Miners Unfazed by Opposition! Ethereum Core Developers Strongly Advocate for EIP-1559 to be Included in the London Hard Fork Upgrade

Ethereum transaction fees remain high, prompting a mass exodus of DeFi retail investors. In the face of the rising prominence of Binance Smart Chain (BSC), the implementation of the EIP-1559 proposal has become an urgent matter for Ethereum. In response, developers have proposed incorporating EIP-1559 into the "London" hard fork, scheduled for implementation in July.

What is EIP-1559

Previously explained in detail, EIP-1559, in simple terms, was first proposed by Ethereum founder Vitalik in 2018. It significantly changes the way transaction fees are calculated and has a major impact on aspects such as value capture for ETH, user experience, security, and more.

In the short to medium term, the impact of the EIP-1559 proposal on the price of ETH may be second only to ETH's PoS. In the long term, it can also have a lasting impact. The proposal aims to achieve:

• Changing fee structure
• Changing fee distribution
• More flexible blocks
• Optimizing user experience

Ethereum London Fork

Following the Ethereum core meeting, developers decided to proceed with the Berlin hard fork upgrade on April 14th at block height 12,244,000. The upgrade summary includes 5 EIP proposals such as optimizations for EVM, Gas efficiency, and updates to prevent DDoS attacks.

Due to the rising gas fees, the demand for the solution EIP-1559 has become more urgent. Therefore, core developer Tim Beiko has proposed to include EIP-1559 in the "London" fork. He stated:

EIP-1559 has been actively developed for a year and a half, with the first phase starting in 2019. The second phase has been ongoing since March of last year. Given that the "difficulty bomb" may occur in July, it is hoped to be included in the London upgrade that month. Although there are still some issues to be resolved in the clients, there are no major problems, and it has already passed the regular upgrade testing process.

If the proposal is approved, the schedule will be as follows:

• March: Select EIP proposals, start temporary network testing
• April: Finalize EIP, reference testing, end temporary network testing
• May: Select blocks, complete London testing
• June: Testing network goes live
• July: Official launch on mainnet

Miner Pools Collective Opposition to the Proposal

As mentioned earlier, Ethereum miners' income comes from:

1. Block rewards
2. On-chain transaction fees

The EIP-1559 proposal splits the "on-chain transaction fees" into "base fee + tip," where the "base fee" does not go to miners but is burned directly and removed from circulation. The miner's income becomes:

1. Block rewards
2. Tips from on-chain transaction fees

Therefore, most Ethereum mining pools are against this proposal. As shown in the image below:

Surprisingly, one of the supporting parties is the Binance mining pool. Despite its Binance Smart Chain being a strong competitor to Ethereum, it chose to support this significant proposal that can greatly improve Ethereum's current pain points.