As developers and representatives of the miners decided yesterday, the Mining Reward should be reduced from 3 to 2 ETH. The hope is thereby to stop the loss of value of Ethereum. Also moved backwards is the “Difficulty Bomb”.
Every Friday there is an Ethereum meeting, where not only developers but also representatives of the miners and large ETH owners can participate. The meeting or the call will be broadcast live on Youtube.
For a long time it was about whether the Mining Reward should be reduced. Currently, the miners get 3 ETH for each new block found. Every 15 seconds a new block is found. Many believe that due to the large number of new ethers being released to miners, Ethereum inflation is too high and that’s one of the reasons why Ethereum has fallen so much in value.
Currently there are over 100 million ethers. As late as 2016, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, believed that this figure would not be reached until the year 2100. In order to reduce the inflation it was already planned to reduce the mining reward. In a Coinvote also 99.7% of the participants have spoken out. Only the miners were against this proposal. After all, they get 33.3% less mining reward per block.
In the call yesterday, however, then all agreed that the Mining Reward is reduced. Because of a rising Ethereum price would benefit the miners. Although they would then get less ETH, but in total could be more valuable if the reduction in inflation again provides for a rising price. The changes are to be integrated with the Constantinople update that will be conducted in late October or early November.
It was also decided that the “Difficulty Bomb” will not be removed but the trigger will be postponed. The “Difficulty Bomb” was introduced at Ethereum to force the cryptocurrency to switch from the energy-consuming proof-of-work to the proof-of-stake algorithm. However, this is to be integrated only slowly and is currently not ready for the market. When the Difficulty Bomb is triggered it will make Ethereum’s mines more and more unprofitable. In the spring of next year, it would no longer make sense for anyone to mine Ethereum. Ultimately, however, the triggering is now postponed again and the developers get more time for the development and completion of the proof-of-stake algorithm (Casper).