Decentralization Maximalism w/ Superphiz

Transcript

[Music] hello and welcome back to the strange waterer podcast thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode there is a lot of drama happening in the world of ethereum right now whether it's watching Caroline spill everything about FTX to figuring out if Unis swap is going kyc or trying to stay out of the way of the fed and the SEC and Gary gendler there is a lot to be thinking about right now but there's one thing that we as etherians can never take our eyes off of

something that in both bare and bull markets is at risk decentralization now decentralization can be a tricky word and it means a lot of different things to many different parts of the crypto ecosystem but if we narrow our Focus just to ethereum main net decentralization is the idea that no one person organization or even Nation directly or indirectly controls any meaningful part of the ethereum protocol with decentralization we have the world computer a credibly neutral platform by which all of humanity can

participate it does not matter if a government wants to take your property or if you must leave your home with nothing but what you can carry in your own two hands credible neutrality guarantees that you control what you own no matter what today ethereum is mostly decentralized but that decentralization is at risk if any one piece of the world computer is compromised by centralization all credible neutrality is lost and without credible neutrality all ethereum is is a very slow very expensive very inefficient version of AWS so ethereum must not only remain

decentralized we must push for it to decentralize further and I cannot think of any person who not only understands this but has put so much of his own effort and reputation into fighting for decentralization than today's guest super Fizz super Fizz is a true crypto OG someone who was building in crypto before ethereum even existed today he is a core part of the ethereum community and perhaps the most prominent advocate for decentralized staking today's episode is a real treat there are few people more enthusiastic and optimistic about ethereum than super

Fizz during this conversation we'll talk all things decentralization like why decentralization is so important how to understand and solve the current LSD centralization problem and we'll even touch on some of the other centralizing threats elsewhere in the technology of ethereum one more thing before we begin please do not take Financial advice from this or any podcast ethereum will change the world one day but you can easily lose all of your money between now and then okay time to start the show super Fizz thank you so much for

joining me on the strange waterer podcast super excited hey yeah thanks I'm glad to be here cool so um I like my core ethos is that I believe that the most important part of every conversation is the people involved involved so with that as like the opening statement can you uh tell me a little bit about who you are and uh like specifically how you found ethereum and like what was the moment that made you believe enough to like sacrifice your reputation and career and all that jazz to get into this uh yeah these are these are things I love to talk about um so it's funny I actually remember the moment when uh it's kind of like I I really uh well there are a couple moment

I remember uh so I'm super FIS I I used to call myself the beacon chain Community Health consultant I don't know if I still call myself that I kind of remove that but um the things that I do are very much driven by my passion for the success of ethereum and my belief in uh decentralization and really in in empowering individuals to be a part of something worldwide and I think a lot of that for me came from having years of feeling like I couldn't be a part of it like I maybe I didn't have enough ether or I didn't you know I I wasn't uh my My Views didn't matter or I my votes didn't

matter uh and I I really found this uh this desire to empower other people to be an actual part of the ethereum chain um and so you know if if enough people are a part of the chain then we have this really powerful DEC centralized chain that that um it it serves that ultimate need it's immutable um it's it's worldwide decentralized we've met our goals and that comes through empowering people um but to go back I you know I found uh Bitcoin in like April 2011 uh the moment I found it I just I became obsessed with the whole concept um and so you know in Bitcoin I

I did many of the same same things that I do in ethereum um with a different pseudonym then uh but I remember sitting at a coffee shop um near my house flipping you know through uh I guess it was reddit is fun um and I um I saw a link to vitalik's white paper I knew who vitalic was because I had read his stuff in Bitcoin magazine and I was like oh that's that's exciting this this guy who then I guess I regarded him as a kid is is doing a startup and um I sat in the coffee shop and read that white paper and I I had this distinct feeling of like um I I can't quite grasp this but I know

that it's going to change everything and so um I I just I became obsessed with it and I I was like I'm G to I'm going to put all of my Bitcoin into into ethereum and I didn't do that because I was you know there there were so many at the time so many new chains and and if you if you sacrific your whole stack on one thing then and it doesn't work out then you know you're gone uh and so I was very careful um but I did I was a part of all of the the early public um ethereum stuff one of my interesting fun claims to fames is claims to fame my buddy and I uh were able to to crash an an early uh Olympic test net and we just we were so tickled that we uh we took it down no man that's incredible and it's

some someone uh so I remember reading the Bitcoin white paper when I was uh studying computer science in undergrad and remember thinking like H like internet money like I I don't really know or care like whatever and for me I didn't find like this whole space but really ethereum until 2021 I heard Hayden Adams on a podcast on a Bloomberg podcast explaining what Unis swap was and what ethereum was and like you know I don't have to explain to you that blew my mind wide open and it's just it's so awesome to talk to people like you who um when I go read the ethereum white paper the my the first thing I think is like how did all of these people but vitalic see this far into the future like these these are the exact things

that we're talking about now that are just starting to become possible with like Cutting Edge Mathematics and Technology that is ZK and like that kid who was mad about World of Warcraft wrote about it in 2013 or 14 that's incredible it's funny you know I remember distinctly when I first read it I was like uh let me imagine all of the ways that I'm going to use Smart contracts and um I had you know these fantasies of you know developing really complex smart contracts um without really understanding the complexity and if anything is different than what I expected then um it's that there are far fewer smart contracts and they're all far more complex than uh than I really

