EPF7 Office Hours | Nixo

Transcript

recording is on. >> Awesome. So yeah, um let's let's get slowly started. Um thank you so much for being here, Nick. So it's an honor to host you and welcome everyone. It's our very last AMA in the office hours in the cohort 7. Um so we've made it here to the week uh 17 and uh we have one more special guest very special for the last occasion of having a AMA with someone. So Nixo here, Nixo has a very wide spectrum of things she did in different organizations around Ethereum in each staker before Ethereum foundation running the protocol support and later becoming the first independent person to run uh the ACD. Um so I'm curious to hear all about that and uh want to hear

what questions folks prepared for you. But before we get started uh please just tell us more about yourself. I'm curious about your background and actually uh what brought you to Ethereum? what did you do before and how did you get started in the ecosystem? >> Sure. Um, so I actually I used to be um an environmental scientist. Uh, I was a chemist. Um, and at some point I was messing around with Ethereum um, and like cryptocurrency in general. And while I was working at this was just before co um I kept seeing things about the beacon chain launching um and I got really interested in staking and so I learned

how to stake uh I turned around and I helped other people learn how to stake. I started volunteering with a loose collection of people called Eat Staker. Um and at some point it just took over my brain. Um and so I left uh science and science pays extremely poorly. Um [gasps] and COVID was happening and CO was um was impacting uh environmental science salaries. Uh so uh yeah, so I left I left science. I started um volunteering full-time for Etaker.

Um I worked at a crypto company for I think 10 month 10ish 10ish months. um doing some um open source GitHub stuff. Uh and then I decided to go full-time with East Daker. Um I turned it from a loose collection of people into a uh nonprofit. Um organized the legal entity and um exe eventually became the executive director of it. Um and through this journey, I was advocating for solo stickers. So I would show up to these allcore developer calls and uh make sure that they were actually had solo stakers in mind with the changes that they were

considering. [gasps] Um and I guess arguing with these core developers um enough uh made me made people familiar enough with my name that uh when the EF posted a job with the protocol support team um I applied for that and uh got that job. uh ended up um sort of figuring out what I could do for protocol support um doing a lot of documentation. One of the first things that I did was I went around to people at the EF and I was like, "What research team are you? What development team are you?" Um and I posted a blog post that like enumerated was the first time that all of the R&D teams in the EF were like

actually like listed out with descriptions with products that they have put out. um with research that they have put out. Um eventually um was team lead of the protocol support team um and took over the facilitation of the all core developer execution layer calls from Tim Beo um Tim Beo and Onsgar um but I am co- co-leading it with Onscar now. um left to the Ethereum Foundation and now work for ETH coordinate which is basically just a rebrand of East Staker because I went back to East Staker after um the Ethereum Foundation and I am um still running the ACD equals >> okay awesome thank you so much N thanks

for uh taking us through all of that it's very interesting I mean we have people from all kinds of backgrounds uh environmental science that's very cool and coming through the organizing each take you to organizing the research researchers whatever theum foundation to all the core developers basically. Um, so I'm curious what is it like actually it's a huge responsibility like how do you cope with this? Like you know there are always these legends [ __ ] Hudson Tim and now there is you. So what is it like to be in this role? How did you how did you uh uh uh get step into it? Like what was it what was it like to take over the uh the the lead there? Like uh yeah how how are you handling all the all the discussions, all the

responsibility? Yeah. Um I would say the the principal um job skill of the ACD calls is being terminally online. Just paying attention because there are um 12 plus [snorts] uh organizations that um regularly participate in ACD and many many more that um occasionally participate in ACD. And so aggregating all that information is difficult because in a traditional company, somebody who's in my role um has like like three software tools that they use because all of these other developers are using the same software tools

because they are provided by the company. However, when you work with a bunch of different companies and a bunch of different organizations and individual contributors, these people are not all using the same um tooling and they're not having conversations in the same place. Some pe some people are having these conversations in private telegrams, public telegrams, public discords, private discords. Some people are paying attention on Twitter. Um you can't make you can't like be assured that everybody is using GitHub or Jira or any of these tools. So, you sort of have to like be terminally online and paying attention to all of these different sources um to make sure that you're not missing anything. And sometimes um I I think one of the biggest things is developers will

