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EIP-649: Byzantium Difficulty Bomb Delay and Block Reward Reduction #669

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fc748cc
Add template for EIP #649
5chdn Jul 11, 2017
6aa9951
Update EIP #649
5chdn Jul 11, 2017
33fc59d
EIP Number for #649
5chdn Jul 11, 2017
0b12843
Replace #186 with eip-649
5chdn Aug 8, 2017
5fd71ef
Wording and formatting.
5chdn Aug 8, 2017
ee262a3
Consider 649 instead of #186.
5chdn Aug 8, 2017
9c29817
Fix EIP link
5chdn Aug 8, 2017
b48d836
Use the byzantium fork block number.
5chdn Aug 15, 2017
a37720f
Move eip-649 to accepted as per CDM-22
5chdn Aug 15, 2017
ca7cdac
Merge branch 'master' into a5-eip-649
5chdn Aug 15, 2017
e9f741a
Clarify motivation behind block reward structure, ref #186
5chdn Aug 17, 2017
cab7b1f
Ensure fake block number is not negative
5chdn Aug 18, 2017
7a946e0
Avoid negative block numbers, ref #649.
5chdn Aug 25, 2017
2708d37
Merge upstream master
5chdn Aug 26, 2017
3eaf90c
Add EIP #649 to Byzantium Meta EIP #609
5chdn Aug 26, 2017
ce61f00
Change EIP #649 status to accepted, ref #688
5chdn Aug 26, 2017
c82890e
Improve wording for exact block number targeted, ref #649.
5chdn Sep 8, 2017
46368ac
Merge myself.
5chdn Sep 8, 2017
03deb55
Update existing implementations
5chdn Sep 8, 2017
5cd7381
Improve title to make sure the issuance is not reduced, ref #186
5chdn Sep 8, 2017
619b19c
Add yellow paper and parity implementations.
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Change status to Final
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Add other notable implementations
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3 changes: 2 additions & 1 deletion EIPS/eip-609.md
Expand Up @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
Category: Core
Status: Draft
Created: 2017-04-23
Requires: 100, 140, 196, 197, 198, 211, 214
Requires: 100, 140, 196, 197, 198, 211, 214, 649, 658

## Abstract

Expand All @@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ This specifies the changes included in the hard fork named Byzantium.
- EIP 198 (Precompiled contract for bigint modular exponentiation)
- EIP 211 (New opcodes: RETURNDATASIZE and RETURNDATACOPY)
- EIP 214 (New opcode STATICCALL)
- EIP 649 (Difficulty Bomb Delay and Block Reward Reduction)
- EIP 658 (Embedding transaction return data in receipts)

## Copyright
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74 changes: 74 additions & 0 deletions EIPS/eip-649.md
@@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
## Preamble

EIP: 649
Title: Metropolis Difficulty Bomb Delay and Block Reward Reduction
Authors: Afri Schoedon, Vitalik Buterin
Type: Standard Track
Category: Core
Status: Final
Created: 2017-06-21
Replaces: 186

## Simple Summary
The average block times are increasing due to the difficulty bomb (also known as the "_ice age_") slowly accelerating. This EIP proposes to delay the difficulty bomb for approximately one and a half year and to reduce the block rewards with the Byzantium fork, the first part of the Metropolis fork.

## Abstract
Starting with `BYZANTIUM_FORK_BLKNUM` the client will calculate the difficulty based on a fake block number suggesting the client that the difficulty bomb is adjusting around 3 million blocks later than previously specified with the Homestead fork. Furthermore, block rewards will be adjusted to a base of 3 ETH, uncle and nephew rewards will be adjusted accordingly.

## Motivation
The Casper development and switch to proof-of-stake is delayed, the Ethash proof-of-work should be feasible for miners and allow sealing new blocks every 15 seconds on average for another one and a half years. With the delay of the ice age, there is a desire to not suddenly also increase miner rewards. The difficulty bomb has been known about for a long time and now it's going to stop from happening. In order to maintain stability of the system, a block reward reduction that offsets the ice age delay would leave the system in the same general state as before. Reducing the reward also decreases the likelihood of a miner driven chain split as Ethereum approaches proof-of-stake.

## Specification
#### Relax Difficulty with Fake Block Number
For the purposes of `calc_difficulty`, simply replace the use of `block.number`, as used in the exponential ice age component, with the formula:

fake_block_number = max(0, block.number - 3_000_000) if block.number >= BYZANTIUM_FORK_BLKNUM else block.number

#### Adjust Block, Uncle, and Nephew rewards
To ensure a constant Ether issuance, adjust the block reward to `new_block_reward`, where

new_block_reward = 3_000_000_000_000_000_000 if block.number >= BYZANTIUM_FORK_BLKNUM else block.reward

(3E18 wei, or 3,000,000,000,000,000,000 wei, or 3 ETH).

Analogue, if an uncle is included in a block for `block.number >= BYZANTIUM_FORK_BLKNUM` such that `block.number - uncle.number = k`, the uncle reward is

new_uncle_reward = (8 - k) * new_block_reward / 8

This is the existing pre-Metropolis formula for uncle rewards, simply adjusted with `new_block_reward`.

The nephew reward for `block.number >= BYZANTIUM_FORK_BLKNUM` is

new_nephew_reward = new_block_reward / 32

This is the existing pre-Metropolis formula for nephew rewards, simply adjusted with `new_block_reward`.

## Rationale
This will delay the ice age by 42 million seconds (approximately 1.4 years), so the chain would be back at 30 second block times at the end of 2018. An alternate proposal was to add special rules to the difficulty calculation to effectively _pause_ the difficulty between different blocks. This would lead to similar results.

This was previously discussed at All Core Devs Meeting [#09](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%209.md#metropolis-timing-and-roadmap-discussion), [#12](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2012.md#5-metropolis-update), [#13](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2013.md#3-eip-186-reduce-eth-issuance-before-proof-of-stake-hudson), and [#14](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2014.md#1-eip-186-reduce-eth-issuance-before-proof-of-stake-core-devs). Consensus on the specification was achieved in All Core Devs Meeting [#19](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2019.md) and specification drafted in EIP issue [#649](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/649). It was decided to replace EIP [#186](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/186) and include the block reward reduction along with the difficulty bomb delay in All Core Devs Meeting [#20](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2020.md) and [#21](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2021.md); accepted in [#22](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2022.md).

## Backwards Compatibility
This EIP is not forward compatible and introduces backwards incompatibilities in the difficulty calculation, as well as the block, uncle and nephew reward structure. Therefore, it should be included in a scheduled hardfork at a certain block number. It's suggested to include this EIP in the first of the two Metropolis hard-forks, the _Byzantium_ fork.

## Test Cases
Test cases exist in ethereum/tests [#269](https://github.com/ethereum/tests/pull/269).

## Implementation
The following clients implemented EIP-649:

- Geth [#15028](https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/pull/15028)
- Parity [#5855](https://github.com/paritytech/parity/pull/5855)
- EthereumJ [#927](https://github.com/ethereum/ethereumj/pull/927)
- Cpp-Ethereum [#4050](https://github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum/issues/4050)
- PyEthereum [#383](https://github.com/ethereum/pyethereum/pull/383)

The Yellow Paper implements EIP-649 in [#333](https://github.com/ethereum/yellowpaper/pull/333).

Other notable implementations:

- Eth-Isabelle [#459](https://github.com/pirapira/eth-isabelle/issues/459)
- Py-EVM [#123](https://github.com/pipermerriam/py-evm/pull/123)

## Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).