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fulldecent authored Jan 12, 2025
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## Rationale

### Community direction
### Forking is no longer possible

Since The Merge, it is practically no longer possible to "fork" Ethereum Mainnet. Because validators must stake valuable assets to participate in the network, any validator who is acting rationally must choose any software change decision based on what they think everybody else will do. If they expect 95% or more participants to make an upgrade, they should upgrade. If they expect 5% or less participants to make an upgrade they should not make the upgrade. For numbers in between, there is some threshold where a validator will have a better expected outcome from turning off their computer rather than risk participating in an uncertain upgrade. Note: turning off a validator incurs a small penalty, but running the wrong software version can slash 100% of your staked Ether (currently 16 ETH per share).

Currently all software change decisions are decided from Ethereum Foundation. The Ethereum project and community does not have an official mission statement or vision, but this proposal asserts that the Ethereum community would wish Ethereum Mainnet to be a community-directed project. The current management of software change decisions are antithetical to that wish.
Since forking is not possible, properly managing consentual upgrades is much more important.

### Community direction

1. The Ethereum project and community does not have an official mission statement or vision.
2. This proposal asserts that the Ethereum community would wish Ethereum Mainnet to be a community-directed project.
3. On-chain signaling of upgrades allow community direction of the project in a way that is not possible today.

### Decentralization

This EIP moves decisions and signaling of changes to the community participants.
1. Currently all upgrade notices are published from blog.ethereum.org.
2. This ethereum.org website has opaque ownership. Ownership of the domain name (`whois`) is "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY". The bottom of the website does not have a legal entity listed as its publisher.
3. An opaque organization that unilaterally announces ("decrees") upgrades to a software program is antithetical to the community-directed wish of the Ethereum community.

Please note that the role of Ethereum Foundation does not change much in this respect. It can still involve in client development, and announcing changes. The difference is that Ethereum Foundation blog would use new language:
Please note that implementing this EIP does not much change the role of Ethereum Foundation. It can still involve in client development, and announcing changes. The difference is that Ethereum Foundation blog would use new language:

```diff
- The Ethereum network will be undergoing a scheduled network upgrade.
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