Vitalik Buterin reveals Coinbase is committed to Ethereum on EIP-4844. The exchange received some criticism via Twitter for its attitude towards the rest of the industry. Buterin then felt compelled to respond and say that the exchange platform Ethereum is helping with the new upgrade for the platform.
What is an EIP?
The abbreviation EIP stands for Ethereum Improvement Proposal. In this case it is number 4844, which is also known as the proto-thanksgiving proposal. Sharding is a concept with which Ethereum must scale up considerably in the future. With sharding, you actually split the blockchain into several small parts. That way, someone running a node no longer has to validate all transactions, but only the part that takes place in his own shard.
The idea is to include EIP-4844 in the next Shanghai upgrade. However, the question is when the Shanghai upgrade will come. Part of this upgrade is also the possibility for strikers to withdraw their Ethers from the Proof-of-Stake blockchain and sell them again. At the moment that is not possible and Ethers participating in the staking process are stuck until this upgrade is available.
Brian Armstrong responds
In his message, Brian Armstrong indicates that he is happy with Buterin’s clarification. “Thanks! You do all the hard work, we are mostly in learning mode and try to help if we can. That’s the least we can do (for all chains) given that our entire company is built on these decentralized protocols,” said a happy Brian Armstrong.
In addition, Coinbase is currently funding Tornado Cash users’ lawsuit against the US Treasury Department. With this, the centralized crypto exchange shows that it has the best interests of the industry in mind. Although that also depends on your perspective. Most Bitcoiners say that Armstrong and Coinbase have too much focus on altcoins.