ETH: State of The Nation with Tim Beiko, Josh Rudolf, and Dankrad Feist

Transcript

But I think now we're finally sort of understanding the design space and the infrastructure and ZK is here and all these kinds of things that are making this much easier to do now. >> And we've seen this in the history of Ethereum, right? Like when there are things even though they're like welldeveloped and whatnot that the community just doesn't want. >> We all know that design by comedy comes with certain problems and so on, right? So like this is kind of like really I I think it's one of the biggest risks for for sure because like we had overemphasis on this idealism and tribalism instead of product application user experience onboarding and really into real albeit sometimes unsexy categories. one of like really experimental financial um imagination and and the other of the tried andrue

practical fundamental economics and finance that has lasted 100 years and will last 100 more. >> Welcome back to the rule. This is your home to learn from the biggest guests, the brightest minds at the tip of innovation. >> Our goal is to help spread the collective knowledge of everyone in our community. >> We are breaking crypto out of its echo chamber and taking it to the real world. welcome to the show and um thanks for being here. >> Thanks for having me. >> Hello. >> Yeah, thanks. >> Awesome guys. Yeah. Um you know, Ethereum is such an expansive and and vast organization. Um earlier we were talking about prediction markets kind of as this shelling point for imagination.

I think Ethereum is also shelling point for intellectual capital as well as financial capital and several other things. A lot of that rolls up into you guys. Um, you know, I've seen you guys on all core dev and hosting AMAs and going to conferences and doing all these things. And so, you guys have really been shepherds for the entire ecosystem. We were kind of talking about before you guys hopped on like what what is this episode going to mean for the roll up and for Ethereum and we kind of came to like this like state of the nation if you will, like the state of the network. Uh, maybe you guys could just kind of give each of your pieces. You each have a very, you know, unique role within the organization. catch us up. What's what have you guys been up to and and

generally the state of the nation from each of your perspectives? Um Tim, maybe we can start with you and Drad and Josh, we'll go down the line. >> Sure. Um well, yeah, first of all, thanks for having us on. Um I can start maybe from the perspective of like the L1 protocol because that's what I spend my time on. Um I think we're entering like a pretty exciting time where we've figured out a lot of the path towards how to scale Ethereum. Um at least at like a high, you know, architectural level and there's like a really broad shared appetite towards just addressing every single bottleneck that's preventing us from scaling Ethereum. Uh both on a layer one and layer two front.

Um, and you know, I won't get too much into the weeds, but I think we've just had all this R&D happening in say the past five years on things like ZK, things like uh sharding and, you know, blobs for layer 2s that kind of felt impossible to ever ship in production uh, you know, a few years ago, but just has seen this massive exponential progress where we're now at a point where um, after a couple orders of magnitudes improvements on many different fronts, uh, we can start kind of bringing these things to production.

So yeah, it's a really exciting time. We're we're just kind of on this cusp of being able to scale Ethereum to a you know larger and larger user base um and doing so in a way that doesn't compromise on the core properties of the network. So the reason why this is hard is just um you have to do it in a way that maintains all these uh properties around you know censorship resistance, decentralization that we value. Um and yeah, we're kind of on the edge of that. So at least for the protocol that's I think we're we're at. >> Awesome. Josh, welcome to the show as well.

>> Yeah, thanks for having me. Big fan. Um I guess for context, so we have the three strategic initiatives at the F as you and your listeners probably know. Scale L1, scale blob, improve UX. I sit on the improve UX side of things. Um not sure where to start. I guess what I would say is that I think like Tim mentioned the path to scaling L1 and scaling blobs is definitely becoming much more clear. There's a pretty legible path um to significantly scaling uh L1 and to scaling blobs. Um I can't say that is exactly the same case for improving UX and solving interop, but it is becoming much more

clear which is making me more optimistic. I don't think I'd say the same thing maybe 6 months ago. So yes, like the picture is a bit fuzzier, but it's becoming significantly more clear and I expect it to become even more clear in the coming months. Um, and we yeah, just a couple of weeks ago, we uh, Barnaby and myself released an update on the approved UX track. Encourage your listeners, anyone to to go check it out. There's more information there on the road map to to improving UX and to unifying Ethereum. Um, it's clear that it's a top priority both for us and for the ecosystem. Happy to share more about that. Um but yes, it's also an exciting and challenging time in terms of uh unifying Ethereum >> and Dank welcome to it. Thank you for

for joining. >> Thank you for having me. Yeah. Um I think like I sit uh between all the chairs here at the moment like I uh I kind of like um yeah I started thinking about like after being sort of like the I don't know like ivory tower researcher at the EF for a few years I started thinking about a lot more practical stuff and like since last year like um have been active on pushing everything towards like yeah making sure that Ethereum is ready for the real world. I think like it's like a pretty big moment for crypto, right?

