A meeting that brought together a broad representation of ethereum stakeholders to discuss code changes on which decisions need to be made ahead of a software upgrade scheduled for October, failed to produce immediate results Friday.
The bi-weekly developers call, which this week included a majority of the network’s miners and some prominent investors, had the goal of forging consensus on changes to ethereum’s underlying economics, the speed of its upgrades and the mining methods it supports, as well as establishing an order in which concerns might be addressed through future upgrades.
However, despite nearly two hours of dialogue, the meeting ended with the resolution that the discussion continue, with a follow-on meeting scheduled for August 31.
Adding necessity to the talks is that the so-called “difficulty bomb,” a piece of code that, in seeking to encourage quicker updates to the protocol, must be delayed or removed.
The presence of the deadline, set for early 2019, has complicated the question of whether to implement a proof-of-work change to remove specialized mining hardware, or ASICs, from the platform, whether its rewards are being distributed fairly, and whether such changes should be made together.
But, since miners, developers and investors are all impacted – some could gain or lose money, depending on the decision – the conversation might be best seen as a difficult first step in making such choices.