The State of Ethereum | The Daily Gwei Drive Thru with Anthony Sassano and David Hoffman

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the dedicay drive-thru. I'm your host Anthony Cisano and today I'm joined by David Hoffman. So all of you probably know who David Hoffman is already, but for those of you who don't, he's the co-founder of Bankless, a very large crypto media organization. Uh and he's been around the Ethereum ecosystem for quite a while now. So today's conversation is going to be focused a lot on Ethereum and ETH specifically, those two things kind of as they differ and as they intertwine and both of our opinions on these things. I'm sure a lot of you know by now David has had a lot of different opinions on the Ethereum ecosystem over the last I would say six or so months. So, I figured I'd give him a platform to really dive deep into how he views things and kind of push back a little bit on my on my side about things

that I disagree with him with. But overall, I thought the conversation went really well. I'm actually recording this intro after we've already recorded the podcast and I think it went really well. I think you guys are going to get a lot of value out of this uh today and get a better understanding of David's position on things and maybe even my position on things because I do think that I said a few things that I don't normally say on the refules that I usually do here or on Twitter or other places like that. So, I thought it was just a really great way for David and I to have a kind of honest conversation about where we think the Ethereum ecosystem is today uh and things that can be improved as well. So, without further ado, I hope you enjoy the episode and I'll see you on the next

one. Thanks everyone. Hey, David. What's up? >> Hey, Anthony. How's it going? >> Good, good. Um, you know, it's funny. I think this has been a conversation that's been a long time coming. We've been going kind of back and forth with each other in DMs for for a while now, I would say, and it has gotten quite heated at times. But, you know, we always came back to it. It kind of feels like sometimes when I have a heated discussion with someone, it's like weeks or months before I talk to them again. But for us, it's like a day and then we're straight back to just talking again. So, yeah, I appreciate that. But yeah, I figured today's episode would be a good chance to let people in on those kind of DMs and what we've been discussing because I think a lot of it is quite kind of valuable and maybe give

people a chance to kind of hear your side straight from you rather than what gets regurgitated on, you know, Twitter and stuff like that. >> Sure. Yeah. And I definitely appreciate the opportunity maybe for more context for listeners. I don't think there we always we always quabble quibble like us getting heated with each other is not like a novel thing. I think it has hit new it has crescendoed so it has hit like a particularly high like note but it's worth stating that like Anthony and I have done this for years. >> Yes. I mean I remember like it was year like 2020 I think it was we were kind of um quibbling over DeFi summer stuff. So yeah, this is not like new territory for us for sure. >> I think we are both hard-headed people

who are just in both very passionate about what we believe and also fans of debating. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean I think that perfectly describes me for anyone who who kind of knows me. I I debate anyone about everything. Um but so do you and but I think you have a bit of a different kind of tact with it though because you are definitely more polit political about it where you'll be more kind of open to all sides, right? and hearing everyone out. No matter who they are, right? Even if they're considered like a scammer or grifter, you're still open to hearing their side of things. I'm talking literal scammers and like I'm not talking people who like the ETH Maxis say are scammers, right? Because they said something mean about ETH. I'm talking like, you know, literal ones, which I I actually kind of am a little

bit jealous of at times because I I can't bring myself to to do that. Um but I think that is also why you get a lot of too from people like especially the Ethaxis. Right. >> Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it would be like scammers or grifters as defined by a very high standard by like Ethmaxis. And where I would say where we've like quibbled before is like I would say like no that's actually not a scam nor a grift. And there's like a valid steelman of the opposing argument that I try and represent and embody. And I think that goes all the way back to my first podcast before banklist POV crypto where it was me the Ethereum guy and then CK the Bitcoiner. And we would just yell at each other about Ethereum versus Bitcoin things. And he would bring on a

