Key facts:
The difficulty bomb, the event that will kick off Ethereum 2.0, has already been delayed 3 times.
Playing with the trust of your community can take its toll.
The development of Ethereum is in the hands of the programmers. Ethereum users should have blind faith that the developers will do their job well for the arrival of Ethereum 2.0, but their mistakes have left much to think about.
Developers ask for faith in their work, but they have failed on several occasions playing with the trust of the community. A repetitive situation has been the rescheduling of dates in the releases of Ethereum 2.0.
The first part of this update, known as the merge (“The Merge”) was scheduled for the beginning of 2022. However, in December of last year, it was rescheduled for the middle of this year, and recently it has been postponed again.
The reason for doing this? “We need to polish certain things.” And yes, there were still many steps to take to get to Ethereum 2.0. So why should we trust the new scheduled dates?
Ethereum developers: Trust us, we do what we can
In my experience within the world of programming, I must admit that delays in software development are common. Deadlines may not be met as there are modules that were not considered the correct time to develop. From this point, I can accept some delays within Ethereum 2.0, but there have been so many that they have become memes.
Every decision in Ethereum is not made arbitrarily. Every once in a while, DevCalls (developers’ calls) are held, which are open meetings of programmers, to which anyone is invited to submit their proposal.
After each meeting a minute is made on the agreed points. Tim Beiko, for example, one of the main developers of Ethereum, usually upload a twitter thread explaining how each meeting ended.
In one of the last ones held on June 10, Beiko commented that the entire team “agreed” in postponing the launch date of the merger («The Merge»). She justified it by saying that “a short delay” would allow them to be more focused.
Another example of the attitude of asking for blind faith in them is the penalty system for Ethereum 2.0 validators. This has been criticized since, basically, those who programmed the mechanism they play judge over validators, assigning punishments and penalties just because a node goes offline. Although it is its system to keep nodes honest, it seems not to take into account that it is humanly impossible that there is no disconnection of a node, be it electrical or internet failure. That decision was made without consultation, there is no choice but to accept it.
The justification for this is always the same “we do it for the good of all” something like “we know what we do, and delaying is the best thing to do”. Failure to meet delivery dates, for example, justified by a greater good, seems to want to instill blind faith.
There is no other option but to trust
In Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies there is a maxim: do not trust verify. In the world of software development within Ethereum 2.0, everything is verifiable and open source. But, it seems that another great thought also applies, in this case from Napoleon Bonaparte: “the end justifies the means” Ethereum 2.0 developers .
The user community you have no options to choose between developers. This is the Ethereum development system: someone submits a proposal (EIP or Ethereum Improvement Proposal), it is discussed, and the editorsgroup made up of 8 people, decide whether or not to add it to the source code.
Regardless of any auditing that people may do, they have no choice. You have to follow what they say. If there is a reschedule that users don’t like, they can’t vote to hire another group of developers. It only remains to wait and trust.
The blind trust system can take its toll. That only one thing goes wrong at the time of launching Ethereum 2.0, can cause the project to fall, putting any recovery uphill, since the community will have lost confidence in the project and its leaders.
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