could understand they're not they're not really the the oneoff factory kind of thing um and I still sort of look for that that Panacea of like a drag and drop smart contract Creator uh that you know has the safeguards built in um but yeah it was so so exciting to to feel that spark uh but also to not really understand what I was excited about and I I'll be honest like it's probably eight years later and I still don't um I still don't understand a lot of what my Fel is U or what that I'm not any brighter than I was then well let me

map like a little bit of like the feelings that I'm getting onto this story and like tell me if this resonates with you which is like I entered ethereum through the lens of Finance right like I that I was in corporate finance before that's my background and like I I thought defi was just like a better system and honestly like I've wired over a billion dollars before like it does it it is sorry for another time it just doesn't work and it's slow and it's and you don't know where your money is for eight hours and like I I still think that defi is going to revolutionize Finance but I think it's going to be in like eth transfers and erc20 tokens and not in like weird derivatives and like ve locking systems

and all this stuff um but like let's talk about how the world has changed since 2021 or or really since 2020 like I'm watching things like the um you know going back a little bit like watching the Iran deal being torn up and watching Cuba close again to Americans and watching like the Russia war and like the impacts on both sides for what that means for like Financial systems and like taking it all the way up until this last weekend right like what's going on in Israel and I just like the world is falling apart quite frankly it is and it's like the nation state system the way we used to coordinate is clearly like not up to the challenges of everything from a repolarizing world to climate change to all this stuff but

like I don't really know how to explain it like just like you do but the more the world far falls apart the more ethereum starts to like make sense to me yeah I I definitely I I have this hesitancy of like are we taking are we creating a new system that's going to be just as bad as the old system uh and the the Solace I get is my belief that we are empowering more individuals and that individuals um you know they may they may have flaws and they may act in Greedy ways but uh they're not they're not hellbent on world destruction they are they're more hellbent on like feeding their family and like meeting

their personal goals and I really feel like if more individuals are empowered then there's less uh less of this worldwide uh leader strife going on um and and more of a um just you know more empowered individuals I I have this I hope it's not a flawed belief but I have this belief that on an individual level people are good and they want good things and if you Empower them and disempower these you know corporations and countries then you're going to have better outcomes for uh everyone yeah no and I I I I'm about to get myself in a lot of trouble here but so like for me as like the sheltered American

that I was like I've been working my whole life to fix that but the thing that shattered it for me was February 2022 when the war between Russia and Ukraine started and like that for me is because my fiance is Russian and like she would lived there until she was 15 she came alone her whole family's still there like I say what you will about the war all war is bad and there are aggressors and their aggressors are wrong but like the way I've been experiencing this war is like helping my uh future sister-in-law like understand how to get access to like Spotify and Instagram and like how to like help these people like get their bills paid and like understand and like get in and

out of the country and um man like I can go on and on about that but you know this is where I'll get myself in trouble like I'm just so struck by like the stat that there's 2 million people in Gaza and 40% of them are under 14 like that is so crazy to me and I really do like what you said resonates with me that um it's kind of hard to find in Americans especially like Americans that are doing well that um like there's like thousands of people on this planet that have power and are evil and do really bad stuff and then there's like billions of people on this planet that just are like trying to live like dignified lives and failing at that honestly and so um you know when I look

at ethereum like what I look at is like the ability to um to do a lot of things but like at the end of the day to take back some of that power yeah that's you know you you talk about the I guess Wars have two sides I you know I I have I have my opinions on the sides but at Beyond those sides there are those individuals the people who are just trying to get through who have no part in this who have no desire for the conflict but they're suffering as as a result of it and I really do believe things like cryptocurrency can uh Empower those people to meet their their daily basic needs like I can have money for groceries or I can send money for groceries um to a a a person who you

know is otherwise suffering um you know I think a lot of people in cryptocurrency accuse me of being um too optimistic but uh if if we if we don't believe in people if we don't believe in humanity then then you know why are we trying I I I just I can't buy into this you know ultimate greed kind of thing I really believe that if we don't have faith in humanity then uh we're already lost yeah and uh yeah it does make like getting up every day like a little more a little easier when like there's something to fight for but anyway Let's uh let's Center this back on crypto and so while we're still in your background um the the moment that ethereum comes around is like a

huge moment right and it's a huge moment in a lot of ways but in one way because um it's like created a Schism right in the world of like crypto which up until that point was essentially Bitcoin and then Bitcoin forks and um really created this like let me just ask you the question directly like why do you think that you are one of the people that saw the ethereum white paper and got super excited by it and was not a person who saw the ethereum white paper and said like no the point of this is Bitcoin we need to stay pure in Bitcoin uh yeah so at that time I had been reading lots of white papers um you know that the I guess Litecoin split off in