Bitcoiner guest and they would yell at me and then I would bring on an Ethereum guest. Sometimes you, sometimes Ryan, and then we would yell at Christian. And like taking the opposite side and learning to steal and learning to like speak Bitcoiner. So like I came out of POV crypto learning to like speak Bitcoin. I can speak Bitcoin pretty well. I can I can walk into their tribe and be accepted because I can say their same words. Uh and that's like something that I've tried to like carry forward for other like communities because uh just in pursuit of being able to understand people and understand how people think in a uh pursuit of being able to like uh win them over. Uh and so like I I kind of see like crypto Twitter as all these tribes not unlike different sports teams that are just like yelling at each other and like go my team and go

my team. And if we I think a a strategy that I like to go after is to learning to like be a part of that other team and learning how to speak their language because from that position you are best capable of speaking to them and convincing them uh about your team about your side what you believe. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what most people probably miss because it's kind of hard to actually understand that if you're only seeing bits and pieces of the strategy, right? like you have this whole picture strategy that you employ where you just went through it, right? You try to kind of I I guess infiltrate's the wrong word. You try to go over to these tribes, but infiltrate kind of like that, right? But you're more of like a diplomat, right? You go over there and you're like, "Okay, guys, like here's how things are from kind of

our side of things. I want to hear your side. I want to see, you know, what you're all about." Um whereas if you're only seeing little bits and pieces of that from crypto Twitter from maybe you know bankless podcast you guys do u you're not going to see the whole picture. So you're going to judge just that and kind of lose sight of the whole picture. I think I'm guilty of that a little bit u over over the past kind of 6 months. Like I try to to see the whole picture and I try to understand uh points from people that I consider to be good actors uh like yourself. I know people have different opinions on you and what you've kind of been doing over the last 6 or 12 months especially. Um, which I guess like brings me into probably the the first thing that I

wanted you to answer. Like I have a lot of questions for you specifically obviously, but um, first thing I wanted you to answer beyond kind of your your I guess like mission in trying to go to these different tries and bring them over to to Ethereum like that I guess could be considered your deal or what you've been trying to do over the last 6 to 12 months. I think the main criticism people have of that strategy is that you seem to have instead of influencing them, you yourself seem to have been influenced by them in a in a really big way, right? Like in a and and everyone knows kind of the context here, but just from maybe some people who don't. It's it's the context of there are certain people that have been kind of saying things about Ethereum that have been, you know, I guess from the perspective of an Ethereum person, not truthful or

going against the Ethereum spirit and ethos and what we're trying to build here or trying to make Ethereum into something that it's not. And then I think people see you embracing those points of view and then kind of being a platform for those things and agreeing with them and then they think, oh, well, David's gone to the dark side, you know, instead of influencing them, he's been influenced by them. So I guess to that like do you agree or disagree with that? Like do you think that it's part of your overall strategy or you know what what's your kind of take on that? >> Yeah, I think that's a great way to a place to start. Um and I think there's I think that's largely correct and I think like maybe me saying like oh no guys it's been a strategy all along is like

kind of it can is definitely a copout in a sense. Um and uh like that's that's one way to articulate it. And then also like another way to articulate it is like if I see that there's a there there uh and like say for example what I mean by that is like is Bitcoin a special snowflake? Well, let's go investigate that and I would I would declare that that there is a there there as in there is something to that point and there's and so there's something out there worth investigating. And in order for me to like actually like steelman that and understand that, I have to go and like be in that community, talk to the people who think that and be able to like actually actually like actually believe that for a hot sec. And it's the same thing as actually being convinced by

that. There's no it's not actually just like me putting on a chameleon and being like pretending that I believe. It is me truly actually learning to believe that Bitcoin is a special snowflake. And so there's no material difference there. Um, it's just always at the same time like do does the Ethereum community do you Anthony have faith that ultimately the only thing in this industry that really interests me is Ethereum? And that's always true. Like sure I could say like yeah there's a pretty good argument that Bitcoin is a special snowflake, but that doesn't mean that that's uniquely interesting to me and what my specific like motives are and like what I want to do with my life.

