourage development of open-source GPU cards. Creating an "ASIC" for ProgPoW will end up just mimicking a GPU. Open-source hardware is a wonderful thing. We need more diversity in this space, rather than the big three (Intel, AMD, NVIDIA). Imagine the kind of innovation we can see in a programmable world if everyone and their aunt has access to open-source graphic cards...
The constant whack-a-mole game with ASICs is tiring and a waste of development efforts. Please, don't go down that route.
I am really tickled pink that folks are pushing for ProgPoW, but please understand the algorithm's purpose isn't just to preserve cryptocurrency mining: it's to preserve a future powered by the most energy-friendly, compact, programmable pieces of hardware out there (GPUHoarder, don't you dare start).
Again, as I have said, if there is serious adoption this time by the governance of Ethereum, I am willing to spend the (personal) money to not only staff up, but lead the development effort.
I didn't say CNv2 was ASIC resistant, according to devs it just makes specialized devices with on-chip memory 16x slower and specialized-devices with external memory 4x slower and kicks out current ASICs. This buy them another 6 months to find an algo that can also include CPU mining and is permanently ASIC-resistant.
So I suggested doing the same (with little tweaks) if ProgPOW can't be implemented until Constantinople. But now that you say that it can easily be implemented into Constantinople, let's go!
Very nice to see interest in ProgPOW is growing ๐ฏ
@OhGodAGirl Say no more you definitely have convinced me with details of the full direection the ProgPow movement is focused on. Being also that it is easy to implement, thats just a bonus and we neeed to push for it to be implemented in the Constantinople fork ASAP.
Moving away from centralization is the whole point of the santoshi Nakamoto project that gave us semi decentralized cryptos and I have to agree with you , Even gpus at this point of centralization since only two companies make them and directly profit from thier purchase.
Open source gpus with designs that can be submitted to small fab labs and created with minimal intial overhead or even via group buys wherr miners pool resources to pay for the tape out and share production costs is at welcome alternative to the current system. Kudos to @OhGodAGirl and your team for moving the narrative forward โค๏ธ
@MoneroCrusher I am with you, ProgPow should be implemented for sure in this hardfork since from the preivous posts it seems like an easy and straight forward code change.
An expedited spin at TSMC is about 12 weeks, not 2 months. Longer for a normal spin. That's from tape out to 1st samples. Add another month for volume production. That doesn't include design time leading to tape out.
Spending development resources on risky and extensive algorithmic changes seems unwise at this time given that the end of ETH mining is in sight (not many whacks left at the whack-a-mole game). For these changes to have any effect they would need to ship with Constantinople. Nobody really knows how programmable the E3 ASICs are but itโs likely that minor ethash tweaks could defeat it and be realistically achievable in the Constantinople timeframe without the addition of an army of developers. The timely delivery of Constantinople trumps all.
I don't see a hard push ProgPow. It is currently the only proposal out there which might explain the perception that miners are chomping at the bit for it. Personally I'd favor a simple, less disruptive, ASIC impediment with a better chance of making it in Constantinople.
@jean-m-cyr
She just said she can easily implement it in Constantinople.
So my suggestion:
Testnet ASAP and then merge into mainnet with Constantinople HF and be done with this debate once and for all.
You don't know when POS will be implemented, so why risk having to do this all over when OhGodAGirl and her devs offer us their solution on a silver platte, for free, without consuming ETH dev time? Absolute no-brainer.
Sorry, I don't buy it! There's a whole lot more to be updated and coordinated than sample miner code. Parity and Geth nodes will need revisions, not to mention pools. All of it with rigorous testing. I don't sense a great deal of appetite for this among core developers... let's not make it too hard to swallow.
@jean-m-cyr Ill make it simple for you , there will be no support for an issuance reduction from the pools or or grassroots mining community withoute an Asic resistant fork be it progPow or something intermim , You do not get one without the other.
Fine we can table all the EIPs related to issuance and Asic reistance till the next fork in 2019 ... happy?
Never mentioned issuance (actually I may have mentioned it somewhere further up). However, the possibility of an issuance reduction without ASIC resistance is very real. Combining ASIC resistance with a issuance reduction is the compromise that might make everybody happy (at least less disgruntled)!
