SOB: Ethereum, Bitcoin; Hard Fork, Soft Fork: How Decentralized Change Is Made
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 21 August 2021
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ethereum’s London hard fork, also known as EIP 1559, took place on Aug. 5. The backwards-incompatible upgrade reignited community debate over hard forks, soft forks and the best methods – most foolproof, least polarizing – to bring about change to a network.
Join hosts Adam B. Levine, Jonathan Mohan and Andreas M. Antonopoulos as they explore the various ways in which consensus has been reached recently across the two largest protocols. The differences in technology and underlying philosophy means some solutions are more enticing to Ethereum and others to Bitcoin.
Ethereum maintains a so-called “difficulty bomb,” whose fuse is lengthened with every upgrade. If it ever goes off, miners would face exponentially harder work and proportionally diminished rewards, forcing them to switch from the pre-fork chain to the upgraded one. Bitcoin’s equivalent to the difficulty bomb, the User Activated Soft Fork (UASF), accomplishes the same thing by other means. Are these mechanisms the proverbial ‘Chekhov’s Gun,’ inevitably to be used in some later act, or simply empty threats to coerce miners into compliance?
Listen to this episode of “Speaking of Bitcoin” for an in-depth explainer of how wide-spread change occurs across decentralized networks and what changes might be in store for the future.
-
This episode featured Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Jonathan Mohan. It was edited by Jonas, our theme song comes courtesy of Jared Rubens and todays music during the break was Sloth Beats by Gurty Beats. Today's album art features a photo by Anita Jankovic/Unsplash, modified by Speaking of Bitcoin.
Have any questions or comments? Send Adam an email at [email protected]
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Audible brings your wildest adventures to life, delivering heart-pounding thrills at the touch |
| 0:05.8 | of a button. |
| 0:07.0 | Take Richard Osmond's The Thursday Murder Club, where four retirees turned amateur sleuths |
| 0:11.8 | solve crimes in the most unexpected ways, brilliantly performed by Leslie Manville. |
| 0:17.1 | Ready to unleash your adventure aside, from pulse racing suspense to epic quests, from supernatural |
| 0:22.6 | chills to far-off romances, every story comes alive through world-class narration. |
| 0:28.5 | Explore exclusive audible originals, chart-topping new releases, and unforgettable bestsellers |
| 0:34.4 | that transport you from the very first word, because the next great |
| 0:38.2 | adventure is just a listener way. |
| 0:40.8 | Start your free 30-day trial at audible.com slash Wondery UK. |
| 0:45.6 | That's audible.com slash Wondery UK. |
| 0:51.3 | It's worked exactly as intended, and it has allowed Ethereum to continue to introduce new features, |
| 0:59.0 | even features the miners don't want by forcing them into a situation where they have to accept the hard fork that's offered to them. |
| 1:08.7 | Hey folks, I'm Adam B. Levine, and this is speaking of Bitcoin. |
| 1:11.6 | A couple of weeks ago, the Ethereum Network adopted its latest in a long series of backwards-incompatible upgrades known as hard forks. |
| 1:18.6 | The London Hard Fork introduced, among other things, a pretty substantial rethink about how miners are rewarded and what happens to the fees you pay. |
| 1:25.6 | But that's not what we're talking about here today. It actually just got me thinking, and it's a topic that we like to revisit from |
| 1:31.5 | time to time, whether we'll really ever see that sort of protocol level, fundamental change to |
| 1:36.8 | the incentives governing Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, ever again. So we're going to talk |
| 1:42.5 | about it. To do that, I'm joined as always by the other host of the show, |
| 1:45.9 | Jonathan Mohan. Hey, hey. And Andreas M. Antonopoulos. Hello. Stephanie is off this week. So we saw the taproot |
| 1:54.7 | upgrade go into effect, but that was not a backwards and compatible upgrade. It was what we call |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CoinDesk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of CoinDesk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.