Like all the eyes are on us because like uh for 10 years we had the excuse, oh, you won't let us do what we want to do, so we can't do it. Well, now we can do it. So like we actually have to show what it is, what we can do. And um I think yeah, like it's a it's a great moment. It's uh it's interesting because like things are definitely different I think from how many crypto natives have imagined them to be, but they're still very very exciting I think. And there's like a lot of things happening. And I think like yeah, I mean Ethereum uh does really need to like yeah like uh make sure it stays in the game and like get things right right now. I think like it

it's like things move much much faster than they have moved for a long time and like um it's uh it's kind of like how I think about like yeah like trying to make sure that we get things right and >> awesome >> do the right things like scaling one was one of the big things that we really needed to change and like finally we've started doing it >> I agree it just took Max Resnik leaving to Salana in anger with a hell of a hell of a >> He has played his role as well.

>> Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining us. >> I'm grateful to him. I mean, he's he's >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he had the right idea. Um, and it's unfortunate that, you know, he took his talents to Salana, but at the end of the day, I think we can move firmly on as we are. And guys, we are entering Ethereum's institutional and practical era more than ever. And what I mean by that, you know, from a holistic perspective is cryptos entering this this era where uh regulatory clarity with a mix of returning to fundamentals, investors wanting to invest into uh real sustainable long-term assets, institutional capital with longer time preferences, creating a new dynamic in the market. In in light of this, we're moving deeper into what I

consider like deep value territory, which I think may be a roaring kitty term if I'm not mistaken. So, we're moving away from some, you know, fugazi decentralization, doing dows or doing different types of structures for the sake of them. Now, there's anything wrong with Dows. They're still amazing structures, but we had to do these things in the past. We had overemphasis on this idealism and tribalism instead of product application user experience onboarding and really into real albeit sometimes unsexy categories of move moving the entire world's finances on chain. It's extremely bullish development for the space as a whole.

Equally so for Ethereum, the number two crypto asset, the number one smart contract platform. I'm curious guys from each of you to kick off in this new practical era. Understanding this context, what is the vision for Ethereum in this era from a tech perspective? Let's kind of start to understand what we want Ethereum to be and kind of align on that and then we can hammer in on how we get there. Um so Dankrat I'll start with you and then let's go down the line guys. Let's have some fun today. >> Yeah. Um well many things I think like like one of the things we realized is like uh we need to refocus on Ethereum

the chain it's come a little bit short in the last few years was all like all about L2s and everything uh which are great like they were great great Ethereum innovation but like I think like uh Ethereum L1 still has a huge role to play in this uh in this world and like it's one of the things um that we should focus on and And uh yeah like we have the other two areas I think like like uh Josh will tell more about the UX part but I think like um on the scale one and uh and blocks part like we're at this great point in time where actually in a way like yeah like uh I don't even want to call myself a researcher anymore because like actually the research is

kind of like figured out more or less. There's no deep academic research here to be done. It's like execution now and like um uh we we just really need to do it. We get need to get our heads down and like get the work done. >> So Josh picking up on that when you're when you're thinking about UX for the institutional era, more practical era. H how has that shift occurred putting the research aside now putting putting your execution hat on? you know what where give us a before and after picture of uh you know where we were and where we're getting to.

>> Yeah, I guess and I would maybe just start by saying one thing maybe to correct some FUD like to me at least speaking from my own personal point of view. Um I I don't think I've ever really been more optimistic on the future of L2s and their role their critical role in the Ethereum ecosystem. And I think often times some of this renewed emphasis on scaling the L1 gets sort of misconstrued as you know moving away from the importance of L2s and just want to again like to me genuinely I am like I don't see a future um I don't see us getting to where we want to be without L2 playing a huge role here. I do think like what that means it may look a bit different from what it has

meant historically perhaps to your question. I think to me the way that I view sort of the multi-chain world that we are that we that we're now in, it hasn't been that long that we've been in this sort of true multi-chain world, but we're clearly there now and likely to continue to stay in. To me, I I guess I view L1 having two sort of main value drivers, let's say. One is its role as the most secure permissionless neutral trust and security hub. sort of the trust route and I think number two I would say is as a strong liquidity hub and I think this is where some of the the path this these three strategic initiatives are