like raise these um important topics, but sometimes developers don't they're like so focused on their little niche that they don't know uh they don't have like the confidence to say like, "Hey, this is a really big deal." Or, "Hey, this needs to be done right now." They're just like, "Hey, I said this. I don't know like I don't have like the big picture. I don't know how important it is. I'm just going to set it there." So, if nobody is the person who is like looking at all this stuff, then it just sits there and nobody picks it up like, "Hey, actually, everybody needs to pay attention to this. This is a really import something needs to progress here." Um, so I really like this job. I really like being terminally online. Um, I would not

say it's for [snorts] everyone. Um, but there are also a lot of people who um, it could be for. Um, because I know that we're increasingly terminally online these days. Um, and I also just I really like the fact that when I am doing a good job, um, I it's very like I feel it. I feel it because I get a lot of feedback from a lot of people that I am doing a good job and that makes me feel really good. I really like I'm doing a good job.

Um, and it's very clear when I'm doing a good job and when I'm not doing a good job because a lot of things get dropped when I am not doing a good job. Um, yeah. Um, I really love this job. Um, I think that it is um high it's very valuable. it's clearly touching a lot of the core protocol. Um it gives me a wide breadth of knowledge on the core protocol but like not a lot of depth. Um so I am um helping organize all these things on ACDE. We just scoped um the Hagod upgrade and there are a lot of like features that I helped developers like figure out if we were

going to put into an upgrade um and did like a lot of background work like contacting these developers like hey it sounds like this needs to be done. It sounds like these tests haven't been generated. It sounds like the core developers haven't seen this thing. Can you reach out to them? Can you make sure that this is done? But like I don't actually understand the feature. [laughter] I mean it's it's very impactful and well we are lucky to have you Nick. So um thanks for that. Um it's very interesting to be in that position and uh terminally online. I I I respect that like you know many terminal people are using the the online time much less productively. So it's amazing you uh you keep up with everything. And I mean also

thanks to initiatives you you pushed like forecast it's becoming easier although stuff is all over the place. Um, and uh, so what I'm curious about, one last question before I uh, move on. Um, I I'm curious like what keeps you going? What motivates you? What do you love about Ethereum? Like how the hell like throughout all the years and all the setbacks, you still keep going like you are still there on the frontier pushing for stuff. Um, I always find you so dedicated. So I'm curious like where is it coming from? Um so the the dream of Ethereum is that um we have something decentralized, censorship resistant and not controllable by any single entity. Um

and there is just no other blockchain, no other product that I have seen in existence that has reached the amount of decentralization that Ethereum has. um and the amount of credible neutrality that Ethereum has and we all live in like a really [ __ ] up um financial economic system. Um no matter what country you're in, like they're all in pretty bad shape at this point and they're all very controlled by monopolistic um interests and entities.

Um and the dream of Ethereum is to supplant that to build a better system. Um, and I would say that in in the current state that it is, um, it is vulnerable, um, to being captured by moneyed interests. [sighs and gasps] And I think that um the people who run the facilitation of the core protocol calls have done a pretty good job of nominating people after them who have this like reverence for um for CO core protocol development and making sure that the people who are um helping the developers decide what goes into the

protocol and what isn't going into the protocol um have no like ulterior motives in mind um and that they are watching for other people who have ulterior motives. Um and so part of the reason why I continued doing ACD uh facilitation after leaving the EF was because um it's really important to have people in these roles who listen to the developers, listen to the community, recognize when maybe there's an opinion coming in that has an outsized influence, um that maybe has uh motives that aren't super clean. and making sure that things don't go into the protocol

that disproportionately benefit one entity or one type of actor over over others. Um, and I think that's what keeps a lot of facilitators um, in this for maybe longer than they want to be because facilitation while I have talked about like how it it's great to get um, a bunch of feedback and like I feel really good when I do a really good job, it's also an exhausting job and it um, burns people out. Facilitation of these calls burns people out faster than a lot of other jobs that I have seen. And I think that's just because you are like terminally online and available and part of the job is making sure that you're answering um signal, telegram, emails,

Discord, and you're like you're very available to people. Um and so um yeah, there's there's good and there's bad to uh this role. And I just want to make sure that uh Ethereum is growing up in a way that um keeps it incredibly neutral. >> Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, Nixu. It's uh that's very nice and I and I agree. I mean the neutrality of ACD's question on its own like just like resisting the capture uh it's a huge challenge there and I very much appreciate we have the right people there who are dedicated to the the aligned values to the cause. Um, yeah,

it's lovely. Um, folks, let me open up this the room for you. Uh, if you have any questions for Nixo, feel free to raise your hand. Uh, if you're curious about how this protocol evolves, how it's coordinated, how it's possible that all these different teams are able to come together and actually agree on something or like loosely agree at least. Um, feel free to feel free to uh either uh write your uh uh uh write your question in a in a chat here if you don't have a mic or feel free to raise your hand and meet Nixo directly. Um I think a lot of different parts of the the ecosystem you can chat [music] about.