2020 or sorry 2012 and uh it the Bitcoin talk Forum was filled with these altcoins and there were you know altcoin altcoin Wars and I I dabbled in all of them and just you know I was very excited about the potential of um you know of the general technology and at the time Bitcoin would say uh it's you know it's great try all of these other things and whatever is really great we'll just bring it back into Bitcoin and we will continue to evolve and we'll add in whatever experimental things are really valuable um but um ethereum was different for me because it was not um it wasn't a Bitcoin clone uh

and you know I don't know if I I wish that I could say I sensed the ethos then um but I didn't know the ethos I didn't I didn't know vitalic um and you know to be to be very honest my transition wasn't instant I continued to participate with Bitcoin uh for a lot of years probably until 2017 I I participated until um I felt like uh the the leaders of Bitcoin had really gone ay um they uh began censoring um I was active in the Reddit and uh they they did a lot of

really inappropriate things in the community and to to maintain a uh a narrative that wasn't really the thing that was happening um and I didn't I didn't leave Bitcoin to go to I left the Bitcoin to go to ethereum because ethereum was Superior um but it Bitcoin made it very easy they I I didn't I no longer felt drawn to their their product or their or their Community um whereas ethereum was on boarding all of these Minds all of these researchers and it's it was growing so quickly the community was strong and positive and you know I I

really draw this distinction of uh uh of Bitcoin is like machine gun enthusiasts and ethereum is unicorn enthusiasts and you know I'm I'm a unicorn Enthusiast like I I'm okay with that that's I I I identify more with that uh and so the transition was slow it was it was never really difficult um because everyday ethereum just made more sense and I I really feel like that happened for a lot of people um because I I've said before that uh I know a thousand people who have left Bitcoin to go to ethereum but I don't know any ethereum who have left ethereum to go to bitcoin so it's kind

of a one-way gate no I think the answer to my question was like Rex you just like fundamentally misunderstood that moment and it wasn't like the Schism where some people were like this is interesting and some people are like no Bitcoin forever like that kind of came over time and came later and that's what I'm reading back on into the past does that sound right yeah yeah that that was not a hard Schism at the point it there were so many competing coins at the time um ethereum emerged slowly it it made more sense to people who were paying attention slowly um there was never like uh okay ethereum mayet launched today to hell with Bitcoin uh it for most people

that I knew that I was engaged with at the time it was um yes Bitcoin is still superior but let's also check out this really interesting thing that we keep hearing about yeah no it makes a lot of sense so um let's like kind of quick move uh through like the next uh God I guess almost a decade of ethereum but um like when you think about the whole stretch from you know like the release of uh like mainnet to um you know like the da the Shanghai attacks like everything up until like let's say um SBF and FTX like what do you feel like are the most critical points um that lead us to like the ethereum we have today and when I say the ethereum we

have today I don't mean on a technic standpoint or a financial standpoint or any of that but I mean like the vision that you and I shared a couple minutes ago of like this whatever it is is the platform that um is going to enable like a internet empowered like Post State world I you know I really think ethereum is is maturing in terms of values and it's really funny on Twitter um you know there's this constant back and forth of um uh like people who were like capitalists first and then people who are like well we're also building a chain um and I think the past 10 years have really given uh people who are deeply invested in the potential of ethereum uh to kind of solidify those

those values the values that say um above all ethereum is a public good um ethereum must be decentralized uh ethereum cannot be captured by any operator um that ethereum is willing to change we're willing to grow um that you know we look forward to aify in the future but we recognize that right now we're in a time of Rapid development um it's it's this whole idea of um I I would say it's like a form of humility that says um we're working on it like that's it like we are working on it we we don't

have all the answers and I love talking to uh developers who are like uh who are very willing to take suggestions from the community and and apply them I don't see any of that happening in other chains I see one or usually it's one um thinker who has the master plan and that's what happens um in ethereum I you know I have so much respect for vitalic because um he openly does not want to be the benevolent dictator of of e theum he wants to be a researcher and he he puts out these ideas and I have become so comfortable disagreeing with his ideas

and I don't I don't argue him because okay he's like 86 times brighter than I am but I'm comfortable saying Ah vitalic that's that's probably not a great idea um and the but the thing is it opens up this discourse and you have hundreds of researchers thousands of people who are bantering about these ideas and developing in them and hardening them uh and throughout time that that kind of uh humility really allows ethereum to become a stronger and more robust chain that's that's what I love about it and that's what kind of how I see our Community Values is that uh we're growing the chain we're not uh we're not trying

to um I was going to say we're not trying to be right but that's not the way we're not we're not cocky about it um we are we're humble about doing what we think is best and and continuing to move toward that goal wherever it may be yeah and maybe to like draw um people's like attention to like specific moments where like the ethereum community has shown that like I think the the two examples off the top of my head are like first we tried to do um proof of stake in one way and then threw it all away and started from scratch and like came up with a better system that works right and then the other one I'm thinking about is uh sharding right and like what that word used to mean was like the things that it

means for traditional computers and now what it means is like not only like a pretty large step away from that but has like created an entire Paradigm around like what blockchain computers are and so um maybe like what you're saying is like to you the most important moments aren't these like existential like hacks like the Dow or like obviously like high octane moments like than God we made it through but like the the real moments that define ethereum are these moments where we as a community say hey like the road we're going down is a disaster if we continue and like because we can recognize that we are going to stop what we're doing like make a like like really think about it and like live our values

as much as possible and then like pivot together yeah all of that's happening in slow motion every day too like I I'm I wake up and you know I'm communicating with people and I realize we are we're growing in slow motion um but the the best example I can think of that in terms of the community um because you know I I do not generally work at the research level I I I try to interpret the research and I but I don't I don't form strong opinions often um but at the community level we had uh this this client diversity issue um I guess a year or two ago where prism had a lot of market share and everyone says you know prism's the best client um let's you

know it's no big deal let's stick with prism and um I I really spent a lot of time like educating about well you know ethereum is a multic client design we are a multic client design so we can have fault tolerance um and at first everybody you know like that's you know you're you're overstating it um but over time we we began to steer the ship like kind of like one tweet at a time or one Reddit post at a time we began to steer that ship closer and closer to uh client diversity we we we got you know the exchanges on board um and because of our commitment to ethereum values we were able to make a

