Twenty-five projects participated in a survey evaluating their willingness to change the fee system. Ethereum miners have doubts about the mechanism for setting fees.
In recent days, nine mining projects participated in a community survey on the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559. However, eight of them had a negative impression of this new scheme, which aims to change the network’s fee system.
Last October 7th, ConsenSys Product Manager Tim Beiko published a report with the survey results. He notes that seven of the nine mining projects participating in the consultation reject the implementation of the proposal, even if it were included in a future fork. They said this to express their doubts about how to establish a base rate.
EIP 1559 involves introducing a fixed network rate per block to deal with transitory congestion. In 2019, a group of developers that Vitalik Buterin headed introduced the proposal. The idea is to change the current transaction system, based on offers, for a base rate that adjusts to the demand of the network.
There would be a small tip in the new system to compensate the miner, while the fee burns to keep it stable and low. This aims to eliminate incentives that manipulate fees.
Beiko explains that a total of 25 Ethereum projects participated in the survey to measure the level of knowledge and acceptance of this proposal. Most of those projects were related to mining (36%), while those related to wallets and exchanges had low participation.
Doubts about Mechanisms for Setting Fees
According to Beiko, the miners that participated in the survey on EIP 1559 gave 8/9 (89%) of the negative responses. Among the reasons why this group was mostly against it are doubts about the possibilities of conspiracies to keep the base rate higher or lower.
Besides, they fear that the reduction of incentives for miners could increase the number of ASICs on the network. They are also uncertain about how miners could give users bigger tips.
Regarding this proposal, the respondents infer that the miners would have nothing to lose if they conspire to bring the base rate to 0. “If a group of miners agrees to execute a 51% attack, it would not have the same negative effects on users as on the total ecosystem,” they add.
Ethereum Projects: 10 for and 10 against the Proposal
Although the miners had a negative position, when including all the participants of the survey, the results change. Beiko says that 10 of the 25 projects in the survey had a positive impression of the proposal, five were neutral or did not have enough information, and 10 had a negative impression.
Among the positive aspects of the proposal, he mentions gas price predictability, the burning of Ether (ETH), lower rates, and the alignment of benefits across the network.
Another advantage that the respondents added is the reduction in high transaction fees and the possibilities of faster transactions for users. In this regard, Beiko makes it clear that EIP 1559 does not seek to reduce Ethereum fees, for which “it is necessary to make this idea explicit in future communications.”
Among the negative aspects that non-mining respondents saw in the proposal, they indicated difficulties in analyzing EIP 1559.
There were also general concerns about implementation issues and doubts about how tool developers can test their compliance with EIP standards.
By Alexander Salazar
