ETHW Core: An open letter to the Ethereum community [1/9]
The ETHW has been controversial, to say the least, in the past few weeks. The ETHW Core feels compelled to clarify a few points:
Who are the ETHW Core members?
The ETHW Core members are geeks and crypto investors from all over the world who believe in proof-of-work (PoW). It was this belief that rallied the believers into a community where members volunteered to work on ETHW.
Why do ETHW Core members choose to stay anonymous?
The ETHW Core members are as anonymous between each other as to the public.
Bitcoin was a product of cypherpunks. Privacy and anonymity are common practices when communicating within the cypherpunk communities since the very beginning due to plausible adversaries from governments. The younger generation probably doesn’t remember encryption used to be a crime. Being anonymous is simply a precaution against our wealthy and powerful enemies and their lobbyist friends in D.C. Whenever necessary, our twitter @EthereumPoW and aWSB community will be the voices for the Core.
What is the rationale behind ETHW Core’s efforts?
Regulations on the blockchain space will be ever increasing, and Web3 narratives are under serious strain. Pivoting the most important infrastructure of Web3 to a proof-of-stake (PoS) solution is going to be a way to hell for the livelihood of the entire ecosystem. A fully regulated and compliant DeFi, NFT, or GameFi industry sounds completely unnecessary and the opposite of innovation. This will happen when all the top block producers are fully compliant and cooperative with government efforts (they have to).
PoS is indeed a game changer, but only in bad ways. Nevertheless, PoW has a 12 year track record of being reliable, robust, and censorship resistant. It is only prudent to continue a PoW Ethereum, which should be a no-brainer for those who champion openness and the free market as there is no downside. After all, if PoS Ethereum is really so great, why be afraid of competition?
ETHW is a being already
ETHW is not to be created; it is Ethereum at the very present, and will remain to be if enough users let it. Whoever reads this article is likely a user of it already. The mission of ETHW is simply to continue being Ethereum.
It is Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation and their friends who are changing it. Indeed, they were the creators of Ethereum, but are they the Ethereum itself? Can parents also be control freaks that only care about profiting for themselves rather than the well-being of the child? Would an independently minded child always blindly follow or would he finally start to say no?
ETHW doesn’t have to exist
No, it doesn’t. So are most beings on earth. But like every living organism is motivated to live, we, as part of the being called Ethereum, recognizing the danger of being pushed to PoS, which begins the end, have decided to resist. ETHW is simply a surviving instinct, which is precisely why PoW may eventually be the one that fits to live.
1559 Multisig wallet
The approach has been criticized by many. We understand where the critics come from, but we have to take it due to the sheer costs of sustaining a public blockchain infrastructure like Ethereum, including but not limited to: development, testing, servers, explorer, RPC clusters etc.
First, this is the only way to fund the project.
Secondly, the surplus will be fairly distributed back to miners.
Last but not least, no, we are not after those ethers. We are geeks and many of us have already made it. We are politically motivated to work together to protect the Ethereum that we love.
Social media influence
We welcome support from every corner. In the past few weeks, we saw many influential individuals voice their opinion on social media. On the one hand, reading them feels like walking in the dark on a bumpy road full of thorns. On the other hand, we keep getting reached out by individuals and teams with lofty ideals despite the overwhelming negative PR efforts from the other camp. This is a good reminder that the ideal of decentralization is still inspiring for many.
ETHW won’t stop or stop growing. Whoever believes in PoW is part of the ETHW community. Your verbal support will be welcomed — no matter who you are and what language you use — your voice will earn you the respect of the ETHW community.
ETHW welcomes support as well as constructive criticisms. ETHW doesn’t have an official thought leader and will never do. We will balance check each other to make sure the ecosystem is always 100% open and inclusive, which is critical for Ethereum to be a real transformative technology. It is this belief that rallies us together.
Join the Core
We call on more geeks who are adept in blockchain development and governance to join us. Familiarity with the Ethereum codebase is the most important qualification. To reach out, please either:
- DM @ethwcore on Twitter.
- Github: Creating pull requests and showing us your previous work is probably the fastest (and preferred) way.
ETHW Core
8/28/2022