dramatic shift in something that at the time seemed kind of impossible that most people didn't care about um and you know not even a month after that um prism had a fault that we had not had this client diversity um if if it if we hadn't accomplished what we had the entire network would have stopped but because of all of that preparation work uh because the community cared enough to make noise about it and to you know ping their uh their provider and say hey can you fix this uh we were able to uh improve the network and and really um save it from a fault yeah well and just to like go a little tangential but like

what one of course it's so incredibly important for like security reasons and Bug reasons and like the cryptoeconomic reasons that we have client diversity but like for me the magic of ethereum isn't really apparent until we achieve client diversity and like it's in the [ __ ] name man like it's when when it's like exists in all these different software implementations like what is ethereum it's not like this software program it's like it really exists in The Ether it's like property in The Ether that is not on any specific machine or location or attached to any network or attached to any software or like attached to attached to anything and um I

just for me it was the moment where I I run a rocket pool node and so like when I uh when they were doing poops when I did switched over my um I think I was running Lighthouse and gu and I switched it over I don't even remember what Nimbus and something else but like that was the moment for me that like the real like magic of um and again like what vitalic put in the damn paper in the first place like really kind of came together for me but that's the awesome part of that is you became a part of the process like you're no longer just a bystander like your voice suddenly matters and that is really what I want to encourage people to perceive that they're their contributions matter their

voice matters you know you have one tenth of an ether it matters it matters what you do with that it matters how you stake it it matters um you know what service you you do or or how you hold that um that is really my goal is to help people realize that um there the goal of ethereum is not to profit it's to Shepherd this that's I don't like religious words really but to to to Foster yeah this chain into something that's going to be better for Humanity in the future um and yes as a as a side benefit of that I I hope you make plenty of money like you deserve

that if if you've been if you fostered the chain in a healthy way by all means please make ton of money that's that's great no for sure and I think um I I definitely like I hear like we'll get to it in a moment like why it like really even matters where you stake your 0.1 eth and like all that stuff but for me I think the magic of crypto and like hopefully we never lose this but it's like i' it's not possible anywhere else maybe maybe uh influencers right but like the pathway to becoming a builder is so clear and it's exactly the same from everyone from me and like tweeting about like a theum and ethereum threads and basic computer science to vitalic

which was writing his thoughts on Bitcoin in a magazine it's like the way in is create content you know like create content put your ideas out there like be develop an opinion like develop like a community based on like your actual contributions and like I that is not something that's possible in like the beer industry where I came from that's not something that's possible like really outside of the internet and um you know I I I agree it's just like what ethereum allows as like individuals to like to live and breathe and like exercise choice in this world and like hopefully forever but at least right now like we're still in that phase where

it's like you can build like the brand and the network and the wealth that you want just solely based on like the amount of work you're willing to put in yeah I I have this it's literally a fantasy but this it's it's a real fantasy if if ethereum succeeds in you know a hundred years that people will look back and they'll say how did at that time when decentralization was so foreign how did this rag tag group of people decentralize a chain and bring something valuable to the world um and you know I hope that that magnifying glass looks at people like us and says wow these people um they shared with

other people they they learned and they they guided other people to make great decisions um because I I really feel like you know I I've said this a lot at at its heart ethereum is people it's not it's not the validator uh that's you know that's just doing a job that I can't do much faster than I can do it uh but the validator is really me it's me choosing the clients and choosing the software and participating with a network um and I I look forward to uh you know when I'm 70 years old saying yeah I was a part of that movement and maybe it failed and that's okay but um it the work is valuable it's the right work right now no for sure and um you

know I struggle with this a lot with ZK like when I have conversations with people about ZK and like you know the the like left curve mid curve right curve take like I'm really starting to feel like the mid curve take is that like or that the mid curve tape is that ZK removes trust and the like the two side curves are like ZK is just like another like generic tool in like the what makes us different from animals man it's that like we can trust each other to like work together to build something bigger than like the than individual contributions right and so like at the end of the day like like even this thing is too complex right like vitalic can't read all the

code like no one can read all the code like we are just trusting each other at a certain extent and So like um yeah I think that is kind of how like we we settle on the same idea which is like the ethereum is just people yeah that's it's so interesting like um when I think about the things that metallic knows about and doesn't know about like he is focused on the core protocol he's not not focused on the other hundreds of thousands of things that no one else like does he does he know about Pudgy penguins like I have no idea but apparently they're on sale at Target now and that's great yeah I just saw a beer brand with a board ape on it yeah yeah like so you know no matter what pedestal

you want to put him on he is still one person with his narrow view of of ethereum um and it's a very valuable view but it is um it's one slice of the pie and the real pie is all of us working together and um definitely there are people whose contributions are more valuable and more important but they there are no few people who could do this without the entire community and that that's why we get like this shared value mhm yeah for sure so let's um like pivot into to um moving forward although like one day I'd love to just get like some of your takes on like the last bubble and everything from suzu to SPF but let's uh look look forward into like

