Vitalik: Only Ethereum 2.0 Will [Probably] Fix ETH Supply Calculation

Following the recent debate in the crypto community regarding the “total ETH supply,” Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has weighed in on the discussion in defense of the network. 

The Ethereum network was widely criticized yesterday due to the inability of ETH developers to provide computational evidence of the total ETH supply, unlike Bitcoin, which has a fixed amount of approximately 21 million coins. 

Contributing to what famous Bitcoin proponent and blockchain educator Andreas Antonopoulos said yesterday, Buterin noted that the criticism that the Ethereum Foundation does not have what it takes to compute the total ETH supply shows that crypto enthusiasts are not “deeply” concerned about the “sound money religion.” 

He further added that the network would be better equipped to fix the ETH supply calculation issue in the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 and the implementation of the Ethereum Improvement Protocol 1559 (EIP-1559). 

…whose community cares deeply about the sound money religion. That said, I think “satisfying the sound money religion” cannot properly happen until the eth2 + EIP 1559 issuance schedule is implemented and proves its sustainability regardless….

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 11, 2020

Notably, Ethereum 2.0 and EIP-1559 are designed to make significant changes that will address the problems currently rocking the network. 

The upgrade would see the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm replacing the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism because the latter does not have the technicality to handle a more sophisticated network like Ethereum. 

Even though the upgrade would take years before it will eventually launch, Buterin has urged critics to exercise patience as developers are doing everything to ensure it goes live soon. 

However, while people are still waiting for Ethereum 2.0 and EIP-1559 launch, Buterin disclosed that some ETH developers have made “supply calculation scripts” to calculate the definite ETH supply.   

Varying ETH supply figures 

Before this time, all ETH calculation scripts have failed to give a definite amount of coins of the ETH supply. Despite these discrepancies, Antonopoulos came to Ethereum defense yesterday, explaining why it is difficult to determine the number of ETH supply, unlike Bitcoin. 

According to Antonopoulos, while Bitcoin mines one block in 10 minutes, Ethereum does 40 at the same time.  Based on this, he said that the varying number of ETH supply is mostly influenced by the time the question is asked.