Vitalik Buterin Estimates Ethereum Spam Transaction Fees at $15 million 🚨 This article is 6 years old...
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Vitalik Buterin Estimates Ethereum Spam Transaction Fees at $15 million
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Updated: Nov. 25, 2019 at 4:24 am UTC
Photo by Randy Laybourne on Unsplash
According to Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s recent spam congestion transactions have racked up at least $15 million in gas fees.
Facing record congestion in the form of soaring gas fees and pending transaction times, the Ethereum network has been recently stung with a gas price manipulation attack caused by thousands of spurious transactions.
The attack’s orchestrators are yet to be caught red-handed, however prominent dApp developers Team JUST have implicated bots possibly funded by EOS.
While the root cause of the attack remains subject for heated debate, Buterin — arguably the voice of Ethereum — pitched in on Twitter to analyze the situation in his typically ironic tone.
Nudging readers towards the meaningless nature of the transactions, Buterin listed a number of items that could have been purchased for the cost of the “tx spam”:
According to my estimates, the recent tx spam on the ETH network cost up to ~$15m USD (~= 5m green teas, ~75 lambos, ~25 Coinbase seed rounds, ~0.9% of Telegram ICO)
Free market principles prevent me from being too upset at someone using the ETH blockchain as they wish, but wow.
— Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) July 16, 2018
Vitalik’s Philosophy
While the tweet may read as an accusation towards the contract’s creator(s), Buterin would see the issue through the lens of “free market principles.” That is, Ethereum’s service costs are to be determined by the open market, and free of intervention.
A thinly-veiled expression of frustration at most, Buterin’s tweet appears to highlight his ideological stance as a staunch advocate of decentralization. While Ethereum’s open market is evidently capable of being manipulated — Buterin may see this as a fairer system than more centralized blockchains, such as EOS.
Prior to the June 2018 launch of EOS, Buterin detailed one of his criticisms of the blockchain’s dPoS architecture:
“Now, the latest scandal in DPOS land seems to be substantially worse. Because the delegate rewards in EOS are now so high (5% annual inflation, about $400m per year), the competition on who gets to run nodes has essentially become yet another frontier of US-China geopolitical economic warfare.”
Buterin’s ideology would appear immovable, but some do not see the attack as stoically. Suggesting the Ethereum Co-Founder should intervene, one user tweeted in response:
Maybe it's time to make the Ethereum network a bit less spammable, don't you think Vitalik? I mean, unless you want people to start migrating to faster and more reliable networks, that is.
PS: 15 million bucks to be listed on a shitty scammy exchange? Not a good strategy, IMHO.
— Eduardo Hernández (@TheCryptoCEO) July 17, 2018
Posted In: Ethereum, Technology
