Ethereum Con-Arguments

Below is an argument written by Chysce which won 2nd place in the Ethereum Con-Arguments topic for a prior Cointest round.

>> Scalability

Ethereum's greatest challenge is scalability. This issue manifests in two ways - long transaction times and high fees. The large number of transactions on ethereum network can cause congestion resulting in delays and very high gas fees. Ethereum Merge event did not resolve this issue, it only paved the way for future optimizations of gas fees.

>> Ethereum is not so decentralized

Despite its decentralized nature, Ethereum has become increasingly centralized over time, with a small number of entities controlling a large portion of the network's resources and governance. For regular Ethereum user it is hard to run a node so they have to rely on external node infrastructure providers who can censor whatever they want.

>> Vulnerable to attacks

Transition to proof of stake made Ethereum more vulnerable to attacks. "Unlike proof-of work systems, a proof-of-stake (PoS) system informs node validators in advance what blocks they will validate, thus enabling them to plan attacks."

>> Solidity barrier

Another issue with Ethereum is its programming language. Developers who are proficient in C, Python or Java cannot easily transition to Ethereum and create dApps. They must instead learn a completely different coding language (Solidity). This slows down the process of onboarding new developers and creating dApps.

>> Ethereum could be labeled a security

There are early hints that ETH might be labeled a security. If that happens any US citizen would have to hire a licensed broker to buy and sell ETH for them. This would significantly hinder its growth potential.

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Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread here.

Ethereum Pro-Arguments

Below is an argument written by excalilbug which won 1st place in the Ethereum Pro-Arguments topic for a prior Cointest round.

Ethereum has been one of the top coins for more than 6 years now. And there are several reasons why it’s so popular:

• Reliability

Launched in 2016, Ethereum has been very reliable. Some networks (e.g. Solana) had more issues in single week than Ethereum in all its history. The only issues I can remember is of course the famous hack (it was in the beginning of ETH) that led to the creation of ETH Classic and the network congestion in 2017 caused by… internet cats. What else could it be, right?

Other than that ETH remained very stable and trustworthy. It had no downtimes and new partners were joining the network which led to the next pro of Ethereum:

• Adoption

One of the biggest advantages of Ethereum is its widespread adoption. It had the first mover advantage and it used it pretty well. Today the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance includes dozens of members, among them such big names as JP Morgan, Ernst & Young or Microsoft

Every regular visitor to r/cryptocurrency is also probably aware that Reddit chose Ethereum for their community points program. Currently Moons run on one of Ethereum layer 2 protocols called Arbitrum Nova

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the total value locked on Ethereum network is almost 60% of all chains and almost 6 times more than its biggest competitors, Tron and Binance chains (both “just” 10%)

• Advantages of PoW -> PoS transition

Transition from PoW to PoS of course has some disadvantages (the rich get richer) but it’s hard to deny that there are also some advantages. And probably the biggest one is the energy usage decrease. The energy used by Ethereum is now almost 100% lower than when it was a PoW coin

The other advantage of recent updates is the fact that ETH is now deflationary. After the implementation of EIP-1559 ETH now burns a fraction of the gas fees per transaction (so there are some positive sides to high fees too – more ETH is burned :P). This year, in less than 3 months, more than 66,000 ETH was burned

And it’s not the end. Soon, on 12 April 2023, ETH will have another upgrade called Shanghai-Capella (Shapella). One of its improvements is EVM Object Format. It will separate code from data. It should make the network easier to use and it will reduce gas fees

• Layer 2 solutions

One of the biggest problems of Ethereum are high gas fees. But thanks to a very active community and smart develoeprs this problem is circumvented. Layer 2 protocols have very low fees while utilizing the benefits of Ethereum blockchain. They decrease data traffic by redirecting it offchain

Those layer 2 solutions are so popular that Arbitrum has 4th largest total value locked in it and Polygon and optimism are 5th and 6th respectively! (https://defillama.com/chains)

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• Relevant Cointest topics: Cardano, Algorand, Solana, Vitalik Buterin, Arbitrum, Proof of Stake.

• Official and related subreddits: r/Ethereum, r/EthTrader, r/EthStaker, r/Cardano, r/Algorand, r/Solana, r/CosmosNetwork, r/Polkadot, r/Tezos.

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