you know coming from is to it helps to reinforce um this liquidity hub and that doesn't mean that um yes like like there there's the world that we're going to it there's a world where L1 needs to maintain its role as as a as a liquidity hub um and I think both of these things are actually going to the question of this is maybe a bit of a of a tangent but I'll stop here in terms of like why would someone who's building a chain want to become part of the Ethereum ecosystem why would they want to be an L2 versus an L1 to me I think again my personal take is that it's it's these two value drivers it's both on the security trustless permissionless side tapping into the most decentralized secure validator set um and then also tapping into Ethereum as a liquidity hub

and I think clearly there's a lot of work to in terms of strengthening liquidity hub and strengthening the interrupt which actually allows this liquidity hub to operate as a liquidity hub. Um so yeah maybe I'll stop there. >> It's funny how uh institutions have a really really really important focus on privacy something that we talked to Justin Drake about uh earlier in the week which is going to be a big part of the of the upcoming Ethereum L1 road map. And then yeah, this credible neutrality at at the base layer. And Tim, I think this this kind of brings a a good followup back to you with regards to Ethereum's role in the macro landscape. And so I think all of us can agree Ethereum's now be become a macro asset. I mean it's very clear if just if

you look at pure uh economics on the market cap side of things it's up there in with some of the biggest equities and other kind of hard assets in the world and also is now playing a a big role in DeFi and consumer across these L2s and the EVM in these upcoming payments chains that have been announced uh which is a whole topic to get into as well but when you're thinking about from money perspective from compute with AI and kind of this realm uh and coordination how How does the Ethereum Foundation view Ethereum and ETH the asset within the broader lens of the macro global landscape?

>> I mean, I think like the asset is the much harder one. So I I don't really want to talk about it at the moment, but I think like the chain is uh um yeah, I mean it's it's in a very interesting position because like it is like we we're at this like as you mentioned earlier at this point where global adoption is probably like about to happen and Ethereum has like a lot of sort of like activity like trading, DeFi, everything from the crypto markets and that doesn't automatically translate into like being successful in this next step. It's like a good starting point, but I think like we have to now successfully adapt that to like what the real world assets need

and so on because like it's it's like kind of like uh it's a little bit like a crossing the chasm moment, right? Like where like you have all this early adoption in the crypto world and now comes the rest of the world and like this is going to be very quick. like this is going to be very sudden like it's going to be like nothing and then everything and like um yeah uh it's kind of like I I do think that the Ethereum chain has some unique advantages in terms of the trust it has in terms of like the maj maturity of the EVM technology but it also has some unique challenges in terms of like our past refusal to scale it which will make

things a bit harder and um like being slower on like slot times and finality than other chains. Like those will be seen as disadvantage by some and I think we'll have to like make a very credible road map how we're going to improve on all of these to get to like yeah acceptable times for global markets. >> Yeah, thank you for that Danrad. There there's a really important balance to strike here. So I I'd like to pass this over to Josh because you know we've kind of heard from Tim describes this economic zone of really flexible and it's something of of real agility. You can you can be nimble and kind of test these things out almost experimentally.

Uh prediction markets reaching the scale it's not possible anywhere else for example. And then you know Dank the flip side of that is that some of these it are really really important and crucial economic pieces to a global macro landscape. The crossover here is 30-year mortgages, making sure that institutional capital is resilient for the long haul. So, Josh, kind of difficult position to put you in like how do you balance uh these two worlds? One of like really experimental financial um imagination and and the other of the tried andrue practical fundamental economics and finance that has lasted 100 years and will last a hundred more. How do you build a UX on Ethereum for both of these worlds?

>> Yeah, that that is a tough one. I don't know that I'll have the best answer, but what I would say is that ultimately we need to lean into Ethereum strength. We need to lean into L1 as the global source of truth and we need to fix the things that are currently bottlenecking that preventing that from happening. And one of these, of course, is L1 finality time. There's a really powerful set of mechanisms that we can improve in I I think the not too distant future to make big strides on finality time of the L1 at least in

many different sort of user flows. Um, and we can talk more about sort of like what are the actual things we can do there. I don't know how deep you want to get into right now. Um, but that's one thing I'm really excited about is just this general sort of set of things that we can do to make the L1 faster. On the L2 side, there's been a lot of momentum here as well in terms of getting rid of the 7-day windows. And that's something that I think actually we need to do no matter what. Um, and so I think to me it's it's maybe less about like yeah, like it's not going to be the most insightful answer perhaps, but finding the things that we know with high degree of confidence we must do no matter what.