There's no other thing in crypto that's like interesting enough or like what I perceive to be noble enough as Ethereum. And like to some degree like all of the frustration that the Ethereum community has uh uh had in me because I'll go and like platform John Charbano and the Blockworks people uh is like definitely my error in like not being not showing which hat I have on in the particular moment because like sometimes I'll just wake up and I'll be like, "Okay, I'm especially uh I'm especially Bitcoin is a special snowflake today and that's that's what my tweets will sound like and that's who I'll talk to because I just want to explore that today. And then the next day it's like, okay, but like Ethereum is noble and it's the cool project and it's the best experiment

that humanity's ever created. Like I'm putting on that hat today, too. And I'm just switching back and forth because like I can see all of them. And so I don't really have a good answer for you. Um, but I I will say that just like >> yeah to you you're you are right like I think that there is a good argument that Bitcoin is a special snowflake and it can it's a rational argument and it comes back to and so like I would like to bring that home into Ethereum and be like okay this is the argument that we now have to like objectively materially rationally tear down and the reason why it's still standing today why people are believing it today is because our current arguments aren't good enough to do a job. And so like I think if it would be harder for me to go out and be

in the whole Bitcoin is a special snowflake camp if the actual arguments that the Ethereum community are like chanting were better, but I actually don't think they're as good enough, which is why they which I think there's some like frustrations like here the Ethereum community is like here are our arguments, David, why don't you believe them? And I'm like, yeah, sure. I understand them, but like they're still not enough. They're not enough for the current needs of the time. >> Yeah. So, I I think it's interesting you mentioned like waking up and wearing a different hat each day because that's how I feel talking to you a lot of the time where I feel like I'm talking to a different person on certain days and that's where a lot of the frustration I think comes from. Like one day you'll agree with me on something and then the

next day you'll disagree with me on it. But, you know, it's obviously lost that you're wearing a different hat that day, which I guess is just not how humans communicate regularly. Like, I'm not expecting to talk to a different personality each day when I talk to to David. I'm expecting to talk to David and I'm expecting to talk to the David that I have known for such a long time now and I actually said this to you in DMs like I I'm I'm happy to be open with this. I actually said to you I feel like at times you betrayed our friendship, right? Um which is why I got so heated with you because our friendship isn't just Ethereum but obviously Ethereum is a huge part of that, right? And we didn't just become friends because of Ethereum. We actually came up together in Ethereum like we grew our own kind of brands together and everything like

that. So to see you kind of I guess go over towards more of these kind of arguments that are being spewed by people that I I know you don't agree with this but I don't consider them to be good actors generally and I actually don't consider their arguments to be that good generally. Um it felt like a a betrayal at at times. Maybe that's harsh language but that's just I guess how I felt. Um, but you mentioned like I know a few people, Block Works guys, uh, John Sharono, you know, a few others out there. Like I I I think my main issue with those guys and maybe not the people themselves, the arguments like I like focusing on the arguments, right? I think the my main issue is is that kind of you brought up one of them like the Bitcoin is a special snowflake thing.

Like I personally don't think it's a special snowflake at all. I think that they just were able to meme themselves better like than Ethereum traditionally has. And you mentioned that as well. you said that the Ethereum memes that have been traditionally kind of like put out there haven't been as strong and I think that is a function of the fact that Ethereum is really hard to pin down into one thing like you can't box Ethereum into digital gold like you can Bitcoin right because Bitcoiners only care about the asset they don't care about the network and there is some small contingent of Bitcoin as well like yeah we can do NFT stuff and we can do layer 2 but like they're very small in in the grand scheme of things the the big thing the one thing that all Bitcoiners pretty much agree on is that BTC's digital gold the Bitcoin network only exists to

secure that and that's it basically whereas obviously it's very different in Ethereum right like ETH obviously a lot of us believe that it is is the is the same as or if not better than BTC as a store of value kind of commodity but then you have the Ethereum network that can do a lot of other things so the main criticism in the past has been this is actually a weakness because you can't actually talk about ETH the asset without talking about Ethereum the network which is why people have focused on revenues right and that's a big thing that the the block works guys have focused on is revenues They say, "Well, if you're not generating revenues, then you know, you shouldn't be worth very much, and that's why they said ETH was extremely overvalued a few months ago."

