Demand for blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum is far larger than supply, necessitating a mechanism that selects a subset of transactions to include "on-chain" from the pool of all pending transactions. EIP-1559 is a proposal to make several tightly coupled changes to the Ethereum blockchain's transaction fee mechanism, including the introduction of variable-size blocks and a burned base fee that rises and falls with demand. These changes are slated for deployment in Ethereum's "London fork," scheduled for late summer~2021, at which point it will be the biggest economic change made to a major blockchain to date. The first goal of this paper is to formalize the problem of designing a transaction fee mechanism, taking into account the many idiosyncrasies of the blockchain setting (ranging from off-chain collusion between miners and users to the ease of money-burning). The second goal is to situate the specific mechanism proposed in EIP-1559 in this framework and rigorously interrogate its game-theoretic properties. The third goal is to suggest competing designs that offer alternative sets of trade-offs. The final goal is to highlight research opportunities for the EC community that could help shape the future of blockchain transaction fee mechanisms.
翻译:对Bitcoin和Eceenum等块链的需求远远大于供应,这就需要一种机制,从所有待决交易的集合中选择一组交易,从所有待决交易中包括“在链中”。EIP-1559建议对Ethereum块块交易费机制进行若干紧密结合的修改,包括引入可变规模的块块和燃烧的基费,并随着需求的增加和下降而上升和下降。这些修改预定于夏季晚夏~2021时在Etherem的“伦敦叉子”中部署,届时它将是迄今为止对主要块链的最大经济变革。本文件的第一个目标是将设计交易费机制的问题正式化,同时考虑到链链中的许多特点(从矿工和用户之间的离链串通到容易燃钱)。第二个目标是将EIP-1559中提议的具体机制置于这一框架之下,并严格地询问其游戏理论特性。第三个目标是建议相互竞争的设计,以提供替代交易的套路。最终目标是强调未来社区交易机制的学习机会。