It's kind of like there's a lot of lowhanging fruit. So, there's a lot of things that we need that we know we need to do. Um, and these are things that are not a surprise. Many people in the community have been talking about this for quite a while. U, but I think now we're finally sort of understanding the design space and the infrastructure and ZK is here and all these kinds of things that are making this much easier to do now. Um, and just uh for whatever reason, we're sort of like finally getting to this rallying point now. Uh, so I think yeah, speeding up uh L2 withdrawal time, speeding up L1 slot time, finality time. um strengthening things like intents, making sure that intents based uh bridging is not just sort of more available, but is more secure and more trustless. There's a lot

that I guess I could say about all these things, but I think it all goes back to like how do you make Ethereum feel like a cohesive platform again instead of um yeah, a bunch of silos. >> Yeah. And and I think Josh on that point um when it comes to L2s specifically you know Dankrad mentioned the focus being very very strong on L2s previously last couple years kind of tides are shifting towards the L1 but from I think from a technology and a vision perspective the endgame still remains in scaling via L2s. How do you kind of balance the uh focus back to the L1 within the foundation uh with your perspective of okay let's build a a um cohesive not

fragmented L2 environment and kind of continue on this road map because we think it's you know what's going to be the best for Ethereum >> right I guess I don't know that I would necessarily frame it as L2s are the mechanism for scaling Ethereum I think there's depends on how you frame there's many mechanisms and there's many different types of ways that we need to scale and we need to provide um sort of unique capability enhance the capability of what Ethereum can do. L2s are one path to and a critical valuable path to enhancing the capabilities of Ethereum.

Um, but there's a lot we need to do on both sides. And I think it's it's one of those things, you know, on the one hand, sort of like the conventional wisdom is that you have to focus. If if you try to do too many things, then you're you're going to do none of the things well, which yeah, I think is is there there's truth in that. I think in this case, for better or for worse, we're trying to do something incredibly ambitious. We have to do ambitious things. We have to do both things. We have to scale the L1, increase its role both as like I mentioned earlier as the trust security hub um and as a liquidity hub. And then we also have to um strengthen empower L2s to provide not just sort of mini Ethereums but to offer unique

differentiated services on top which the good news from my perspective at least is um most if not all of the L2s are already doing this offering actually really compelling differentiated services on top. In some ways it's still day one but I think there's a lot of um yeah a lot I'm I'm more and more excited by what's happening on the L2 side. So, I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but this is like and then interrupt kind of goes into both of these. Yeah. >> Yep. Introducing extended exclusively on Stark, a nextgen ps trading platform live today with 50 plus trading pairs from crypto to tradi. You get the best experience on chain today. Deposit in the community vault for attractive returns, EMD compatible, and engage in unified margin spot trading, lending,

and per trading exclusively live at extended.app app on starknet today. >> You mentioned this uh modular organizational pattern. You have the consensus team, you have multiple teams and and all of these teams are able to divide and conquer. This is the the nature of specialization as teams grow bigger. I I'm curious right that that provides a lot of benefit on one hand, but on the other hand, there is a coordination effort that is required across all of these teams to make sure no one's step on stepping on each other's toes. you're not doing double work and and you have things that do cohesively integrate with one another.

And so Dankrod to you, I'm curious. Do you see this coordinate coordination as an issue? Does it pose a risk to the development of Ethereum or do you see is there any other risks that are a little bit more pressing in your mind to the future that we described at the onset of this conversation? >> I think coordination, yes. Like so there's a there there is an extra challenge in Ethereum like having this multi-client architecture with with additionally the client teams being external. So like there's no direct command authority or anything like that. So essentially like there are all these developers out there who try to together come to a consensus on what to build next and we're trying to like really like uh direct this and

give them like the best inputs and try to like give them direction but it's uh it's definitely like yeah there are many different opinions and like even if like yeah I mean obviously like everyone is working with the best in intentions like we all know that design by comedy comes with certain problems and so Right. So like this is kind of like really I I think it's one of the biggest risks for Ethereum for sure because like we we simply currently don't have the ability to like ship features with the same like uh kind of coherence and direction as like someone who builds this as a company and like I think like we need to do our best to do it anyway. Like I think like we're working very hard on

this and we have seen like definitely a number of improvements. I think like uh we need to do a lot more. I think like right now it is getting to um a point like where yeah we we need to like push even stronger than we have so far to like get this faster and get get into like the best direction. And Josh, I think you wanted to chime in there on Tim's point uh as well, kind of along the similar train of thought with regards to uh the multiple pieces happening at once and as kind of Dank Dank has described here.

