Connect with us

Published

on

In this article

Getty

Somewhat buried in ethereum’s big software makeover that rolled out Thursday is a code update known as Ethereum Improvement Proposal 3554, or EIP-3554 for short. It threatens to hasten the end of ethereum mining as we know it.

Since its launch, the ethereum community has talked about overhauling the way that it mints ether, which is the token associated with the ethereum blockchain. But getting people to make the change is going to require a push – and that push is something known as a difficulty bomb.

“It’s a mechanism in ethereum that makes it exponentially harder to mine,” said Tim Beiko, the coordinator for ethereum’s protocol developers. “It’s like we’re artificially adding miners on the network, which raises the difficulty, making it harder for every other miner that’s on the network to actually mine a block.”

EIP-3554 moves up the detonation date of that difficulty bomb by six months to December. Once it goes off, it will essentially make ethereum unmineable. 

Ethereum 2.0

Cryptocurrencies like ethereum and bitcoin regularly receive flack for the process of mining, which is how new coins are generated. Both currently use a so-called “proof-of-work” mining model, where machines solve complex math equations to create new coins. This makes it impossible for any centralized body to create new coins arbitrarily – there’s no equivalent of a central government to print new dollars – which crypto enthusiasts believe helps preserve the value of these cryptocurrencies.

However, this effort requires significant energy to power the computers used to perform the calculations, which has drawn criticism from outsiders concerned about energy shortages and carbon emissions.

The ethereum community has coalesced around the idea of migrating from proof-of-work to “proof-of-stake,” which requires users to leverage their existing cache of ether as a means to verify transactions and mint new tokens. This will still limit the amount of new coin created, but without requiring the energy used to run massive banks of computers to solve math equations.

Beiko tells CNBC the original proposal required these so-called validators to have 1,500 ether, a stake now worth around $4.2 million. To lower the barrier to entry, the new proof-of-stake proposal would only require interested users to have 32, or about $90,000.

“It’s still not a trivial sum, but it’s a much more accessible system,” said Beiko.

Since December 2020, the ethereum community has been testing out the proof-of-stake workflow on a chain called Beacon. 

Though proof-of-stake has been the plan for ethereum since the outset, developers have pushed back the rollout, because they had seen serious flaws in previous implementations. Beacon solves these problems, according to Beiko.

“We knew that there would be a lot of technical work to address things like the increased centralization that we see in other proof-of stake-systems,” he said. “We’ve achieved that with the Beacon chain, where there’s one or two orders of magnitude more validators…than any other proof-of-stake networks.”

Migrating the entire ethereum ecosystem to Beacon, an upgrade being dubbed “ethereum 2.0,” is the next step in the process. Getting everyone on board with the move is where the difficulty bomb becomes significant. 

The Ice Age

This isn’t the first time in ethereum’s history that a difficulty bomb has detonated.

It’s happened a few times, including in 2017, 2019, and again last year.

When a difficulty bomb detonates, it floods the system with artificial miners, driving up the mining difficulty. That means new blocks will appear more and more slowly on the network. “If you increase the difficulty really, really quickly, it’s just not profitable for new miners,” explained Beiko.

But each time it’s gone off, the community has reset the clock in order to bring the difficulty level back down to normal levels.

Etherscan.io

While you don’t need a bomb to go off to roll out proof-of-stake mining, it certainly helps move things along by closing the on-ramp to proof-of-work mining. Beiko calls it more of a stopgap measure. 

In essence, the point of the difficulty bomb is to force miners and node operators to upgrade their software after a predetermined amount of time has passed, according to Nic Carter, Castle Island Ventures general partner and Coin Metrics co-founder.

In December, if the deadline for detonation isn’t pushed back, the bomb will go off, and you’ll see another parabolic rise in difficulty, like the ones pictured in the chart above. But this time, developers won’t be rewinding the clock.

It will be the start of ethereum’s proof-of-work “Ice Age.”

Not everyone’s happy

While the upgrade to ethereum 2.0 has a lot of backers, not everyone is happy about the change.

“There are some miners who are against it, but it’s in their financial interest to be against it,” said Beiko. 

Once the protocol has fully migrated to a proof-of-stake model, there won’t be any revenue to be made from ethereum mining.

At that point, miners have a few options for what to do next. 

There are a lot of other chains that support GPU-based mining, so miners could simply choose to start mining other cryptocurrencies.

