Money 2.0 Stuff: Are you not entertained?

For an industry so uniquely captivated by monetary policy, I was rather surprised to see Vitalik Buterin’s update to Ethereum’s Proof of Stake reward specification seemingly pass under the radar. With Ethereum researchers suggesting that Phase 0 of Serenity could arrive before year end, this latest announcement could be the closest thing we have to a credible commitment to Ethereum’s future, long-term issuance rate.

Under Casper, Ethereum’s flavour of Proof of Stake, block rewards adjust dynamically according to total Ether staked. In order to bootstrap security, staking yields are high when total Ether staked is relatively low – 18.10% return at 1m staked – and continue to fall as more Ether is staked, where the marginal addition of stake does little to affect network security: 10.45% at 3m Ether staked, 1.81% at 100m Ether staked.