ETH Scalability + Power Consumption + Gas problems and the Solution EWT/SUSU

9 min readMay 12, 2021

Before I start this article I did not involve Bitcoin because the topic is already complicated enough comparing these 2 Assets. Also this is no financial advice and just my research, what you do out of it is on your decision.

I will be focusing most of the research on Ethereum and proof of Work and not Ethereum 2.0 / Proof of staking since I don’t have enough articles to base my research on it yet. Maybe if I feel like it I will review the whole topic again once released and broadly scaled but for now we use the current System.

Topics:

1. Fees (the hottest shit right now)

2. Energy Consumption

3. Scalability

4. staying decentralized

5. SUSU Dex

1. Fees

Ethereum:
I’m pretty sure by now everyone has used ethereum and the Dex’s revolved around it, Users reported that fees have gone up since recent events (The Meme explosion) and are still astronomically high. This current Network and Fees at least from my Vision has no chance at complete adoption in the normal Market.

To give a view examples:

The Gwei (Fee used to pay for transaction) was recently so high that for a single swap of an asset on as example uniswap (A dex revolved around the ERC-20 Chain) you had to pay upwards to 250–400$ factoring in the Confirmation + Transaction. This can change and did also go down to sometimes around 20$ (Before the Dog run) but is very volatile and depends on the Market and its movements. The Crypto community has come to somewhat accept those fees as needed and are happy with a 15$ Fee on a Transaction.

This is out of this world. People who are happy and say the fees are on discount when we are talking about 15$ are in a different Space than anyone else. Their Own “bubble” of crypto and fees but from an outside perspective this is neither scalable nor should be seen as normal. It might work for big Investors transferring huge Sums but for the normal folks like you and me this is not feasible. If we want to mass adopt the fees cannot be higher than a few cents per transaction and in my opinion even a few $ is too much.

These fees are in connection with PoW and the massive adoption we have gone through in 2020 and 2021. The amount of users that came into crypto with all these shitcoins is decent but still small considering we want a adoption world wide. Or atleast this should be the longterm Goal.

EWT / EWC:
The energy web token is based on a different blockchain from ERC-20 called energy web chain in short EWC. Other than PoW (Proof of work) used by Ethereum it uses PoA (proof of authority).
(On a Side note even with the Upgrade of Ethereum 2.0 and PoS (Proof of staking) PoA still has the upper hand. It is considered as a more robust Solution and Performance in the big scale is greater. To get a better grip of the topic I would suggest looking into PoW, PoS and PoA)
With its PoA use it can and has involved huge names such as Siemens or Shell to name a few. This enables mass adoption and makes it more attractive to companies such as Google or Microsoft.
To give an easy explanation as to how this directly affects Fees paid on the Network, fees are in the ranges of: $0.003605 USD.
With the PoA concept of EWT you might ask yourself how the validators then get paid enough to run the network and this is done as follows:
EWT from transaction fees and block validation awards compensate validators for the costs of running a node (e.g., capital investment in servers, high-speed Internet connection, operational costs).

Too conclude the Fee topic, with the deployed decentralized PoA model that is used by EW-DOS the Network is more scalable, cheaper and faster than Ethereum. (Even with the Ethereum 2.0 and the PoS adaption the EWC Network will still outperform eth2 in any aspect given)

2. Energy Consumption

Ethereum:

It is not news that Ethereum and its current system is too energy demanding but with the quick adaption made over 2020 and 2021 these Problems are put into greater perspective. We reached a level of energy consumption so unhealthy that the thought about greater Network expansion and a potential Bitcoin flip should raise serious concerns.
I want to put this into a more understandable perspective, here are a few examples:

Annual Power consumption:
The Annual power consumption of Ethereum is equal to the annual power consumption of whole Hungary. (43.17 TWh)

Annual Carbon Footprint:
The Annual Carbon Footprint is equal to the annual Carbon Footprint of Bolivia (20.5 Mt CO2)

Single Ethereum transaction Power consumption:
This is the fun part, 1 Single transaction equals to a power consumption of a average U.S household over 2.7 days. If this doesn’t raise concern then I don’t not what will.

Single Ethereum transaction Carbon Footprint:
Equivalent to the carbon footprint of 84,376 VISA transactions, this is just beyond crazy and is exactly the problem when we talk about scalability.

Energy Web Chain:

We already briefly touched the PoA, this is the Key to how the energy web chain stays green and is able to proof it. Validators need to be verified in running on renewable energy. With this the EWC manages to have carbon emissions as low as possible.

Compared to Ethereum there is no need to display the annual Carbon Footprint as it runs completely on renewable energy. I would have loved to give an easier comparison just like I did with Ethereum above but sadly I did not find enough data too conclusively make an example.

The overall green power consumption is said to be a 1/3 of Ethereum, this info is pulled from the Energy Web Chain Whitepaper.

Quote of the PoA Energy Consumption:

“Eliminating competitive Proof-of-Work results in 54,000x less energy consumption and 350x lower network costs (i.e. costs incurred by organizations hosting validator nodes) which translates into lower and more stable transaction costs“

To print a better picture I quote the energyweb website:

“its current instantiation, is a publicly-accessible network with permissioned validators hosted by EWF Affiliate organizations. It relies on a Proof-of-Authority consensus mechanism with capacity for a 30x performance improvement and 2–3 orders of magnitude lower energy consumption compared to Ethereum.”

3. Scalability

As we approach a new age of Technology we should also think about the mass adoption of crypto into the real world. If there is a solution that is faster, better, greener and decentralized we should really consider and evaluate our options.