They could also decide to just shut down mining operations entirely and sell their mining equipment. Beiko expects to see a lot of that.

“We’ve also seen many mining farms and mining pools on ethereum start to get into staking,” he said.

“We’ve seen mining pools use their profits to set up validators on ethereum. We’ve also seen them offer pooling services for their users who might not have 32 ether but still want to validate the network.” So even if you don’t have $90,000 parked in ether, you still might be able to keep some skin in the mining game.

Continue Reading

Technology

Google scraps diversity ‘aspirations,’ citing role as federal contractor

Published

on

By

Google scraps diversity 'aspirations,' citing role as federal contractor

Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks with Emily Chang during the APEC CEO Summit at Moscone Center West in San Francisco on Nov. 16, 2023.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Google is scrapping its diversity goals, becoming the latest tech giant to alter its approach to hiring and promotions following the election of President Donald Trump.

In its annual report published on Wednesday, Alphabet excluded language from prior years stating that, “we are committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.”

Fiona Cicconi, Alphabet’s chief people officer, told employees in a memo that the company has to make changes due to new requirements.

“Because we are a federal contractor, our teams are also evaluating changes to our programs required to comply with recent court decisions and U.S. Executive Orders on this topic,” Cicconi wrote in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. “We’ll continue to invest in states across the U.S. — and in many countries globally — but in the future we will no longer have aspirational goals.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the memo.

Cicconi noted that in 2020, the company set aspirational hiring goals and focused on growing offices outside California and New York to improve representation.

One of Trump’s first acts as president after taking office in January was to sign an executive order ending the government’s DEI programs and putting federal officials overseeing those initiatives on leave. And following a midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter above Washington, D.C., last week, Trump blasted former President Joe Biden and DEI policies claiming they “could have been” to blame for the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since 2001.

Tech companies have shown an eagerness to appease the new administration following a rocky four years during Trump’s first tenure in the White House.

Amazon said earlier in January that it was halting some of its diversity and inclusion initiatives, and Meta announced plans to end a number of internal programs designed to increase the company’s hiring of diverse candidates. Beyond the tech industry, companies including Target, Walmart and McDonald’s have made similar changes.

Google’s commitments for 2025 had included increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups in leadership by 30% and more than doubling the number of Black workers at non-senior levels.

The company began making cuts to its DEI programs in 2023, CNBC reported at the time, getting rid of staffers who were in charge of recruiting underrepresented groups and letting go of DEI leaders who worked with Chief Diversity Officer Melonie Parker.

Parker, who took on her current role in 2019, will work closely on evaluating programs and trainings and update “those that raise risk, or that aren’t as impactful as we’d hoped,” Cicconi wrote in her memo.

She added that the Google’s employee resource groups will remain as will the company’s work with colleges and universities.

A Google spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that the company is “committed to creating a workplace where all our employees can succeed and have equal opportunities, and over the last year we’ve been reviewing our programs designed to help us get there.”

WATCH: Trump blasts Biden, DEI efforts after D.C. plane crash

Trump blasts Biden, DEI efforts after D.C. plane crash

Continue Reading

Technology

Temu steers users to ‘local’ products after Trump shuts tax loophole

Published

on

By

Temu steers users to 'local' products after Trump shuts tax loophole

A package from Temu is seen in front of a screen with the Temu logo. (Photo by Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Chinese online retailer Temu has been surfacing more products on its app that can be shipped from warehouses in the U.S. following President Donald Trump’s decision to revoke a popular tax loophole.

The nearly century-old exception, known as de minimis, has been used by many e-commerce companies to send goods worth less than $800 into the U.S. duty-free. Trump on Saturday suspended the exemption as part of new tariffs that include an additional 10% tax on Chinese goods.

De minimis has helped propel Temu and Shein’s explosive growth in the U.S. by allowing the companies to bypass taxes on low-value shipments, and sustain their rock-bottom prices on everything from shoes and clothes to furniture and electronics.

With the tariff exemption gone, Temu has significantly ramped up its promotion of sellers who have inventory in U.S. warehouses, rather than items that are shipped direct from China. A scan of listings in Temu’s “Lightning deals” section shows that it’s almost entirely dominated by products with a green “local” badge.