Uh by the way, I see you upgraded the hoodie. I do love the hoodie. Uh I appreciate it. >> You gave this to me. >> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] I just noticed the black on black. It's Yeah. All awesome. Folks, do we have any questions for Nix? Come on. Don't be shy. Let's see. >> Mario, what is your favorite part of uh ACD and core protocol development? >> That's my favorite part of AC. I don't need to listen to ACD as much anymore.

Um like [laughter] I don't have to be the terminally online now. uh because it's it's it can get exhausting but I think this is so exciting when we what you just mentioned like we scope the hegotaa like when when when people actually agree right like the positive outcomes and we when we ship things like for me it's that's what kept me also just like excited about everything like preparing the hard fork it feels like you know like a starship lounge like a like a whole like a thing where we where we are in this together and it's u all the teams just uh thinking on this.

That's it's so so good. It's the best moments. Um yeah. Uh Scas has a question. Go ahead, man. >> Um yeah. Hey. Um I have a place and yeah, so the question is um kind of value of doing the money transfer on Ethereum is good, but Ethereum is also a world computer and u there are much much more use case that we probably don't really like take into account much. Um from your perspective, what will be like kind of this probably useful for humanity in the future use case that Ethereum may uh may help to cover um besides from doing money transfers.

>> Um so one that I am actually really excited about um Ethereum enabling is um KYC. So we have a system right now that um that is extremely invasive um and data privacy um violating and it all of these entities are required to collect way too much information and hold that information in really [sighs] scattered no norm um no regulation kinds of ways. And so like if you go to a hotel um in a lot of countries they'll ask for your passport and like some [ __ ]

receptionist behind the desk will take her personal phone and take a picture of your passport and it's like that is insane. Or they'll photocopy it and that photocopy of your passport will sit on the desk for three days. Um there is a report by Peter Van Balkenberg um that he published uh I think in September of 2025 about um digital digital verifiable digital credentials. Um and the idea behind that is uh that you would basically create a regulatory system that would um allow for um certain standards on what um entities need to collect to make sure

that you are um able to participate in whatever service they offer. And so say I go to a bank and want to open an account in the US where I live. I have to walk in. I have to hand over my ID. They take my ID. They collect all that information about me. They have my name, my address, my phone number. They have a picture of me because they scanned my ID. Um just a lot of information that is totally irrelevant to the reasons that they need to collect any information um for me to open a bank account. They need to make sure that I am not a sanctioned individual. they need to make sure that I am um maybe like a US citizen. Um they need to be able to contact me and all of

these things um can benefit from like ZK technology. Um but in order for these for ZK technology to work, you need neutral infrastructure that doesn't have like a god mode that sees into it. Um, and so there is a world where um, we have enough robustness to this technology to where I can walk into a bank account or I can walk into a bank and get a bank account without ever telling them my name, without ever giving them my my picture or phone number. they just need to um collect I like have some sort of verifi verifiable credential that I show them that I am not a sanctioned individual that um I

have an address in this jurisdiction um and they don't hold on to that information. They just have a proof that shows that I um had an upto-date credential that showed that I fit this criteria that meet these regulations. Um and in this day and age, I think data privacy is the most important thing um that we are besides like people dying and people starving and and whatever. Data privacy is a super um it affects all of our lives. It is way behind in regulation. Um, governments

cannot regulate fast enough to keep up with how this technology is developing and how the surveillance state is um, keeping all of our data and processing it and selling it to other companies and using it to influence our behavior and using it to influence how we spend our money in ways that we don't even notice. Um, and so I think that's a really exciting use case. Um, and literally only Ethereum satisfies the the necessities that you need to enable that uh use case.

>> Um, yeah, totally agree. Like the the other day I was getting an account at the local gym and they were asking for just too much information for the purpose of like I don't know the doing the uniqueness check or whatever. And uh it kind of occured to me well well okay like it's already possible but what actually like stops like stops technology right now from being adopted? Is it just like those kind of people who really go and like put themsel forward who like oh guys you know you may not collect the phone numbers but you can check those this this this things like what do you think current gap is?