>> Yeah, I guess I was just going to add that um yeah, I agree with Tim and and I think that we can do many things. We haven't always been as successful as we would like. I think our muscles are are getting stronger there both on the coordination side and just on pure execution side. Um and I think the answer is that there is no other like path forward like the p the path forward to this ambitious thing is to do both and the on the plus side I think like the coordination is both um yeah a challenge and an opportunity. It's sort of like our unique strength and the challenge that we have to overcome. Um the good news again is that like it's not yes like the the EF plays a role on coordination on shephering on on doing

these things. Um but there are many other important players outside of the EF that also have a huge role to play here. And so I think that's one thing that allows us to to do these things. we have whether it's wallets app layer um L2 teams um any of the ZKBM teams there's a lot of talented people in the Ethereum ecosystem that are going to play a big role >> Josh I'd love to double click on that because you know you brought up ZK a couple times we're big fans of ZK too this is part of the uh the research that the casino has funded and and now we've made a lot of discoveries and so when we're thinking about the endgame and we're thinking about how L2s are going to coordinate with L1 to to bring a lot of these teams and a lot of these use

cases together. How is ZK going to help us accomplish this? And how does ZK change UX for the better? Thinking out, you know, in in kind of the near to medium term. >> Yeah, I I think there's a lot of um maybe only sort of like like mediuminformed optimism around ZK or maybe like hopeful thinking that ZK is going to come in and solve all of our problems. I'm I'm partially in this camp of like I'm really I'm really like uh I'm the maybe in this panel at least sort of the least qualified person to give a super informed opinion on on like I don't come from a cryptography background as DK background you know Justin Donrad others will give you a much more informed opinion here and maybe Don will give you the more sober opinion >> yeah we'll get Don Crad right to come in

after you >> um but yes I think I don't think I would add much apart from like the progress that we've seen has clearly surpassed what most thought would be possible a year ago go and that I think there's a lot of um even like the most sober sort of perspective would say that there's a lot of opportunity for um this technology to help both on the scaling side and on the interop side. >> Awesome. Dan, uh could you maybe fill in fill in the gaps here? Give us uh you know clear clear up some of the misconceptions that we all have around ZK.

>> Yeah. I mean I think like Yeah. Yeah. ZK is clearly really cool, right? like it like it solves like a lot of the big Ethereum problems which are like we want to build a verifiable chain like anyone in the world can quickly see that um that it's correct um without like having to have super big notes. Now like I think the qualifier here and that's where we have to be careful because like there's some some people think oh like it's going to solve everything and it doesn't solve everything right like for example if you want to have like a fast chain while you still need to have nodes that are fast enough not everyone now needs to run these nodes but like fundamentally the engineering challenge is still there like it doesn't go away with ZK and like

similarly like I think like in a funny way like right ZK solves a problem for Ethereum that Solana doesn't even have because like we want this verifiable chain and they just like say well we just have like these big notes and that's fine like some people can verify it maybe not everyone fine right like so like yes it's amazing that we have this and we can build this but in terms of product like it doesn't give us that much it gives us extra security gives us extra values but it doesn't make Ethereum faster than like other chains or like yeah that that that's what you have consider. So, it's an amazing technology that gives us this verifiability. That's how I would say it.

>> We've seen a lot of very valuable contributions come out of the cryptography world. Um, and when you're when you're thinking about instilling this into the protocol or instilling this just into the community in general, we don't want to get, you know, ahead of ourselves, but it is a coordination thing that we're trying to solve here. So, I I guess just from your perspective at the higher level, kind of looking at at the teams in general, how are you trying to solve this coordination problem? I mean, I guess that's my day job. Um, so I end up spending a lot of time talking to people and trying to figure out like what are the main bottlenecks or disagreements. Um, and how to focus the community's attention on the right things at the right time. I think one of

the biggest challenges with this coordination is for protocol researchers and core devs, you know, they're they're paid full-time to work on the protocol. So it's, you know, it's easy for me to paint like Dunkra or to pay me a client dev and be like, can you look at this thing? And their job is to do this. Um, the thing that's that's harder is for, you know, the Ethereum community as a whole, right? Like the unis swap team, the optimism team, any team building on Ethereum, right? Their job is to build their product, to build what they're working on, and not to like, you know, work on their protocol full-time. And I think this is like one of maybe the trickiest coordination challenges is like okay what is the right way to get all of their perspectives to understand from our users what do they want and then to translate

that in a way that you know researchers and core developers understand because as Don was saying like we're not a company right if if this was if Ethereum was a company then you could imagine there's you know some chief product officer they go and you know or CEO goes talks to a bunch of users and then decides what we're going to build and you know if you don't want to work on this you're fired. We have to effectively convince everyone and and so I think this is like a something that we just need to get better at and we've seen like some improvements. Um, one small thing we've done, you know, for this coming uh, hard fork is I I came up with this idea of like headliners where like the forks tend to have one, you know, really important feature in it.