a more promising future um and like so look again like we both believe that um ethereum one day could be this like amazing like substrate of our lives and like maybe we'll save a couple minutes at the end to talk about what like the ethereum in game looks like to you but um when you are looking at what like the issues that um we need to surmount to get there um let's just put like all the technical and Technical implementation issues aside that's always going to be a problem with technology but what are the big things that like really freak you out about um just making sure we get from A to B yeah you know nothing really freaks me out uh because I the way we talk about the

community I'm I'm just doing my part I'm not I I don't take responsibility for whether things succeed or fail um I don't I don't assume that I'm right like I'm probably wrong about a lot of things and all I'm doing is is what I believe is my part to add value to ethereum uh and so uh you know the beacon chain is my area of interest um and specifically the community around the beacon chain because I think that in order for ethereum to be successful in the long run um in order to maintain this credible neutrality we need to go back to this empowering individuals we need to develop the beacon chain in a way uh that that maintains credible neutrality

and there is a very high risk that it's not going to happen um like it it will literally only happen if the community demands it if the people who hold ether make credible neutrality happen and so you know we debated before the show are like are we going to name names I'm not afraid to name names but it it's not about the names it's about there's always going to be a challenger who wants more than their fair share uh and so I see these first five or 10 years of the beacon chain as a time to sort of um carve it out uh hold places make space for a lot of players so that uh when it

does begin to calm down when when you know most ether is Stak that when the when the dust settles it is a truly decentralized chain and not you know we were asleep at the wheel one provider took over they control 80% of the validators and right now there's nothing we can do about it um my my goal is really to just empower the community to uh to develop decentralization within this chain yeah and I so I guess um what we're talking about Li but that's not a surprise to anyone right like I'm not just talking about Lio you know there may maybe I'm not like I I'm not

I'm not against Lio it's not about Lio for me because if it's it's going to be somebody and after Lido it's going to be somebody else no no for sure but just within like so the because the question I want to ask you is like looking at the history of Lio up until this point like do you think that there was a failure of the community to anticipate like just getting to this point or do you think that something else happened I think hindsight is 2020 um I you know I to be honest with you I've asked myself how much responsibility should I take for what what happens like um I I encouraged people to wait for better design staking Solutions um I I said do you know to me that design isn't optimal

um if you wait a while there's going to be a more optimal design and there will always be a more optimal design um so I don't fault any anyone for doing what's in their best interest um like they saw an opportunity and now I am talking about L they saw an opportunity they took it I don't blame them for that but what I do expect is for the community to say uh hold on we're building a decentralized chain and we appreciate what you're doing but we also need to maintain our core value of decentralization so um hold on just a minute while we let some other people also get their foot in the door and that is so contrary to like everybody's like oh economics and capitalism um and I you

know um ethereum is not it it doesn't exist for anyone's financial gain it is not it is not only an economic chain it has economic incentives but the future potential of ethereum is much bigger than economic incentives and if we don't um if we don't pay attention and you know make space for a lot of seats at this table a lot of different players at this table then there'll be nothing worth fighting for later it'll be uh you know one provider it basically there won't be any credible neutrality on the Chain it will

be uh you might as well rename it to whoever that that controlling entity is yeah and I think just stepping away from like the centralization problem from a moment and like going on this like a little more um theoretic tangent like I like to people who say like it's anti- capitalist it's anti whatever to like expect people to like take a step back and make like long-term focused choices is like who says capitalism is like God's gift to man you know and like I If if anything I think the ethereum itself is like a pretty blatant rejection of capitalism and like we can talk about

that in a lot of different ways but like to me the biggest one is like we have seen the result of every other l or alt L1 that is like essentially just like well what happens if you allow the founders and allow the investors and allow like everything to go as hyper capitalist as possible and like like I there's a lot just we we've seen that in the US like that's where we are now it's the problem it's the thing we're getting away from no and like there's just so many times where we we as a community did like step back slow things down like eat a lot of [ __ ] like and and make choices that were like what capitalism does is it strips out the

context of like everyone and part of what the context is is that like we are individuals that are part of communities that will live like far longer than what we do than than individual lives right and like it just makes everything super individualistic and like Cutthroat and whatever but like that's what's different about ethereum yeah yeah that's you that makes me think of uh this take I've been seeing uh where uh you know this whatever provider is you know recognizes this is a win or take all situation and we've just decided that that we're going to be the ones to win U because somebody has to and it might as well be us and I'm like wait that is that's the most greedy perspective I can imagine because

if it's a winner take all we should think about who that winner actually should be and it really should be home stakers it should be individual holders not any like uh organization who is like hey we deserve all of this if if you're really Winner Takes all then the winner ought to be individuals um and and so yes I'm all about let's do winner take all the winner needs to be the ethereum community the ethereum holders it needs to be Humanity um and so yeah that's that's fine if you want winner take all but it's not going to be you because you've ordained yourself that you know you deserve that because you don't you don't you don't get to just take the chain it's all

right little rant no no for sure yeah and again I think it's just um I think it's like a really sad State of Affairs that like the only way we can interpret any of this well on and the reason why I love this podcast and because we can have these like long Nuance conversations but like it does seem like in public the only way we can interact with each other is through like like just the most perverted neoliberal liberalism possible and like I don't know why it's like wild to think like hey centralization is a bad thing it compromises literally the entire value of what we're trying to do here and like

maybe individuals might want to take like choices that that protect the longterm and not like their individual like bag and um yeah it makes me sad and it but also like the history of ethereum is that like despite the conversation like we still push through to do like interesting Collective stuff yeah I really feel like uh there there's kind of a perversion of economic principles like this idea that that these uh inhumane economic principles are the Prevailing like they they are going to win in the end uh you know this race to the bottom and I just I just don't see the world that way I just don't believe that we're all damned