Uh, and then, of course, you bring up Bitcoin, and they say, "Well, Bitcoin is a special snowflake. It doesn't need revenues." And it's like, okay, I can see how you arrived at that conclusion and how you kind of got to that that place, but at the same time, I just don't think that that that it's agreeable or that it's true. And obviously, over the last couple months, things have changed dramatically because the price went up, right? And these arguments have have kind of like fallen a lot lot flatter than they once had. And also these people have somehow changed into ETH bulls as well, which again further muddies the waters for people where they're like, well, two months ago you were saying it's extremely overvalued. Now you're saying you're bullish on it and the price has doubled. Like what's the what's the kind of go here? So, I think to bring it back to I guess like uh you specifically to

see you agreeing with those people, platforming those people and kind of being in those circles um and then those people seemingly like so far being very wrong on their thesis on ETH at least so far. I mean, I'm not going to say that they're like going to be they're 100% wrong forever, but you know, they were championing things like Ethereum needs more fear in order to for ETH to be valuable. Um and now, you know, 2 months later, obviously, the fear of revenue is actually hasn't improved at all. blobs are completely free still and ETH is is doubled in price. I I think that's where a lot of the kind of contention comes from here. Um and why people have such a big issue with Yeah. W with with with you specifically to those people. >> Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a lot there that I want to go in. There's like three different threads that I'm I want

to pull on and I'm probably going to lose them as we go. Um that's okay. I I think there was a market phase change sometime around Joseph Luben and Tom Lee. Um before before then it was the Ethereum needs to make revenues, Bitcoin is a special snowflake and everything uh everything revenue based is overvalued and then the Tom Lee the Tom Lee fulcrum happened and now we're in a different we're in a phase change in the market and now the environment is meaningfully different and things are being valued differently and ETH specifically is being valued differently. It's being it's being valued much more on a store of value treasury reserve asset basis than it was for the last like four years before cuz like I think the the last phase of the market lasted in from like

November of 20 sorry November of 2021 at the high to like a couple months ago. That was one phase and that was the call it the rev phase, the onchain utility phase and now now we're in a new phase and now the new phase that we're in Ethereum is much more adapted to >> uh it's much more fit for the environment that we have walked into which is the treasury acquisition vehicle meta. And so like that's why I think like all these like block works people are buying ETH now. And I don't think it actually invalidates the arguments that they were making about a different the previous phase of the market that we were in because they were judging Ethereum on its fitness in a different phase that rewarded different things. It rewarded like onchain utility. It rewarded trading. It rewarded it rewarded like trading

revenues and memecoins and all that kind of stuff. And like in the future we might as an environment go back into that phase of the environment where it's like I don't know it's a bearish downtime where things are quiet and like Ethereum really needs to be cutthroat about acquiring users and acquiring usage and we might go back into that phase and we are I think I'm worried as a community that we are just like papering over and cheering and like graved on the meta of old now that there were in this new meta, but this new meta is only going to last so long. Maybe it lasts for four more years and we have ETH as a store of value treasury acquisition company meta for four years and it does great and we get back up to, you know, we start saying the f-word

again. Uh, but like what I want out of Ethereum is I want to it to have like maximized fitness in all types of investing environments. And we just learned that there is an environment that's possible to happen where Ethereum is very weak. And I would I want to target why we were weak and like why the ETH BTC ratio went down so bad and why we lost so many users to Salana. And I want to go at those things headon and make sure that they never happen again. And it's great that we are in a new investing environment where ETH is more fit for the environment. But we we have learned that there is an environment out there that Ethereum is not great in. And I don't want to ignore that fact because I think when Ethereum is the most fit for mo the most investable across all