And so, historically, we would go to people and we'd be like, here are like 20 proposals. Which ones do you think? Now, we tried to like streamline it. So, it's like, okay, here are like the most important proposals. What should we actually do? Right? Like, of the like big potential items, which one should you should you focus on? And I think we've seen like some decent engagement there. Um, but I think we have to go like far beyond that. Like I I kind of think of this as like step zero. Um, and we effectively need to recreate what like a product organization does but in this decentralized context where we don't ultimately have just someone who can uh unilaterally make the call. Um, because at the end of the day too, you know, even if the cordet and the

researchers are convinced, the way Ethereum works is people still have to upgrade their nodes, right? like the entire community, all the stakers still have to accept this. Um, so so it has to be more open, more participatory. Um, but also be so in a way that doesn't end up being just captured by committee thinking and and extremely slow. So that's a challenge. >> Tim, do you I this is maybe a question from left field, but you know, we we've had a lot of players that, you know, are kind of in the traditional financial space. Now they're entering, you know, this world, right? The the world of Ethereum. they're um building a lot of capital uh and potentially influencing the network. Have you seen any of these, you know, recent recent newcomers to the

to the ecosystem try to kind of sway the the direction of the Ethereum priorities using some of the ETH that they've built up in these treasuries or or do you anticipate that as a potential risk or something that you're going to have to navigate as you as you think about the cohesiveness across the organization? we haven't seen it directly and you know it's it's been helpful to understand what the concerns are like for you know one practical one that comes up a lot um that's like a very trady concern is um the withdrawal and activation cue for staking and whether you want to have staking ETFs or not I think Vitalik was literally tweeting about this today um and so this is something like I don't know like every time you speak to these

ETF providers they will bring this up as a concern um so you know they haven't like tried to do some malicious takeover of the network to like, you know, force this. As I as to the extent I'm aware, they haven't even, you know, the easiest thing they could do is just like pay researchers to focus on this problem and solve it for them. And I don't think they've they've even done this yet. Um, but I think like look, this is this is like a healthy thing because ultimately it all happens in public, right? like if they come and they're a stakeholder in the network and they you know they feel that like faster exits from from the validator sets would be beneficial. Um there's reasons today why we have such a delay. we can analyze those reasons and be like okay is the trade-off we're

making correct right like should we you know rethink how the exit Q works to to you know satisfy those needs and again obviously without compromising Ethereum's core properties like you could imagine some very bad versions of these designs that let you know these ETFs enter and exit at will but then we kind of compromise the security of proof of stake and then the chain kind of becomes far less valuable because it loses its security um so yeah I I don't think we've seen anything like malicious or bad so far and I think it is actually extremely good for those preferences to be like voiced. It's for people to understand them and to to think through the trade-off space of like okay how can we design the protocol in a way that's useful for them and um also sustainable.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I and I think this builds on Ethereum's neutrality in general. It it's sort of like okay how do you maintain neutrality but also take a consensus of opinions and and incorporate them into the protocol. And so to your point, you're taking a very research driven approach, right? Like what these guys could do is they could pay some researchers and you know, we always want to make sure that we have objective research, but if we focus, you know, on on a one particular area of research, that's the place where we could see progress. And so Ethereum has its objectives. You're focusing, you know, on on these three pillars, scale L1, scale blobs, improve UX, and there's other sort of auxiliary areas of research that could matter more or less to some of these organizations.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And I think also the it's worth noting on these three pillars like they didn't come out of thin air, right? They come out of talking with the community and understanding what people want. And Tomas who you know leads the foundation now. Uh effectively that was the first thing he did when he took the job. He spent like a month or two talking to everyone at the EF, everyone in the ecosystem, people outside of crypto, people who hate Ethereum and to try and distill like okay what the people want out of Ethereum because ultimately again as I said it's like the community has to adopt it, right? like if the community doesn't want to scale at all um you know they they just won't run the software or if we came up with these crazy like road map items that everyone hated um they just won't ship

and we've seen this in the history of Ethereum right like when there are things even though they're like welldeveloped and whatnot that the community just doesn't want we haven't shipped those on chain um so so I think like yeah you we have these priorities now but it's it's worth highlighting like they are they are the result of like at least trying to to to sample the community and what they want and we can we can keep that getting better at that process. >> Yeah. I think um I think that kind of brings us to a a good question here and a good kind of thought around what the priorities are in this era and Dank I think I want to bring this to you from the protocol perspective right we're thinking about Ethereum's maturation right and you know we we've just talked

about the coordination amongst the different teams as well as the priorities in the lens of this kind of institutional context and in this kind of maturation phase you know what are the core priorities right obviously We have the three pillars, but what would you say are the non-negotiables going forward into this era? You know, and I asked Justin this and I'm super curious to see how how his answer aligns with with yours. Um, you know, what does Ethereum need to focus on in the immediate term uh to basically uh get us to where we need to be? What matters most?

