Quote from: ivaf on October 30, 2019, 07:24:51 AM

I am sure that if we need 32 ETH for a stake, then pools will surely appear. They will help those who do not have enough money, but who want to take part in the PoS on Ethereum.
I myself would be happy to use the services of such a pool.

Pools would be an ideal solution for encouraging other people to earn rewards on the ETH blockchain. But, this would effectively centralize the system as we know it. The more people are able to stake on their own, the better it'll be for the decentralization and security of the ETH blockchain. This is somewhat similar to Bitcoin's PoW consensus, where only wealthy individuals are able to earn rewards and secure the network at the same time. Given that Bitcoin ASIC miners are not highly accessible to everyone, the Blockchain's consensus has been somewhat centralized by a few mining pools controlled by Bitmain. With Bitcoin's current state, a 51% attack could happen in any point in time.

I believe that the same thing would happen with ETH in the future if devs don't lower the requirement of 32 ETH for staking. The Ethereum blockchain would effectively become centralized by big whales and corporations instead of the average person. Of course, people will still be earning rewards with any amount of ETH in staking pools. But they won't be able to support the ETH blockchain itself as costs will be too high. Imagine if ETH continues to rise in price to infinity and beyond. You multiply 32 ETH times the current price in USD (like for example $1,000) and the result will be an insane amount of money. The more expensive Ethereum becomes, the worse it'll be for its longevity as the barrier of entry for securing the Blockchain becomes higher over time.

Nonetheless, time will tell us whenever ETH will truly adopt this requirement or not (with a community debate would be ideal). If it does, then expect ETH to become more centralized over the coming years. By then, we'll have Ethereum Classic as the true decentralized implementation of the ETH blockchain. Just my thoughts Grin