Bram Cohen, a US computer programmer and author of the peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol and BitTorrent software, advised Ethereum developers not to switch to Proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus protocol.
My advice to Ethereum: (1) Drop sharding (2) Drop proof of stake (3) Separate out state transitions from their justifications
– Bram Cohen (@bramcohen) February 15, 2019
Cohen also suggested that the Ethereum development team “separates the government transitions from their excuses” and “discards” the segment when they are working on updating the Ethereum blockchain network. In response to Cohen’s recommendation, a WallStreet 5 “(@ Street5Wall) Twitter user asked Blackstack Ali co-founder Muneeb Ali why his platform could not be deployed on Bitcoin SV,“ instead of Ethereum. ”
Clarifying that Bitcoin SV, the Bitcoin Cash fork, “is not intended for a general purpose” platform for running decentralized applications (dApps), Ali explained that Blackstack is “clearly designed” to facilitate the development of distributed applications.
Responding to Ali's comments, Craig Stephen Wright, the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin, argued that Bitcoin (as he assumes) “is a complete Turing system. “Wright also argued that Bitcoin is able to function as a dApp deployment platform, and it has many other uses.
SegWit was “more bug fixes”
Meanwhile, Twitter user “Critical I“ (@critical_infras) asked if the separation of state transitions is what SegWit did for bitcoin.
Asking whether it is a good idea to “give up stated goals” if Cohen thinks they are “unavailable”, Twitter user @CogentConch noted that “many people are investing in ETH because of the upcoming” proof-of-stake update (PoS ) to the network Ethereum. According to BitTorrent, the “current plans” for performing state transitions on Ethereum “do not work or work only by allowing things to continue to rapidly retreat to centralization.”
“Difficult to explain” to those who have no development experience.
Acknowledging that state transitions and other implementation details associated with Ethereum are “difficult to explain without assuming that the reader has some technical experience,” Cohen noted:
“The idea is to have“ transactions ”in the sense of a database, so they have clear dependencies, and [users] know in advance how much gas they need … In principle, every detail of the execution of the transaction and the amount of gas it uses is must be accurately indicated, and the slightest deviation from this should lead to its failure ”.
In October 2018, Cohen announced his plans to launch a new cryptocurrency (called Chia), based on the “Proof of Space” consensus protocol, which he says is a more environmentally friendly version of Bitcoin.