environments that then then it literally becomes the number one crypto asset and it is the special snowflake. That's kind of my thought process. >> Yeah. And and I don't think that like um is is hard to understand. I think that makes perfect sense. But where I will push back on is the fact that like investment is all about forward looking, right? Like you you're supposed to look forward into the future. you're supposed to make bets based on what you think can happen, put probabilities on it, all that sorts of stuff. Where I draw the issue is that like you can't, you know, two months ago be like, well, I'm like super bearish ether. I think it's extremely overvalued um based on obviously you're basing that on the current reality, right? But like that's a forward-looking statement by saying that. So, so it's in contention with

each other. You can't just say ETH is extremely overvalued here um you know based on the current facts because then you're expecting the future price of ETH to go down. So you you are forwardlooking in that in that instance. So I I understand the phases argument. But ETH being a considered a store of value commodity is not something new. It's something that's been championed by the Ethereum ecosystem for for quite a while now. Um and and honestly like even though Ethereum revenues went down a lot and and people kind of pointed to that as the reason the ETH price went down a lot. Um Ethereum was still worth a lot. There was still a huge monetary premium baked into ETH the asset. is still a huge story value premium because you can compare it to other assets. For example, and I use this example a lot because it's just an obvious one. Tron generates

more fe than Ethereum. TRX is worth less than 10% of ETH as an asset. Flip side, Bitcoin generates basically no fair revenue compared to Ethereum. BTC is worth 10x the price. So, you have like two very clear examples of monetary premium store value premium in an asset versus an asset that's based or valued purely on on revenues really. like TRX is is is worth a lot don't you know mind you and that's probably because of the fact that it has high fear revenues same with um Hyperlid for example you know people are valuing hype based on the fear of avenues no one's calling hype a store of value yet maybe they will one day but but no one's doing that yet whereas when it comes to ETH like you know this you wrote about this you talked about this when it comes to ETH at least over the last 5 years I would say since 2020 even earlier than that

there's been a contingent you know a very big contingent people who have considered ETH to be a store of value and a money and that's forward-looking. We we we know that not everyone, you know, most people didn't agree with that. We know that people were looking at only BTC. That was the thing, especially over the last couple of years, especially as Sailor kind of ramped up his buying and all these other Bitcoin treasury companies came along. But we had the thesis that the same would happen for ETH for a number of different reasons. The big reason is the yield portion of it, which is actually played out because all of these treasury companies are staking their ETH pretty much because they're like, well, you know, why would I own BTC when I can own ETH and stake it and get a yield and then use it in DeFi and all these other

things. So, I I that's that at least is my main issue with with, you know, the the the block works kind of school of thought and everyone surrounding that who were like ETH is is very overvalued here. It's like yes, if you're looking at the the current paradigm and boxing it into this thing or to these arguments that you guys have, but it's all about looking forward and you know, I I think from that lens at least so far, the Ethereum people have been right or the the people who believed in ETH being a store of value and a money have or becoming that and becoming more accepted of that as that have been kind of um right from that that point of view there. Whereas you could make the argument that like prior to the last, you know, few months, a lot of people

didn't believe that and that's why ETH went down against BTC for a while there because BTC was getting all these macro kind of bids from um bigger money right from the ETFs, things like that. ETH wasn't capturing that yet. Um and then obviously as a network, a lot of users went over to other networks like Salana uh because Ethereum didn't capture the meta of the cryptonative cycle which was memecoins last year, right? like memecoins was the thing. It was like NFTs in 2021. It was like DeFi summer in 2020 and Ethereum didn't capture that. And we know why because obviously the fees were too high on layer 1. Uh L2s weren't ready. Um we didn't we didn't have um blobs. Actually, you know what's funny? Pumped farm and blobs went live at the same time in March 2024. People don't realize that. Yeah, it's crazy how that happened. Um but then I think what

ended up happening as well just last point on the fear of a new stuff is that people drew this correlation blobs going live March 2024 right since then ETH didn't was no longer deflationary it was for a while and then it went inflationary again erggo it Ethereum losing fear revenue is bad for ETH the asset ETH asset went down there's the connection whereas I think it's it's actually like two other things that caused ETH to perform underperform one losing the crypto the native meta to Salana with memecoins because you had to buy soul to go buy memecoins that got a lot of attention. It's reflected >> became memecoin money. >> Exactly. Exactly. Two, we didn't have the macro institutional bid which went to BTC. So there was a pinser kind of attack on ETH. Not an attacked. >> Yeah. It got squeezed. Right.