I think the current gap is um models for this and regula regula regulations. Um and so when a gym opens, well gyms have all sorts of different incentives. They they want to keep you on the hook for things. Um but any any system that is on the hook for um give providing you a service and making sure that they are actually like collecting the data that they need to be collecting just overcolct because they have no sense of like okay that that was enough um and so they want to make sure that they're compliant and um I think the the thing to do is for

basically we need nonprofit s to go to to create like a a a set of standards and then they need this set of standards to be explained to regulators and then these regulators need to enact regulations that say this set of standards is enough. Not only is it enough but it is um eventually after some sort of trial period what is required. Um and we also need the negative of that which is this set of standards is sufficient and anything you collect above this is not allowed. Um and so really I think this this ends up

being like a top-down part of the process. Um because most businesses are messes. Uh most people who run businesses are messes. like you look from the outside and like you assume that businesses have their [ __ ] together, but they could just be photocopying everything and putting it in like a um desk drawer somewhere. Um, and so just having the model and having other um, businesses that have their [ __ ] together be those models um, is I think what what uh, needs to happen because if I'm opening a business, the first thing I do is I look to um, other businesses who work in a

similar um, way and I say, "What do they do?" because I'm just going to like sort of copy their their model um for how what they collect, what data they collect, and how they store that data. Um my lawyer who is helping me create this business, who works with other companies, is going to tell me how he sees other businesses do this. Um, and so it sort of just becames a becomes a game of like copy paste, copy paste, and like every business that does it adds more stuff in because they're like, I don't know, maybe I should be collecting this. Um, with the gym thing, I I have started doing this thing where um at first for like for 15 years when people

would ask for my phone number, I would just give a fake one. Um but there is a lot of interest in data privacy these days. Um and so I have started telling places like the hair salon or the um the gym. I say I don't give out my phone number. I'm sorry. Um and what happens is they the receptionist sits there terrified and goes, "My system won't let me proceed without a phone number." [laughter] And so I tell them, "Okay, I'm going to give you a fake phone number. Don't call it." um just like so that you can do your job. But I'm letting people know that I don't give out their phone, my phone number. And the reason I do that is because um the amount of interest in data privacy has increased in the in

recent years that somebody telling someone I won't give out that data empowers that person to then go and be like, "Oh, that's a thing I'm allowed to do. I'm just allowed [laughter] to say no. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I really hope we'll be able to move forward without some black swan event and u some bad stuff will happen. But yeah, thank you very much. >> Yeah, thanks for the question. >> Yeah, thank you so much, Nixo. And like you don't even know how well you fitted the question for SCAS here because SCAS is actually my buddy who developed a ZK membership system for the hacker space here. Yeah, like you know you come into

the space and you beep your card or something or you register for event and uh you do a ZK proof that you are a member. You don't we don't know who you are but we know you have a membership. You just prove that right. So this is actually to discuss exactly worked on. So uh it's a perfect perfect topic and very much appreciate yeah privacy and the answer. Uh great great uh you play the the correct string there. [music] It's awesome. Uh yeah. >> Hell yeah. It's like he teed me up for that question. [laughter] Awesome. [clears throat] Awesome. Thanks a lot, Nick. So, well, very well. And I mean, we we got a bit further from the core protocol stuff, but anything goes as you guys see. So, if you have any more questions, anything related to whether it's Ethereum or maybe some privacy

stuff. I think Nixo has a um whole spectrum of answers, please do ask something more. Hey one I will say um an interesting part of the ACD facilitation um is that there are a lot of roles in core product call development that you can like start as a um developer and like work in a client and like take over that role by doing that. ACD facilitator is sort of um unique in that

it can't be a client developer. The ACD facilitator cannot work for a client because that basically biases that um that facilitation towards one client or another. Um and a lot of the people who are going to these calls are developers from clients. And so, um, it ends up being somebody who's just like happens to be paying attention to AC, um, and going and participating and like developers are participating enough to where developers are familiar with like what what their interests are um, what their motives are um, and actually like uh, familiar with how they participate

in these in these settings. Um and so ACD facilitator has been a difficult thing to staff um which is like why some of these facilitators um not some every facilitator burns out eventually um and it's hard to find another facilitator because it has to be someone who goes to all the ACD calls who pays attention who participates who's like comfortable speaking up and participating but isn't part of one of the clients like they could have been one part of the one one of the clients years ago Um, and that's okay. Uh, but it's a yeah, it's a difficult role. It's a difficult role to staff because of that.