Ethereum:

The scalability into the masses gets quickly stopped with having something like PoW in place. If there were any doubters on this topic just have a look at the current Gas fees and the Miners needed to support this Load + the Power Consumption to manage the current crypto scene. This only takes into consideration the current amount of people. If we are talking on a global scale / adoption this system currently in place is simply not do-able.
Ethereum 2.0 should fix these Problems, make it faster cheaper and consume less energy. But keep in mind even if eth2 is a complete success and fulfills all the things they promise they will deliver, it is still underperforming when we compare it to the Energy web chain.

Energy Web Chain:

With PoA and huge validators such as shell and siemens nothing keeps this baby back from a global scale adoption. Of course the Network of validators would need to expand a bit but with the current benefits given to big Validators and with companies like Microsoft or Tesla who are interested in renewable energy there is no problem of scaling this into something way bigger than it already is.
The hidden potential in EWC and EWT is immense and looking at all the data given this could solve many problems currently phased in the crypto scene and also globally adapting into renewable energy.

4. Staying decentralized

Ethereum:

The funny thing is that the current running PoW Network is in theory fully decentralized but in actuality it isn’t as much as you would think. The Miners are on their own decentralized but the mining Pools are not evenly split. This Means that the Top 3 mining Pools control over 51% of the hashing power. Now contributing to these pools is split amongst many users but in the end when giving the hashing power to the Pool the pool itself has the last decision of what it does with that provided hashing power. Ofcourse a targeted attack would help neither the Pool nor the currency nor the Network but when talking strictly about decentralization you have to look at that Argument. So in the end the decentralization is in the hand of the Miners and how they contribute with their Hashing power.

Ethereum 2.0 and PoS and its decentralization on the other hand is dependent on the validators. That means that again in theory it is decentralized but if we put this into perspective the amount of Ethereum matters. With huge exchanges such as binance and Coinbase the amount of Ethereum staked by them could be insanely huge. If that is put in an even bigger perspective moving forward the decentralization is more theory than practicality. Stakers that try to hurt the Network do get penalized but that is beside the point. Just solely talking about decentralization this as well as PoW and PoA all have their own flaws and nothing is truly decentralized. Some may have more upside than others but that always depends on the perspective and future development of the system.
Conclusion: Neither Eth nor Eth2 are fully decentralized. PoW and PoS have their own problems but in the current eco system PoS is potentially more decentralized than PoW. That can change with the future tho keep that in mind.

Energy Web Chain / EWT:

To best explained the deployed PoA Version and its Features i quote a Article wrote in the Documentation of EWT:
(I don’t wanna butcher their explanation with my own Comments to it so i thought giving the raw info here makes the most sense)

“The EWC is an open-source, publicly-accessible digital infrastructure that supports decentralized applications (dApps) in the energy sector. To establish consensus about the current state and canonical history of transactions, the EWC and the EW Test Networks currently uses the Aura Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus algorithm. This PoA mechanism was chosen for three primary reasons:
To enable transaction capacity on the order of hundreds to thousands of transactions per second: we estimate that the EWC has the ability to achieve 30x greater throughput capacity than the Ethereum mainnet;
To minimize resource (i.e. electricity and computation) consumption, and subsequently, transaction costs: Eliminating competitive Proof-of-Work results in 54,000x less energy consumption and 350x lower network costs (i.e. costs incurred by organizations hosting validator nodes) which translates into lower and more stable transaction costs;
To improve compliance with relevant regulations and business requirements in the energy sector: substituting fully anonymous miners for vetted validators enhances the ability of decentralized applications to comply with various regulations, including data-protection regulations like GDPR, and increases the likelihood of widespread user and enterprise adoption.
In this PoA consensus model, only a defined group of nodes, called Validators, are permissioned to validate transactions and create new blocks.”

I would like to simplify their answer but have to admit that it is a bit too hard of a Task for me to put all of it into easier words without butchering the meaning behind it.

5. SUSU Dex

SUSU / Carbonswap:

Most if not everyone that came in contact with ETH knows about the Dex connected to it. A few examples are UNI and 1inch, these provide the possibility to swap a coin based on the ERC-20 chain for another coin with high fee costs (These are connected to the Gas costs from the Eth Network and also include Fees from the Website).

Currently UNI connected with the Eth Gas costs can have fees of up to 400$ for a single swap of a asset. This is beyond a joke and obviously not scalable that should be clear to everyone.

Now SUSU (carbonswap.exchange) comes into play. It is the first Green energy Dex working on the Energy web chain.
Essentially it is a copy of Uniswap programmed on EWC. The Dev’s behind this project were working on EWT:
(https://docs.carbonswap.exchange/#who-are-we)

This is a major first player with a good Dev Team, the website is solid. I used it alot so far and only had good expiriences. There is a Omnibridge for swapping ETH into the EWC chain (wrapping ethereum — WETH) to than use that on carbonswap. There is alot to come and the Community around the Project is really active friendly and helpful- Shoutout to my $SUSU Gang!

Instant Transaction, based on Green energy, 0 Gas Costs, micro Fees, known and solid Devs. This thing is brewing and just waiting to pop off.

The early bird phase is still ongoing and alot of $SUSU is being farmed, with that the $SUSU price is fighting inflation until the end of the phase meaning the price will fluctuate and probably go down a bit until the rewards get tuned down. Regardless this is a longterm and sitting at a 9M MC is beyond tiny for the usecase!