Ethereum Developer Revives Vitalik Buterin Proposal to Change ‘Gas’ to ‘Mana’

‘Mana’ From Vitalik in 2015

An Ethereum developer has submitted a proposal to change the name of “gas” on Ethereum to “mana,” in part to reflect the increased eco-friendliness of the blockchain’s transition to Proof of Stake from Proof of Work.

Alright, guys, my draft EIP on renaming `gas` to `mana` got merged some minutes ago. Please leave your feedback in the FEM thread (the PR got locked for obvious reasons ?):https://t.co/uaKSnQsHfQ pic.twitter.com/crVIvi19zT

— sudo rm -rf —no-preserve-root / (@pcaversaccio) April 3, 2023

The Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) from Pascal Caversaccio echoes an EIP that Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin submitted in 2015.

According to Caversaccio’s EIP, “The underlying motivation for reviving Vitalik’s original proposal from 2015 is that we have finally arrived at the age of Proof-of-Stake, and given the roadmap ahead (i.e. “The Surge”, “The Scourge”, “The Verge”, “The Purge”, and “The Splurge”), I consider this moment as the last opportunity to make such a far-reaching semantic change.”

The dev acknowledged that the change would not be backward-compatible because it renames the core term “gas.”

According to the EIP:

• mana reflects the increased environmental friendliness of Proof-of-Stake;
• mana is generally understood to be ephemeral and non-transferable, which better represents the concept of gas; and
• mana is generally portrayed as renewable, while (natural) gas is non-renewable.

The mana proposal has been met with differing responses from the Ethereum community. Some said they are in favor of the change, while others say it’s unnecessary.

Others said that while they may personally agree that mana is a more suitable term than gas, the change of the core term would wreak havoc throughout the Ethereum ecosystem, in terms of applications, tutorials, explorers, etc.

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What is Ethereum:

Ethereum is an open-source, distributed computing platform based on blockchain technology that can execute smart contracts — that is, the terms written in the contract will be executed transparently, automatically when the previous conditions are satisfied, and no one can interfere. At the same time, Ethereum also allows developers to build decentralized applications (DApps) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO).

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