>> So I think that contributed to it. Not the fear of a new stuff. I think that was a red herring that people kind of um didn't realize because a lot of people, as I said, don't realize that memecoin mania with pump.com launching went live the same time blobs did. So, you're drawing a a kind of conclusion based on maybe one side of the story when if you look at the other one. I think that's more plausible as a as a scenario there as to why ETH at least lost monetary premium and store value premium and and now it's regained it because we have that macro institutional bid. ETF flows at record highs. treasury companies, so on and so forth. Um, we haven't captured the memecoins on Ethereum, but that's not the current meta. I think that, you know, there is no current crypto native

meta right now. Um, I think there is a meta outside of that, like, you know, institutions building their own L2s, uh, reward assets, stable coins. Ethereum has captured all of that, which is great. Uh, but it remains to be seen if Ethereum captures the cryptonative meta, the next one that comes along, and if that even matters for Ethereum now, because Ethereum is more of a, you know, institutional grade thing. So yeah, a lot again, a lot to kind of go through there, but yeah. >> Right. Well, so I'll try I'll try and unpack one by one and I'll just like stop talking. You'll just start talking. That's how this will go. Um uh I think like so Michael Sailor started buying Bitcoin in like 2020. Yeah. >> 2021. And then like the second biggest one like MetaPlanet in Japan or whatever the third biggest one like the Bitcoin

treasury asset narrative spawned in a COVID era >> and so like if you are an Ethereum investor and you are like Ethereum is just as good of a store of value if not better than Bitcoin then you are actually very disappointed that it's taken until 2025 for the ETH treasury narrative to catch on. We are 5 years late, 4 and a half years late. And so like I think when you're like four years into it, like when when a Bitcoin bubble bubbles up and then pops and then everyone loses investor confidence in Bitcoin, it comes back two years later. Ethereum has been on a downtrend for four years and it like even at current prices, it's still in that like downtrend versus Bitcoin. we have popped off the a bottom. And I think a lot of

Ethereum people, what worries me is we're getting very far ahead of ourselves in terms of like like taking victory laps when we're still like 30% below all-time highs in dollar prices. And so like if you're an Ethereum store of value uh speculator, you are like waiting for the ETH treasury narrative to come and come and come for four years, four plus years. And then in the meantime, the whole like ultrasound money thing, we're watching ETH become inflationary. And the whole thesis in my in my interpretation of the E store value thesis was that ETH is always a better store of value than BTC because it captures the utility of the Ethereum network. And you can see that show up in the burn. And that's why revenues are important. And so when we have this like

onetwo punch of no treasury companies are coming to buy ETH for four years and then in the meantime all of the wealth generation the metas like the the that Ethereum had from the ICO mania and then DeFi summer and then NFT mania after that three in a row. We're we're going three in a row and then the fourth one is on Salana and then Salana fee revenue actually starts to burn a meaningful portion of Salana issuance which was legitimately our narrative like as an Ethereum store of value speculator like I don't think you get to say uh you just look forward more forward looking until the e store of value narrative lands like we people were waiting for four years for this to come about and so at some point like I'm not advocating for this but I mean maybe it was a mean.