like I do believe that people who work together can create something beautiful and I believe that ethereum can be that thing um and that's exciting to me like I I don't know that it's true but I'm willing to believe it yeah and uh here's the hoping right and again I think that that's the path to like not Financial advice but that's the path to like 50k ether 100 like these outrageous like like clown car numbers that like really represent an ethereum taking over the world and like I believe ethereum is inevitable like I don't necessarily think like the credibly neutral decentralized ethereum is inevitable and like um yeah you know we have to work for it

yeah that's you you hear me say a lot of times like I don't know the future of ethereum I I I have to keep it in my head this kind of objectivity that says if there is something better then I have to be willing to to go to that thing um and you know I did that I learned that from Bitcoin to ethereum um it was I had this you know this realization if there is something better I have to be willing to accept reality and move toward it without being stuck in this you know this state that says this is what I chose so this is the best thing um and so I will I will accept if if

ethereum goes down the wrong path I will look for things that that serve Humanity better um but I'm very hopeful that together we can all uh make this the thing for sure so I think um with a like I really know if there's much more to say about like eth staking uh without rehashing just the exact same crap that we've seen on Twitter like over and over again like um so un like if unless you have any like final like thoughts on like the East staking and like kind of that uh decentralization Point like um I'd love to kind of like continue down the path to talk about other decentralization risks I would like to

get a thing out there is that um I I really look forward to everyone running a note at home like if you're on the sidelines if you're if you're watching this go past you and you're not a part of it I really encourage people to um to to launch a node at home that is you know a consensus client and execution client even if you can't be a Staker um take steps to get there I'm very excited about this launch of Diva that is one ether um and you're no at home and you are a Staker as we move forward there are going to be more opportunities like this and I think that the way to catch those opportunities is to take the steps you

can now so like you know oh I don't I don't have an ether but I have this computer um you know Tinker with a node get it going get involved with it uh because uh letting it happen and not participating is is kind of uh I don't it's not extractive but you're missing your opportunity to be a part of the future and I don't want anyone to miss that opportunity no for sure I mean personally I started uh staking in January no no of December of 2021 and so like I I can like personally attest to like the fact that like running your own node makes you understand ethereum in a way that like you can't pick up off

Twitter like you you just like it is like rolling your sleeves up and like figuring out like what even is this thing that we're using and you know like even if you can't stick to Super his point um like I use it as my RPC client so like um in like you know Alchemy or in infura like they don't know what I'm doing which is not even that interesting anyway but um I just no but you're living the principles like you're interacting directly with the chain as it was intended like that that's the way that ethereum was designed and there are all these Services who make it easier um and fine Simplicity is good but by running your own node by using it as your RPC provider you're interacting

directly with a chain like you are you're a real part of the process yeah and I think I think um it is like a tall order for a lot of people like a huge part of it is just like fear of the command line which you have to get involved with like a large part of it is like pretty nasty uptime requirements like if you are offline like you have to pay for it whether it's just with catching back up or with your actual like penalties and like I think the big one is like bandwidth like who who can support that kind of band like there there's lots of things and I think the answer to all that stuff is like we have a road map like the the ethereum endgame which again we'll get to in the last like five minutes here but is like is

like light clients that like don't have to sync they instantly turn on can check in with the chain and like start validating and um yeah I mean like the people who spend the time to like understand what's going on now while all of the bare metal is exposed are going to run laps around the people who download like The eth Staker app and then just like push the stake button yeah that's you know my intention is not necessarily that everyone is successful it's just that uh like I I hope you know 100 people listen to this 50 of them try it five of them will succeed but those other 45 people um they didn't fail they gained experience they have a better

understanding maybe they try it again six months maybe they tried it again a year and they're like oh yeah I remember this I remember that you know well that I I have to have an mvme uh I remember you know how where that what slot that goes into and oh yeah I remember there are two different kinds of clients it's not that I expect everyone to get it the first try but you have to allow yourself to be exposed to it um and accept when you know it's just not going to happen but you're building that foundation and that that's those multi multiple exposures over time will benefit you yeah and just like to um like really Hammer the points of this more it's just yeah you know it's all been said

it's just like if you actually believe in what we're doing um like this is what it means to like be using ethereum and if you're here for the money like just go on dydx and just like lose it all faster and just like save yourself some time right it's it's funny you say like we've said this all before I I in private I'm like why would anyone want to interview me like I just say the same five things over and over stay from home like I I can say it a lot of different ways but my message is not really that complex it is like decentralize empower the networks take from home that's that's our podcast no for sure and again I like for every reason that um we've talked about like it's the right thing

to do blah blah blah but the biggest thing is that like you'll just actually learn what's going on in a way that like will put you in a different class of people than most people in our industry so stay from home for every single reason um yeah awesome man so uh like let's let's move on a little bit and um like for me personally I see like a couple different places where um ethereum is like has risks of being centralized and like the big one we've talked about is in like the actual eth stake but like the one that's like really starting to become more and more scary to me is like in this under layer that has been um created in uh first me boost and then proposer Builder separation and so um I guess