>> Has to be clear, right? Like one or so. It doesn't mean we're like saying, "Oh, yeah, like let's give up on everything else. We're just becoming like whatever other fast chain now, right? Like Ethereum does it differently in the way that like we're not we don't compromise on the values. I mean, okay, there there will always have to be compromises to be made, but they are a very different nature, right? For example, we are not giving up on verifiability like like anyone in the world should easily be able to verify the chain. Um but what a compromise that we probably are willing to take is like okay there might be some nodes required that compute these proofs and they are a bit bigger. I think that's fine because it's a very different nature. you only need one of

these like you're not like need don't need thousands of these right like and uh yeah I mean on censorship resistance right like we are like um exploring new ways to get this right in the past it was like okay like we are censorship resistance because everyone can run a node with a validator at home well I mean maybe this doesn't have to be the way forever right like there are worlds in which like we manage to like have much smaller nodes like even in give the inclusion guarantees but without being Ethereum validators and it might be a better trade-off because right now this economic mix of like providing the security and providing the censorship

resistance is like kind of a little bit it feels under tension right because like you have institutional staking versus home stakers and stuff like that so I think like we're willing to like make these compromises and I think but but on the other hand like we are really keeping these core properties verifiability censorship resistance everything's open source and so on right and extremely high security like the quality of uh like the EVM and generally like Ethereum node software is very high um so like these we will not change like we will do everything to keep this but we need now really to focus on Ethereum as a product at the same time and I think that's like the part that was a

little bit like uh not as much of focus in the past. We thought, oh, these properties, they are our product. Well, they're not the product, right? Like they are properties of your product that you really need to keep. They make it more valuable. But we need to make sure that like what you do on the chain that that is really good like that you can actually generate the value by like doing that. And I think like on a lot of these domains like Ethereum has a lot to offer and like we now need to add all the things that it doesn't offer at the highest level yet. I'd be remiss to not ask this uh as as a followup to that which is you have kind of laid out kind of where you see the most important uh priorities laying and

you did not mention anything about blobs or danksharting. It's your first time on the show I must ask about danksharting. What is the status of danksharting and why is that important to Ethereum? >> Right. Right. I mean dening is like is a big meme, right? Like I mean it's it's funny because I was just the guy who like put it all together in the end. Something that I guess had been worked on before and I have made many important contributions but it was several people on this and um like the the main thing like I mean so like many people associated with data surely so the idea that you only put uh like scale the data availability layer and leave it to rollups to actually use it for

execution. This actually was already done in the past, right? That pivot had been done several years ago. This this this uh kind of like the the the new with Dang charting was more more of like all putting into like a simple road map that we could actually execute and like that we're now on and that we are like now several years in. Like we have shipped um the first uh um big milestone actually the first two kind of like we started we shipped like 4844 we ship blocks and blocks and now we have scaled them a little bit and now very soon we'll uh ship the next milestone which introduces sampling and introduces a scalable

data availability layer and allows us to ship a lot more blobs over the next year or so. >> Appreciate that. Um guys, so more open-ended here to close us off. We got five 10 minutes left or maybe closer to five. um when you're thinking about uh Ethereum's neutrality as being something that we've talked about several times on the show so far with regards to this practical era and even I started off you know framing this as ideologies and tribalism is kind of uh being a bit more put into the background in favor of of um real product market fit real usage of products applications uh businesses on chain over kind of you know which DA layer you choose or what chain you're

building on or how you're thinking about you know uh what what kind of sequence or architecture that you're going to use all these things are important and they need to be you know well thought through but the entire space I think is entering this this kind of practical uh frame of thought now with regards to Ethereum what's kind of ironic is that a lot of these other ecosystems are being and have become much more politicized and become much more of a hierarchical kind of setup uh where they operate more as a than like Ethereum does in this neutrality. So, I'm curious as you guys have gone through the shift with with Tomas being uh the new director of the EF and just generally the the reformation of of the order, do you guys