@jean-m-cyr
It's not about making "anyone happy". The issued ETH go out there no matter where the hashing power is coming from. Now do you want that to be a big decentralized community of miners and crypto enthusiasts, or do you want that to be 10 mining companies or less?
Yes, cryptocurrencies are about decentralization, you get the opposite with issuance reduction only. Ask yourself, are you fine with Ethereum transactions being processed by a handful of companies only?
Do you also know what drives ETH price down? Yes exactly, 10 companies mining all issued ETH and selling them the second they mine it. The big grassroots community is more likely to hold onto their coins, rather than putting constant selling pressure on the market.
I'll let others worry about the economics. I'm more preoccupied with finding a pragmatic way to settle this political hot-potato issue in the very short term.
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Design time for an ASIC is generally a few weeks, at worst. Accurate is three-four days with lots of RedBull. Remember that it's generally just one architect for the overall design, and then its just P&R/synth that takes a while.
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The E3 isn't the actual concerning ASIC; the Innosilicon ASICs and Bitmain E9 (codename) are what I would hope folks are more concerned about.
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Tapeouts all depend on your connections, your preexisting contracts, your process node, etc. It's definitely not 12 weeks for certain process nodes. For instance, a certain fabless company has tapeout @ TSMC in September, and could have been contracted for X16R back in early August.
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We have already done a lot of the client/node work. You're best to check the repository for our updates. Geth was the latest. ProgPoW has never just been 'miner code'.
@OhGodAGirl
I know a little about ASICs. Spent the last 20 years designing for a very large chip co. You've never done a complex ASIC if you think two weeks is all it takes for design. A gate level sim alone can run for a week on a large server farm! I'd be interested in finding where you can get 10nm quick turn on the cheap? 10nm is where it's at for mining... higher clock rates... lower power... you know, stuff like that matters for mining.
All of that aside, I'm also painfully aware of the drag bureaucracy and politics can place on a project. I'm sure you know the old adage: Multiply your estimates by two and you'll only be late instead of disastrously late.
I also think that there's a false narrative of "miners are greedy". Well of course they're greedy, that's the only reason a decentralized blockchain disincentivizes 51% attacks. Do you think Bitmain is less greedy than the average Joe home miner?
The critical question the ETH devs imo should ask themselves is: which of those 2 "greedy groups" aligns themselves - consciously or by chance - more with decentralization?
- Is it the one that buys GPUs from AMD/Nvidia, which are not crypto companies at all and sell GPUs to everyone, forming an inherently chaotic and unpredictable group of individual miners?
Or - Is it the coordinated group with billion dollar budgets, smartest engineers, solely set up to produce cryptocurrency mining equipment, pre-mining & delivering dust & backdoors in their devices? With investors behind it to get them the maximum profit possible.
I think the answer which of those groups provides more decentralization is pretty obvious.
Both groups are not incentivized to perform 51% attacks or censoring transactions, but which group do you think is easier to overturn with political or other pressure?
The one with thousands of miners across the globe, or the one with 10 companies operating in a few low-cost countries, sometimes with oppressive, censoring & controlling regimes?
@MoneroCrusher
I'm all in on the idea of mitigating the incursion of ASICs, but look at it this way: What are the odds of shepherding ProgPow through the EIP process onto integration in time for Constantinople faced with only lukewarm support from the core? Wouldn't a simpler, less disruptive, tweak to ethash achieve the same goal in the short term with less friction?
@jean-m-cyr
ETH has an issuance of roughly $6-7million ETH per day worth in current fiat value. Bitmain and other manufacturers will have an ASIC ready on day one if it's not ASIC resistant by design (like ProgPOW).
And she already said all the major work is already done and she can very easily implement it in Constantinople HF, so let's see if we can setup a testnet with it ASAP and then test it a couple weeks, if it works, merge it.
Edit: but it has to be made sure that neither Nvidia nor AMD GPUs are favoured, I feel like Nvidia are a little favoured in the current implementation in terms of dollar paid/hash. Feel free to explain me that they're equalized, if I got it wrong somehow.
Go for it! I wish it were that simple.
@jean-m-cyr Cryptocurrency ASICs are not in any way 'complex', by design. And 10nm isn't the right target. No one in their right mind uses 10nm for anything other than SHA256. It's simply not cost effective enough for a lot of algorithms. 28nm is where its at. #28NM4LYFE.
Seems like we could argue all night about it, but that would be wildly off topic. :-)