Cryptocurrency

Ethereum censorship debate heats up as censored blocks hit 65%

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Gnosis Safe founder Martin Koppelmann discussed the importance of reviewing the state of censorship on the Ethereum blockchain on Twitter. “There is no broad consensus that this should be fixed,” Koppelmann said. However, some responses to Koppelmann’s thesis were debated. comment“The amount of block processing censored by OFAC is misleading.”

Impact of OFAC Compliance

Former member of the Ethereum Foundation, Hudson Jamesonclaimed that 65% of OFAC-compliant Ethereum blocks are currently “here 0 impact,” but agreed that this should be fixed. Jameson claimed FlashBots and Suave are working on a solution to make his block-censoring MEV boost relays OFAC compliant.

Jameson quoted Network Age Podcast co-host TM Basile Genève, who posted a thread on October 17th. state Ethereum censorship is “95% FUD, 5% todo list”. This thread assumed that the concern that about 65% of Ethereum nodes were OFAC compliant was related to the potential for a 51% attack.

51% less likely to be attacked

51% of attacks against the Ethereum network require malicious actors to “consistently not build on other people’s valid blocks, possibly to censor the contents of those blocks.” Such attacks are unlikely and according to to Geneva. “Nothing like that has happened.”

However, the 51% attack is not the main cause of many criticisms of the state of the Ethereum network.

Censorship solution in the works

Jameson claims the Ethereum community is working toward solutions by soliciting community input, holding minicons and workshops, and declaring that they are “confused about what else they can do.” Did. While advocating resistance to censorship, Jameson later argued that “choosing the wrong battle and amplifying threats that aren’t up to date is dangerous.”

change in status quo

Koppelman disagrees with Jameson’s opinion that the current situation does no harm, believing that “the sudden and clear decision not to censor is already in the minority”. The existence of is harmful, Koppelmann believes, because “it is fairly foreseeable that the execution of uncensored nodes will be questionable.”

Jameson’s counterargument argued that miners had censored some transactions on Ethereum as far back as 2017, but with “far fewer warnings.” Additionally, he pointed to “actual plans and roadmaps to eliminate the problem once and for all.”

Koppelmann’s argument remains divisive.Is Ethereum censorship an issue now and ‘censor nodes’ becoming the default for validators? Koppelman I think Defaults are important and are changing dramatically now. In contrast, others within the community point to the work being done by Flashbots and members of the Ethereum Foundation who seek community input to find solutions.

Conclusion

It’s hard to argue that there’s a move towards censorship-compliant blocks by looking at the data first hand. I am confident that I will.

The tweet below highlights the increase in OFAC-compliant blocks by leading validators. Lido has grown from just 35% a month ago to 51%. However, some solutions, such as shutting down certain relays, seem to alleviate the problem almost overnight.

Ethereum’s censorship resistance is an important topic for many involved in cryptocurrencies, but it’s also essential to understand that the data on-chain doesn’t tell the whole story. Since Ethereum is open source, work is done on public forums. Anyone interested in the future of blockchain is invited to join the discussion. An easy way is to contribute or comment on the GitHub project. ethereum.

Programmer Phil Daian argued that “Ethereum is uncensored today,” and said, “If you look at who puts their energy into moving the needle, the answer isn’t people screaming on Twitter. ‘ claimed.

The direct impact at this time is that fewer than 40% of validators add blocks to blocks, which slows processing of blocks related to OFAC-sanctioned addresses. Minimal impact at this time. However, if “censorship” reaches 100%, you may need a solution to avoid further complications. At that point, OFAC-compliant blocks are not processed. However, given community sentiment, it looks like a fix could come in before this becomes a reality.

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