truly think that Ethereum's neutrality will survive long term as other ecosystems push on a competitive basis uh with a more politicized uh kind of setup? And if so, kind of how do you guys see the future of Ethereum's neutrality, which I think we can agree is the most important or one of the most important aspects of the of the protocol itself. Uh why don't we start with you Josh and go down the line and guys, let's end us off here. >> Yeah, it's a good question. I I think what makes me optimistic that we can preserve it is that the value and importance of neutrality of security of the permissionless nature of the network I think will only grow in terms of how

clear that this how the the clarity and importance of it is only growing. You're seeing other chains mention the importance of permissionless. I think this is something that as the number of chains scale and grow, it'll become more and more clear that this is um not just a nice to have, but a a sort of non-negotiable and that Ethereum is uniquely positioned at least today to to maintain its role as this permissionless hub. Um those are the things that make me optimistic. And I think yes, both like Tomas, Shawei, um many others at the EF have done a have done a terrific job at sort of making sure that we continue to not just preserve those but to strengthen those properties of of the of the chain.

>> Awesome, Tim. Yeah, I guess my view there would be that neutrality is is something that compounds in a way like you kind of need it at the start and it's it's very hard to add after because if you start with something neutral, you know, you you get into this this frame of mind of like you have to compromise and get the consensus to improve the the chain and this is what Ethereum has done and over time there's just more and more people with different opinions, different viewpoints and whatnot that need to agree ultimately to improve this thing and and you know that process kind of biases towards neutrality because if we push an upgrade that like the EF wants and the entire world hates then it won't happen and if

you know whatever TRFI tries to push something that the community hates it won't happen either. So I I think Ethereum just effectively is I don't know it's almost like this path dependent thing where we we started with this maybe higher cost and we still pay higher coordination cost to maintain this neutrality but as more people come as there's more stakeholders involved you you almost get it by default to the extent that you're able to keep those those people in. So um yeah I I I'm pretty excited about that. Like I think it's more a question of like okay, how do we channel this energy rather than can we fundamentally lose this because I think we're at a spot where we we've built the checks and balances and now we we just need to like um execute.

>> Awesome. Dan Kra, anything to add on neutrality? Yeah, I mean I think like like I I do think uh Ethereum has has it like it's like a very important component like this uh geographic neutrality and not like being depend one on company. I uh um I think like there are many ways in which you can improve things that actually don't compromise on this like I think like for example Tim spoke of checks and balances and I think like we have the most important checks check check and balance in place which is the Ethereum like community that runs nodes and like um is like makes an

independent decision to make an upgrade and so even if like there's like a process that like say is directed in some way. Um there there's always this kind of like last resort of like well if you really disagree then like we can stop at that point. And so I do think that like we can play more with the balance between those two. And I'm I I would like to like do that more to like be like well like the actual process of like deciding on the upgrades can actually have like much stronger direction and doesn't have to be like this super neutral. I think of it maybe a little bit like like like a state or something, right?

There's different organs where the executive is very centralized and it's acceptable because you do have other parts of the state that act as a check on that and I think like longterm we should try to move move more in that direction and I think we'll be stronger. >> Are you a Donald Trump fan as well? Is that what we're hearing? No. Certainly not. >> I would assume. >> Guys, real quick. I know we're running out of time, but Dev Connect coming up in about a month and a half. What are we most excited for? >> Tacos for me.

>> Tacos and BA. Uh, anyone Ethereum World Fair? I don't know. I'm pretty stoked for Dev Connect. I've never been to Argentina. Yeah, I think just having everybody in Buenos areas, having all the application builders, I think that's Yeah, that'll be great. >> Safa. >> Okay. >> I think yeah, the week being centered around like stuff that's built on Ethereum and how we grow the community, I think will be will be super cool. Um, and yeah, it'll be I think it it'll be unique in terms of the scale. Um, and also Argentina being somewhere where just crypto is used extensively already and there's like a really strong appetite by, you know, people there to like integrate this into their lives or,

you know, share how they've already doing this or how they're already doing this. Um, yeah, that's that's super exciting. >> I agree. I think it's awesome to have these types of conferences in places where you really see the real material use of the technology for a greater good, economic, social, etc. Josh, Tim, Dankrat, appreciate your time. Three-headed beast at the EF doing great work. We we really appreciate it. Deep down from the Ethereum community as ETH holders, as longtime users, as part of the social layer, thank you for your time. Look forward to hanging out in Argentina if you'll be there. And uh happy to have you guys on whenever you like to give updates periodically. I think that the community really enjoys

it.