>> Yeah, it's um yeah um as I mentioned like there are a couple of these legends who've been doing it for years and uh it's always uh there's a big question how to how to replace this role with the neutrality with like this technical level and and overview that one needs to have. Um, so yeah, lucky to have you, Nick. So I hope you hope you keep going, [laughter] don't get burned out soon. Yeah. So maybe one question would be like how can we help you? Like what do you think uh still could be improved in the ACD process like uh it already evolved in the last year or two. Uh where do you see the future of ACD? Like where are we heading now? Are there going to be yeah

any any things that you think should be changed or evolved further? >> Um well it's interesting because Ethereum is going to go through some um changes over the next few years that will be significant to the ACD process itself. Um there right now there's the consensus layer calls and the execution layer calls. Um there are a lot of changes coming down the pipeline with lean Ethereum. Um we're not really sure how that is like going to impact the especially like the execution layer. Um and whether or not that will require like a third layer or replacing that

layer or um things like that. uh and this process needs to evolve in a way that um outside entities can actually voice concerns without feeling like they have too much influence in the process. So there if there is like a um type of stakeholder like um some type like some category of user that needs to say hey we're all building like these very different um products but we all have this shared um frustration with the protocol that

can't be addressed uh at at the application layer. um and this thing needs to be changed to enable this use case or to make our lives more um uh less difficult. Uh they need to be able to participate and things like forecast make that a lot easier because they can see where we are in the process. Um but there's also the difficulty of like forecast makes things really clear but if you look um if you look at how the hood was scoped the next um the next hard fork we have this process now where clients like submit their rankings for uh these features and

then we go through and say okay like three of these clients um did not think this was a good feature two of them did think this was a good feature, but and this manifests on forecast like three versus two. Um, which is a really difficult thing because rough consensus relies on not moving to voting mechanisms because voting mechanisms are very gameable. Um, if you see that it's three against two, all you need to do is spin up an Ethereum client to be able to like have a vote. Um, but what happens when the three cl the three clients that voted against this feature represent 2% of the network and the two

clients that want this feature represent 98% of the network. Like who do you listen to? You can't do a onetoone vote there. And so um making things really clear on forecast uh creates these the question marks about like okay how do we deal with this to make sure that like it's not a voting mechanism and we don't feel pressured to include something that has uh three versus two but 2% of the network versus 98% of the network and when I say 98% of the network as in like 98% of the nodes are running that client um because I could spin up an Ethereum client tomorrow with uh vibe coding and AI, but none of the network is going to be running my client. So, do I should I get

like any say in what goes into the protocol when I don't actually have any users and nothing I don't have the responsibility of the network? Um whereas like GU and Nethermine together, if they ship something um that only Grandine wanted, um it's G and Nethermine that are really on the hook for that because they because the a majority of the network runs those two clients. Yeah, it's um it's very difficult and um with the the clients it's also interesting like we saw new clients coming but also clients maybe winding

down so it's uh it's also evolving there. >> Yeah. Um we will see shifts. Um so the Ethereum Foundation provided uh grants to the um the Ethereum clients and those ended this year and so there is this big old question mark on funding. There is the protocol guild, but the protocol guild can only provide so much. And the funding to the protocol guild was really um was really the strongest when there were a lot of ICOs happening because then um these uh projects could commit one or 1.5% of their token to the protocol

guild and it would create this funding stream and there's like this four-year vest. Um but as the ICO season has sort of tapered off a the there's been a lot less um influx into the protocol guild and so um people in the protocol guild have seen that uh impact really uh diminish over time. Um so there is this big question and there was like there was a time where companies um running an Ethereum client is not a profitable venture. Um there it's a it's a money sync and [snorts] there was a time where companies saw this as well

it's worth it because our other businesses will offset it. or other like revenue generating stream. So offset it and that it gives us a seat at the table during core protocol discussions. Um we can see that that is like becoming less and less of a narrative. Um and I don't know why that is. I don't know what the solution to that is or if it is even a problem that that is not much of a narrative anymore. Um, but you see these companies um deciding that maybe maybe it isn't worth it for us to be um funding a client in a way that like loses a lot of money. Um so we'll see how that changes.