like for the audience can you in like two sentences try to like uh describe what that setup is and then can you talk through like do you see any risk there of um of like existential risk to ethereum yeah it's it's a tough one for me and uh so simplified what it is uh me is the idea that um if you have a broad view of the network you can organize transactions in a way to maximize your payment for every block and so we have these uh these organizations called uh Searchers and Builders and so they they are watching the memory pool and they're organizing all of the transactions in a very

complex correct way to give the highest payout to the block proposer and so uh any rational actor is going to say of course I want the EST payout uh and they're going to uh have you know a couple feeds of of of Builders and they're going to choose the one that's going to give them the highest feed and sorry the highest pay and the centralizing part of that is we end up with maybe four or five entities building blocks for the entire network when the design is that individuals at home vanilla stakers uh build blocks from their house and um it's it's complicated like this was

something that I I deeply considered dying on a hill for um until I listen to a lot of researchers who are like fizz this is the way it's going to be right now be patient we have Solutions coming it's okay and admittedly it's hard for me to hear that um I I I I think about how how how deeply I want to go into and there there are some things that like um I when it comes something like rocket pool I did not want rocket pool to use me boost but any service who doesn't maximize profit is um is not competitive like they they

cannot remain competitive uh and this is you know there there's always this lowest common denominator the race to the bottom that um if if services that we value aren't competitive then we're we're never going to build market share we're never going to continue decentralizing the network so as it stands right now a tremendous centralization in ethereum is the idea that about four entities build I believe 80% of the blocks that are proposed um and that is uh an admitted weakness and uh yeah in in time we'll have that proposer Builder separation where um proposers Builders will build these blocks and

uh proposers will bid on them and um there will be kind of an equilibrium so that uh you know it kind of I guess uh demilitarized the situation but even then one of the things we're seeing now is that um building a relayer is very expensive and there's not a lot of profit in it so you're seeing relay drop out which further centralizes block production um so yeah I mean it's not my area of expertise but it is something that you know I've given a lot of thought to and it's just not a hill that is right for me now no and I think just

to um help the audience understand like what this actually means in practice and why it's a scary thing right so it was last summer right the tornado cash was sanctioned and like how that manifest Ed in Block building was like you could go to all these like super scary sites that would show you that like 80 90% of like blocks with um T like addresses associated with tornado cash were like being censored right and like what that really meant was that like two or three of the block Builders who were like very effective like had chosen that policy and because like they were the most effective and there was no real competition like that's just what ended

up happening was the like US Government censorship of code actually censored the code like and so like there there's real like risk that if this whole thing is like captured or too small or just like subject to um like basically like old men with too much power like that effectively like ethereum can be like censored or captured or or whatever right and so I well we can talk through like some of the things that uh that like lead me to believe that like this probably the right path and all that stuff in a second but I just like kind of wanted to pick apart one point that you made which was that like we have to be profit maximizing you

specifically were talking about rocket pool and adding in me boost we have to be profit maximizing or else we're not competitive that flies like a little bit in the face of the conversation we had like 20 minutes ago about how well we should like expect and hope that this community is not about profit maximizing and so um I guess like like is is this about developing a framework where you measure the risk uh associated with a new thing and then have to measure that against like the profits that's are possible and then like make some sort of Matrix about what's acceptable or not or is there is this just the hard part about building ethereum is that you have to hold all

these contradictions in your head at the same time yeah to be honest with you I I think it is a lot about holding those contradictions in your head uh it's and I I I question myself a lot because I have like these high ideals for ethereum and I also uh it's not it's not appropriate for me to expect anyone to hold any of my high ideals but some of them I'm picking and choosing like things like if you participate in a decentralized network you should believe in decentralization like I'm okay pushing that value because it is it's literally like in you know it's a decentralized chain when it comes to something like meev boost um I I I have my own thoughts my own values uh

and that you know it's not something that I think is is healthy or good for the chain but I also have to I have to make some compromises and say everyone doesn't think the way that I do like I I'm not here to be a missionary I'm here to like uh to spread breast practice to de velop a sense of community values and I cannot I I don't want to be like Don kote I don't want to to find these impossible battles and fight them until I don't have any energy left I want to pick things that are the most meaningful where I believe we can make progress and that's where I want to put my energy uh and that's really why I put so much

energy into these stake from home nodes because I believe if I can do anything I can get someone somewhere to launch a note from home and every time that happens like I have just this drop in the bucket of Victory um so yeah it's it's not about me having my way it's not about like this is how I think the change should be so everyone has to do this it's really about what values can we all can the most of us agree on um and then and then let's take those and and kind of spread those so that even more of us agree on those values it's building consensus yeah no yeah without with at risk of

being like too cliche it's like we live in a society right and it's like the the path to being a successful ethereum is like to have values that are like as strongly held as anything that you hold but then like to have your second principle be like I need to figure out a way to like come to consensus with the people around me so that we can like progress The Chain man all the the metaphors are working right we need to come to consensus to progress the chain all I do is build consensus around decentralization like that is literally all I do um and I I very much accept that there are some fruit that are Out Of Reach or maybe not even worth grasping for um and I'm very much

focusing on the things that um that already has a strong forward momentum um you know I I ask myself about this um you know the self-limiting thing a lot of people push back about self-limiting um and um you know I is it is it worth it should I be doing this but at the same time most people recognize the value in um leaving seats at the table for new new operators and recognizing that like 80% of us are moving in the right in the same direction to me means we're building consensus and the other 20% maybe they'll be get on and maybe they won't but I can solidify this group together as the core

