One of the major features of the Ethereum blockchain is immutable transactions. This means that as soon as a transaction is sent, it cannot be revoked or interrupted. While this feature comes with a lot of benefits, it also comes with some drawbacks. For starters, a person who makes a small mistake in the address during a transfer can lose the funds with no hope of retrieval.
It also means that bad actors can get away with theft with ease. To solve this problem, a few Stanford blockchain research students came up with a proposal that would allow people to dispute payments on the Ethereum chain to revoke transactions.
Immutability vs. Theft Prevention: Which is the Smarter Choice for Ethereum?
The proposal from the Stanford students got a lot of mixed reactions for good reason. One camp believes that removing immutability will destroy the core foundation of the blockchain. Another camp notes that changing the core of the network to improve user experience and minimize theft is worth it.
The researchers noted that a sender who notices a discrepancy or changes their mind about a transaction will be able to convince a decentralized panel of judges to freeze their assets. If the request is granted, the panel of judges will freeze and reverse the transaction as long as the request was made within the dispute period.
Some members of the Ethereum community admit that the concept and the rationale behind the proposal are sound. However, they also noted that such a system would no doubt impact the decentralization of the network if it is implemented. Also, the Ethereum community still hasn’t settled after the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade that took place a couple of weeks ago. This may not be the best time to take away the treasured immutability of the Ethereum blockchain.
Ethereum Price Analysis
In other news, the Ethereum price is still struggling to gain bullish momentum against the USD. At the time of writing, the token was trading at $1,325.27. It was down by 0.36% against the USD and trading in a $1,267.87 to $1,337.38 range.
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