Well, it IS April Fools Day but not this time! When I finally had time and Steemit was working ( did you have issues here all day- I did) - I looked into it.
I wondered all day, if it might just be a joke?
On the other hand Vitalik isn't known to make these kinds of jokes and it actually is a proposal which makes a lot of sense.
He DOES joke around online and April Fools days a lot also.....
CoinDesk wrote the following today:
In a new ethereum improvement proposal (EIP) authored April 1, the cryptocurrency's creator issued his latest thoughts on the matter, posing to developers and software users that the maximum supply of ether, the network's cryptocurrency, be set at 120,204,432, "or exactly 2x the amount of ether" sold in its original sale in 2014 in a forthcoming software change.
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I did a check tonight actually here on this April Fool's Crypto rundown post and did not see it listed, so seems legit until confirmed otherwise:
I then went to CoinDesk who wrote on this today also:
https://www.coindesk.com/120-million-vitalik-proposes-cap-ether-cryptocurrency-creation/
Elsewhere in Sunday's post, Buterin sought to position the idea, if embraced, would "ensure the economic sustainability" of the platform following the move to a new algorithm by which ether are created. (As profiled by CoinDesk, ethereum intends to soon ditch the proof-of-work model originated by bitcoin in favor of an alternative proof-of-stake algorithm called Casper.)
Indeed, Buterin views the coming shift as an ideal time to provide clarity on how those who operate the software necessary to verify transactions will be rewarded in the future, even if the exact terms are still clearly in the ideation phase.
According to the post, Buterin foresees situations in which a monetary policy wouldn't be decided until after 120 million ether have been issued, at which point he has proposed selecting another alternative limit as high as 140 million.
Still, it's important to note that the proposal is just that - a proposal.
How would this staking reward be enforced once Proof of Work is removed?
How exactly will the ETH be generated to pay a staking reward which is enough to motivated people to stake considering how technically difficult it might be?
Below is provided a partial answer:
1 RU = (1 - CURRENT_SUPPLY / MAX_SUPPLY) ETH
Two days ago I saw a statement by him talking on his Reddit account that Casper contracts are starting to be formally verified.
Likely this means Casper is close to going onto main net.
Other References:
https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/960
Thanks for Reading.
This seems like a really excellent idea, with the sharding protocols and the coinbase announcement, i believe casper is our windows xp, time for the internet of value to scale globally. I tip my hat to vitalik for putting this out today it will confuse bankers and gives true cryptocurrency enthusiasts the heads up to buy now. Imo @barrydutton
It always bugged me there was no real hard cap man.
This is also why I sourced several articles and headlines myself, more than I listed here just to make sure.
Perfectly hidden by a holiday and a silly social event that makes lies okay. Which news is real? Perfect Vitalik move. Also keeps the dipsticks going around saying eth bought them ferarri’s and stuff dont hop back on with the good news because they arent as smart as they think lol. #buterinftw people also give too much credit to bitcoin for last years spike. Ethereum had a much larger run than we gice them credit for