ethereum community and we can build that value together yeah and just to like bring us back um to the question about um you know proposer Builder separation and like what is you know the the reason why I think that at the end of the day like we're in a scary state right now maybe and like there's a lot of reasons to be worried but like I do think it's ultimately the right path is because like standing still doesn't mean like that you're not going to have problems right like the problem that we have without proposer Builder separation is that some validators or some nodes or whatever right like some entities will really be able to extract a lot more value out of the train than others and

like if you take that even one logical step further that means eventually ethereum will be captured and centralized and like it'll be over right and so like the real question is like how do you deal with like these problems where like expertise and like time and money like money that you have before you start like really make you more competitive like what we do is like we break it open with an open market where everyone can compete fair and um like I think that's like really the lesson of like EIP 1559 like that's the lesson of proposer Builder separation it's like when we find like these things that see that seem inevitably decentralizing we

look to introduce markets yeah definitely um yeah yeah I I can't I can't even add to it it's you're right on I I def I agree with all of it yeah I know and I think it's about like that's like a good idea in theory and then in practice it's about like fostering a community that makes choices that like get us to that end goal and are not be able to captur it by like the doans or the spfs on the way well that's you know I I I think we both agree with this idea of open markets but we also um we have to set the stage for it it has to be um it has to be fostered it it isn't I yes I believe in open markets but I don't believe in

like Savage Savage you know fights to the death like let's set up a healthy environment for this principle to thrive not apply it in every situation that it doesn't fit yeah and like I definitely don't want to get political here but like when people say like the government like restricts markets it's like just like a total misunderstanding of like what a market is right because like without a government it's literally jungle rules it's like who has the biggest teeth or guns or like whatever and like what government does or like what consensus does or any of this does is give us a framework to like compete or to like resolve differences or whatever without resorting to stabbing each other right and so like you're

you're in America and we're talking about about government and I get nervous because I'm like so many opinions I know well this is a great that's a great time to bail since we're in a sketchy area so um super Fizz man thank you so much I really appreciate the time um I very sure that everyone knows where to find you but uh just in case can can you share where to find you and then maybe share uh anything any resources that people should check out if they're interested in like learning what it means to be a home Staker yeah um so I'm at Super Fizz on Twitter and actually super Fizz everywhere you might look uh and I I enjoy Reddit uh eth Finance the eth finance daily is my my kind of hangout um in terms of resources e Staker has a

lot of great resources um I founded e Staker in like 2018 and I've kind of separated from them a little bit but I still really uh have a lot of uh faith and and high value in in their product um e Staker is a great resource for people who are just getting started staking uh my favorite place place to find them is also on Reddit reddit.com Staker their motto and they have a great Discord as well their motto is uh well I created it is uh welcoming first and knowledgeable second um and the idea being that if you welcome people um and they feel comfortable then they're more able to learn uh and that's that's really the the goal of eth Saker

yeah and another one I'll throw in there which um you don't have to like buy the token you don't have to use it but like the rocket pool uh docks are just like really really like well thought through and um like just helpful to understanding on to like what it means to run a node like how to actually do it like just skip through the parts about um like rocket pool if like that's not your jam but um there's a lot of like really really good resources I'm very comfortable saying right now if you have 32 ether you should stake from home if you have 10.4 ether then rocket Pool isn't absolutely awesome uh platform they're trustless open source decentralized and permissionless like they and I I try not to be a commercial

because anyone who knows me knows that like I don't shut up about Rocky pool um I think I did good this time but it's it's really um a great way for people with less ether um even if you have more ether to make deepen substantial contributions to uh the health of ethereum so it's a great platform and like we all love rocket pool because it's like really the only decentralized option other than doing it yourself but like shout out to all the amazing open platforms coming up like um Diva like SSV like Stak wise like um puffer uh like there are so many that are like really going to make this like a much more like decentralized and vibrant and

like Innovative and competitive ecosystem well and that's that's the thing you know uh I don't want to go too far back but uh if if we stake everything now uh if we if we aify you know one liter it's very difficult for any other quality providers to get a seat at the table so all I'm really encouraging people to do is self-limit those providers to 22% or ask them to self liit to 22% so that there's a lot of room for other providers at the table really great new solutions that are coming to um to the market so I'm very excited about them just like you said yeah and it's like hard to remember this but like we really only are a year out from the merge like it's not surprising that like it's just now that new staking

platforms are coming out yeah Ian you know it's funny um I really thought they would be here sooner I thought that there would be more healthy competition um when rocket pool launched I thought it was going to be the first of an onslaught and uh it didn't unfold that way but that doesn't it's not the end of the game it just means that the community needs to adjust expectations to make sure that we maintain a healthy chain yeah and look like the positive spin I'll put on it is that the Innovation like just like Maelstrom like didn't happen with rocket pool like that was just one on its own right but we're almost lucky that this

melstrom is happening on this second phase because like we have these brand new technologies which are like DVT and um well like lots of like really interesting stuff that's coming down the pipeline so DVT is going to change everything if and people who are listening should really pay attention to DVT because it's going to allow anyone who wants to to stake from home with less than 32 ethers so if you're serious about that um keep an eye out on these DVT Solutions and uh please please especially if you live in like a really far-fetched place where no one else is stake from home that is that's really how we build a more Network yeah all

right man uh thank you so much I don't want to take up any more of your time but uh just very much appreciated and hope to see you soon yeah thank you so much Rex