Um on the flip side, it's a lot easier to spin up an Ethereum client. it's a lot easier to maintain a client with LLMs um with like the the speed at which they are helping um speeding up development. Um so we might see clients some clients drop off we might see new clients come in we might see existing clients change how they operate. Yeah, interesting and it's a very good point as well that basically the cost of the development maintenance is sort of going down and it's like just a whole shift for the computer engineering there. But um I'm curious what would be maybe your advice or um uh for you know folks here who are basically starting to

become core developers some of them working on different clients or different parts of the ecosystem. uh uh from the sustainability perspective like what do you think is uh best to stick around and find maybe some sustainable position in the in the future um when when you're just starting now and uh working on big contributions the first couple of months of the EPF. Yeah. >> Um I would say make your contributions future looking. So like pay attention to the research that's coming down the pipeline. Um, make sure that you're staying on top of like the latest LLM uh, tooling, but also make sure that you are not coding and um, and like poll

requesting so fast that your your [ __ ] looks vibe coded and like flop. Um uh [sighs] yeah cuz a lot of a lot of these companies are like very interested in making sure that they are at the frontier of of this new technology and ma being the most efficient that they could be but they also don't have time to pay attention to like what's coming down the pipeline. future proofing it, making sure that it is using the latest tooling and it is going to be relevant to what Ethereum is going to look like in two three years. Um, I would say both of those things together add a lot of value to anyone who is contributing to core core protocol development.

>> Awesome. Yeah, thank you, Nick. That's a that's very good advice um for the folks here and I'm curious what else are you guys interested in? Come on, give me some questions. Give me some thoughts uh from your experience working on in different clients here basically over past few months. And what do you think uh if you have any questions about the the future or the present or the protocol or the privacy? Stephen, go ahead. Uh I I I just wondering like uh do you think do you think client diversity is still still matters today and what do you think is the main like motivation for someone to build a fresh new client since I think last time I asked the

guest from Aragon team uh he mentioned that uh maybe in the future like all clients should be the same like generalized more generalized not just a there are no there there will be no specific client that uh good at some some some part I think. Yeah. So yeah that's my question generally. Yeah >> it's an interesting um answer from Aragon because um one of the things about Aragon is it runs a very small portion of mainet but they uh dominate like archive notes. Um, and so they're sort of a specialized client. And I have heard um, Justin Drake talk quite a bit

about how um, in the future it is possible that um, we find a way for client diversity to be less important and to where um, these clients can specialize in very small parts of the protocol. Um right now client diversity is still hugely important. Um we see that um on the consensus layer side, Lighthouse runs way too much of the network. It used to be Prism um Prism um participated in uh like helping us with client diversity and making sure that people were running other um consensus layer clients. And

now lighthouse um I forget the exact percentage and like it's I don't forget it. There is no exact percentage because it is really hard to measure um empirically measure uh client diversity like what the percentage of the network that um all the nodes run is because they don't there's no way to like report it without it being spoofable. Um so yes right now client diversity still hugely important. um in the future will client diversity be um as important? I hope not because it is um expensive to build redundancy in. Um and the less redundancy that we need, the the more efficient it is, the more efficient this

entire process is. And there are diminishing returns to like too many clients. like if we had 12 consensus layer clients that we were trying to decide features between, we would be we would never ever add anything to the Ethereum protocol. Um, and so I I would say that like there is no juice to squeeze from adding new clients at this point. Um, new consensus or execution layer clients. I don't know about things like lean clients. Um but um I know that there is an intentional effort to uh make client diversity less important and like honestly we should be looking at the most vulnerable parts of our stack. Um like the parts that

naturally gravitate towards monopolization or um naturally gravitate towards um things that make Ethereum weaker. Uh, and we should be looking at research that removes that vector like um, yeah, client diversity is one. Um, and we don't want we don't want to have to fight an uphill battle for everything to make sure Ethereum stays credibly neutral. If something is an uphill battle, we've got to figure out how to remove that hill. >> Yeah, thank you. Um yeah cuz like uh from my perspective uh cuz uh like if I'm new to Ethereum I have no reason to use like some some clients that just via

uh a small portion of the whole network. For me I I I prefer use like uh gas client and I prefer use lighthouse. I won't try something like uh like um you know you know fewer people are are are using. So um do you think that the foundation will encourage people to use like as like different different clients or because I I don't see the foundation or or client team that they're asking us to using different clients. They're just trying to build their own clients, you know.