By promoting local inventory, Temu’s products not only arrive faster to shoppers’ doorsteps, but the company also reduces its reliance on sellers who ship direct from China. Even though the products are stored in U.S. warehouses, many local listings state that the items are sold by businesses based in China.

Representatives from Temu didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Temu is surfacing more products shipped from local warehouses in its app in the wake of a popular trade loophole’s suspension.

Temu’s promotion of U.S.-based products also puts it in more direct competition with Amazon, eBay and Walmart, which have also signed up sellers in China who ship goods overseas to their warehouses. Amazon last year took notice of Temu and Shein’s dramatic growth in the U.S. when it launched its own budget storefront, called Haul.

Temu, which is owned by Chinese online retailer PDD Holdings, began onboarding sellers with inventory in U.S. warehouses in March. By July, roughly 20% of Temu’s U.S. sales came from those sellers, not merchants based in China, according to e-commerce market research firm Marketplace Pulse.

Temu, Shein and other Chinese e-commerce companies are trying to minimize the level of disruption to their services as they face new, more stringent customs requirements. They were thrown into further chaos on Tuesday night when the U.S. Postal Service abruptly announced it was suspending inbound packages from China and Hong Kong “until further notice.”

Less than 12 hours later, the USPS reversed its decision, and resumed accepting packages from those regions. The agency also said it would work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to “implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery.”

The uncertainty has created volatility for PDD’s stock price which fell 6% on Monday, rose 8% on Tuesday and fell more than 3% on Wednesday.

Critics of the de minimis provision say it’s provided an unfair advantage to Chinese e-commerce companies, and created an influx of packages that are “subject to minimal documentation and inspection,” raising concerns around counterfeit and unsafe goods.

Others have advocated for the de minimis exemption to remain in place, saying its removal would burden customs officials and lead to higher government costs.

“At some point there’s going to be 3 million of these goods piling up a day and customs can do their best, but they’re not equipped,” said Hugo Pakula, CEO of supply chain compliance company Tru Identity. “They have to do 10x more screenings this week than last week.”

CBP has said it processed more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments in 2024. A 2023 report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party found that Temu and Shein are “likely responsible” for more than 30% of de minimis shipments into the U.S.

Shein has also been courting U.S. buyers and sellers. The company opened distribution centers in states including Illinois and California in 2022, and a supply chain hub in Seattle last year. The company said the Seattle hub would enable it to “localize and support speedier delivery times for American consumers.”

WATCH: Amazon Haul takes on Temu

Behind Amazon's quiet launch of Haul, competing with Temu in ultra low-price items from China

Continue Reading

Technology

AMD shares drop 7% on disappointing data center revenue

Published

on

By

AMD shares drop 7% on disappointing data center revenue

Lisa Su, chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., during the AMD Advancing AI event in San Jose, California, on Dec. 6, 2023.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Advanced Micro Devices shares fell 7% on Wednesday after the chipmaker under-delivered on Wall Street’s estimates for its important data center business.

Shares traded at a 52-week low and were on pace for their worst session since October.

AMD reported better-than-expected results on the top and bottom lines, but it also reported data center sales of $3.86 billion. That reflected 69% growth from a year ago but fell short of the $4.14 billion in sales expected by analysts polled by LSEG.

The key unit, responsible for selling advanced chips for data centers, has benefited in recent years from growing demand for its graphics processing units, as megacap technology companies race to develop advanced artificial intelligence tools.

Data center revenue grew 94% for the full year to $12.6 billion, with $5 billion of those sales stemming from AMD’s AI-focused Instinct GPUs. The company is the second-largest producer for gaming after Nvidia, which has triumphed as the market leader in AI chips and ballooned in value to a nearly $3 trillion market value.

“We believe this places AMD on a steep long-term growth trajectory, led by the rapid scaling of our data center AI franchise from more than $5 billion of revenue in 2024 to tens of billions of dollars of annual revenue over the coming years,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said on the earnings call with analysts.

Several Wall Street firms trimmed their price targets on shares amid the disappointing data center results and expectations for a weak first half. Citi downgraded shares to neutral from a buy rating, while JPMorgan its target to $130 from $180. Bank of America’s Vivek Arya said the company has yet to “articulate how it can carve an important niche” relative to Nvidia.

Morgan Stanley highlighted AI expectations as the most significant pressure point, saying that “visibility likely needs to improve for the stock to find its footing.”

Read more CNBC tech news

Continue Reading

Trending