The Significant Impact of EIP-1559 on the Ethereum Ecosystem and Possible Strategies for Miners

EIP-1559, as one of the most watched upgrades in Ethereum's history, fundamentally changes the way users participate in transaction bidding. This upgrade will have a profound impact on multiple aspects, including the future value capture of ETH, user experience, and network security. Although this proposal has sparked huge controversy within the community, it has currently received overwhelming support and is awaiting final evaluation from core developers.

The current income of miners mainly comes from three channels: block rewards, transaction fees, and Miner Extractable Value ( MEV ). After the implementation of EIP-1559, the income miners receive from block rewards and MEV will remain unchanged. However, during times of low network congestion, most transaction fees will be burned. Miners can only earn additional bidding fees when demand exceeds the gas limit.

Miners need to invest a large amount of capital in purchasing equipment and electricity to obtain these profits. This structurally makes them optimistic about ETH and the Ethereum economy. However, users are the main body of the Ethereum ecosystem. All of the miners' income ultimately comes from users and the applications and services they use. The demand for ETH by users, trading activities, and the use of DeFi applications are the fundamental sources of miners' income.

In the face of the implementation of EIP-1559, several strategies that miners may adopt and their feasibility analysis are as follows:

1. Stay on the old chain: Due to the existence of the difficulty bomb, this option is technically unfeasible.

2. Forking out a competing chain and copying the Ethereum state: This scheme has a very high opportunity cost. The complex ecosystem of Ethereum is difficult to replicate in its entirety, and most assets and applications on the forked chain will lose value.

3. Create a competitive chain with a brand new state: Although technically feasible, the new chain will face the challenge of supply distribution. Resetting the supply will require long-term high inflation, while replicating ETH distribution may lead to a decrease in coin price.

4. Joining a new chain but trying to stop EIP-1559: The strategy of suppressing basefee growth by controlling block size is difficult to implement in practice, as competition among miners undermines such cooperation. Even if a cartel is formed, it may lead to serious attacks on the network, harming the interests of all participants.

5. Accept and implement EIP-1559: Considering the risks and costs of other options, this may be the best choice for Miners. While it may reduce some revenue in the short term, it is still preferable to creating a competing chain or launching an attack on the network.

In summary, although EIP-1559 may impact miner earnings in the short term, collaborating with users to implement the upgrade remains the best strategy for miners. Any radical opposition could severely damage the value of the Ethereum network, ultimately harming the miners' own interests. Therefore, users and developers do not need to make additional concessions to miners; both parties should work together to ensure the smooth implementation of this important upgrade.