Um yeah, I will I will say um in terms of staking uh I'll address these in the opposite direction or in the opposite. Um so in terms of staking, the Ethereum Foundation doesn't really have any experts. Uh the Ethereum Foundation does not have anyone who like is staking professionally or like is in the staking world um and like has the ability to be very vocal about like hey switch clients. And so that's why entities like Etaker in the past have like been [sighs and gasps] the ones to to charge that effort. Um so no, I don't think the Ethereum Foundation will be pushing for client diversity at any point because that's no one's job at the Ethereum Foundation. Um

and the other the other thing that I have is uh you said that if you're a new staker um or if you're new on the network or um there is no reason for you to be running like a smaller client. Um so I think if you are a developer like running a node uh for purposes of like work that is true but if you are a staker there is a huge incentive to run uh a smaller client which is that if there is a bug in GU um and nethermine and that's like a correlated bug between them and they go off the network there is no way to go back like um if you finalize if they if you are like running Nethermind and they have a bug, they

don't notice the bug because they're agreeing with GU. At that point, what's going to happen is 60 70% of the network is going to um look fine. And 30% of the network is going to be like, "Oh, what's wrong? Like, we're not agreeing with the majority clients." Um everything's going to finalize. And then that 70% of the network is absolutely screwed. Um, and so it's actually really in your interest as a staker to run a minority client. Um, and that is a totally selfish decision. Um, because running a majority client puts your stake at risk.

>> Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, thank you. >> Um, any advice on preventing burnout while maintaining such intense work for longer periods of time? Um, yeah, I would say set boundaries uh for yourself. So like if you um this is global work and so people will ping you at 2 3 4 a.m. Um and when I uh started working uh as the protocol support team lead one of the things I told people is like I might message you at 2 in the morning. If it's your two in the morning and you see my message [ __ ] ignore it. Like [laughter] do not respond just because I messaged you at two in the morning. Um [snorts] uh yeah, set boundaries. Um enjoy life.

Uh there is a really strong tendency and really uh there's a really strong tendency to like get so sucked into this work that you don't have things outside of it. Um especially because um this work tends to be not just work. It also tends to be socialization and so a lot of the times you feel like you've been hanging out with your friends online um but then you haven't talked to anybody in three days in in real life. Um and so I would say um yeah just keep like strong uh ties to the real world. Um and uh

recognize that like life is about relationships. Um, and so no matter what you're building, like even if it's going to make the world a lot better, if you have no good relationships in your life, um, I think that you need to re-evaluate. Uh, because those whatever you do for Ethereum, um, is not going to matter to you when you die. Like [laughter] so, um, I don't know. I lean on the people in my real life uh to make sure that things are still going fine. And like it is a lot harder to burn out when you're happy when uh you feel fulfilled.

Um yeah, and I don't know, separate your notifications. One of the things that is driving me insane is that uh I have been using Signal for over 10 years. And so Nixo is a pseudonym. Um, Signal has been my happy place with my family, my friends. I go by a different name on Signal and all of a sudden the EF decided we love open-source software. Um, and they are pushing really hard for it now. Um, and I have heard people I have I've like been interfacing with a lot of people on Telegram who are like, "Hey, what's your signal username?" And I'm like, "No, you can't have it."

because I know Telegram [snorts] has its issues, but I don't mind. This is work stuff. I if if this entire conversation got leaked, that is fine because this is my work. Um, and so I really wish Signal what Signal had was profiles um so that I can like have my Nixo profile and have my personal profile. Um because when I get a signal notification, I get endorphins going off. I get dopamine going off in my brain like this is a person I love. Um, when I have a bunch of work people reaching out to me on signal, all of a sudden that muddies like the the sign the the uh the signals that are going I'm

getting in my brain when I get a signal notification. Um, and so I I try to tell people no like no signal is my happy place. That is the place where like I actually have private conversations and I want to talk to people. Uh, so yeah, just separate your notifications and um turn on do not disturb at night. >> Next, this is so great. I mean, I completely relate to this experience having Signal for many years, 10 years. Exactly. Actually, nice. Um, you know, you can have different profiles. You have a graphine, right? You can just install multiple instances of Signal and you can have multiple accounts. I have four signals in my phone and three of them on my computer. Like I have like

five different signal profiles. So you can install Molly client. I can send it to you later. You can have you can separate. >> I do have Molly, but if you have on graphine you can have Molly and Signal, but it'll recognize each other >> and say like only one of these can be >> they have different package names. So you can have Molly and Signal in the same profile as two different signal clients. It will work. I I'm using that and then you can have private profile or you can have different user profiles work profile of another pairs. So you can have like I have five signals in my graphine. Yeah I mean like in the different profiles as well but yeah Molly and Signal don't uh uh yeah they don't substitute each other yet. They're

like two different apps so it will work. Uh so I have actually I do it in a way that I uh turn off notification in one of them and I only get m notifications and I separate my profiles. Yeah. >> Nice. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Awesome. I think it's so good we have a graphine tips here at the in our [laughter] It's so good. So good. Uh guys, please take notes here. Um awesome. Um actually, uh before we finish, we have the last couple of minutes. I'm not sure if there are any more questions for you guys. Something you've been uh you've been holding off. Um otherwise, one last quick question because obviously I mean you have all these great thoughts uh strong values in privacy and like tech freedom. So I'm curious like what

influenced you there or where is this coming from? If you can recommend us any books, I don't know, podcasts, whatever influencers, what do you follow? I don't know. >> Um I think one of them is so what influenced me in the in the first place was my dad. My dad was my first my first Linux user. He gave me my first Linux computer. Our our family computer was a Red Hat computer. Um was a Red Hat OS. Um, [sighs] what are you grabbing? Um, [laughter] that's amazing. Um, I also have like [laughter]

I have some Red Hat stickers somewhere over here. Um, but uh yeah, so that was that was one of the first ones. I would say in terms of books or influencers, uh there's this guy named Tim Woo um who wrote a book called The Master Switch. And the Master Switch is an amazing book that I recommend to everybody. is basically um the story behind the evolution of communication technologies and how those technologies get taken from like hobbyists like cool nerd hobbyists who are just like in it for the technology gets captured by corporate interests.

Those nerd hobbyists get pushed out. it becomes like they become the baddies um who are like squashing all of the competition and then these cool nerd hobbyists build something that's like subversive to this now baddy like um corporate interest and then the corporate interests come back into this and like it becomes like this boom and bust cycle of [snorts] nerds building cool [ __ ] getting captured by corporate interests um them like litigating the hell out of um any competition Um and it like talks about how those things are and like why those things tend towards monopolization.

Um and it ends sort of with the internet and is like how do we prevent the monopol monopolization of the internet and of course this was written like more than 10 years ago. So we are already there. Now we should be talking about crypto and AI but um maybe we'll see like an addendum to that book. Um but yeah Tim Woo really cool. He worked in the um US government on antitrust law for um a long time. Uh love him. I think that's I'm like looking at my bookshelf right now. Um I think that's about it. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's very lovely and I think it's also a great advice. Uh give your kids a Linux computer. That's that's the way to go.

It's comes with a parental control by default. If they want to do something, they need to learn how to do it. That's the best kind of control. Um, no. Yeah, >> I just gave my I just gave my nephew a Linux computer. He's 12. >> Oh, that's so nice. Yeah, I mean I'm always saying like if when I have kids going to give them like a big desktop computer with Linux, they need to learn how to use it and be normal or I mean Yeah. Anyway, >> it needs to be a little bit difficult. It needs to be like difficult enough to where they have to Google how to figure out how to do stuff and it's not like the most intuitive.

>> Yeah. Yeah. and just to let them explore, right? To learn about the system. It's so lovely. Uh yeah, perfect. I think that's and I didn't know about the book, by the way. It sounds perfect. Exactly like what I've been dealing with here for years, like how the subculture of hackers and the technologies we were building getting like mainstream like that's so so good. Um yeah, thank you so much Nixo for all the recommendations and yeah, thank you so much for being here today. We are right right at the hour. So um really appreciate your time. It was really lovely to have you here today and thanks for everyone who made it. Uh it's been our very last AMA. So we are finishing our uh cohort office hours here today and it's been a great ride. So thank you so much everyone and yeah thanks for our

lovely guest. So good. >> Well done Mario on running APF every single time. >> Yeah I mean I it was tough this time without Josh but I mean here we are. It's um uh glad that we we we could start this one together and now I finish it off. Yeah. >> Cool. >> Thanks, Mario. >> Yeah. Have a great day everyone and uh I'll see you next week actually. Bye-bye.