Maybe it was a meme. Can't remember. But he's like somebody look at the ETH BTC chart and if this was a company somebody should be somebody's leadership should be fired like somebody failed in the ETH BTC ratio for four years that like in a normal company somebody would be fired. And so like my mind is goes to like okay there were things that were in our control as a as an ecosystem as a project that and choices that we made and we made wrong choices and we should learn about why what choices we made incorrectly and why we made them. Um forgot what >> on that point I I just want to follow up and you can you can defend this or not. Um I I actually think there's a really good argument to be made that the reason why a lot of this stuff it didn't happen

was because of the SEC and we have a lot of credible evidence of this, right? We have people in the Ethereum community, core developers, Joseph Luben obviously and everyone like they're saying that the SEC was targeting them in a really big way postmerge. So 2022 was a bare market. We did the merge in September of 2022. Um and then I I would say it's not four years. I would say it's the last two to three years really, right? that where where Ethereum has suffered the most or at least Ether as an asset suffered the most over the last two years postmerge because the ETHBC ratio was still pretty strong you know around the merge so postmerge let's say two and a half years since then um EPC ratio went down only right obviously we all know that so and and I would argue that it was because of these kind of like regulations and the SEC's war on

Ethereum the SEC went after Ethereum more than any other ecosystem I know some people don't believe this which is just dumb in my opinion because we have so much evidence of this if you look at all of The companies that were sued by the SEC, the vast majority of them were either directly building on Ethereum or Ethereum adjacent like Coinbase, right, which obviously Coinbase is a huge presence on Ethereum with base and stuff like that. Then you had the actual core developers be targeted. They've come out and said that, you know, you were on stage with Danny Ryan and Joseph Luben as they said this. So this is not like >> that one was news to me when Danny Ryan personally got the SEC. That one was news to me. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. That's what I'm saying. If if people kind of take all this in

and realize that and and actually look at the timing too. Why is Joseph Lubman only doing this now like after Gary Gendler got fired? You know, Gary Gendler got fired in Janu January 20th I think it was where it turned over. They had a new SEC chair come along maybe a month later and then two months later you have Joe Luben announcing this and then suddenly everyone's kind of kind of into this. So I would say that like do you agree or disagree with that the regulations and the SEC kind of war on Ethereum? really wasn't just a war on crypto, war on Ethereum directly hampered the fact that directly hampered those efforts and that's why they came so late.

>> Yeah. Um it's not 100% Ethereum's argument to own, but I am I'm warm to the idea that this argument it falls on the Ethereum side of things as in like the Ethereum people are correct. No, John Charban I would say like no like they literally listed Salana as a security. Uh and so like that really muddles the water. It really it makes that murky when like yes Salana and other things were truly labeled a security and so it's hard to say that like no this is specifically targeting Ethereum. Um, at the same time, Ethereum there there is an ample amount of evidence that I really like Joseph Lubin's line of like they secretly labeled it a security and then they actually went and then did enforcement over Ethereum related companies and

legitimately Ethereum people Danny Ryan like I don't know anyone in the Salana camp that actually got SEC subpoena or whatever or whatever Danny Ryan got. Uh, and so I'm I'm on the camp that this argument like if we're if we're keeping score, this argument goes to the Ethereum camp. But it's also we also have to say that like well what's what's is this like uh what's the ratio of how important this is? Is this like does this benefit if this if we are right if the Ethereum community is right about this does this benefit Ethereum like is this 50% better or is this a 3x cuz like I'm looking for like one one to 10 like 10x style expla explanations and if salana is also labeled a security well like salana was also targeted too >> and so like is that is that the rate the

reason why soul ETH went up and ETH BTC went down like no it's one of the stories overall I will say the story of the ETH price action over the last few years is a very unfortunate aligning of like multiple different stars. >> Mhm. Yeah. I mean, but I think I mentioned before the reason Soul went up a lot was because of memecoins. They captured the crypto native meta. And you have to look at this as market caps, too. You know, Soul's market cap was 5 billion, I think, at the bottom. Um, and then it went to like something over just over 100 billion when Trump launched his meme coin and that was the kind of top. Um, so, so I think if you look at it from >> Yeah. Yeah. If if you think of it, look at it from that perspective, you know, I

think ETH bottomed at a hundred billion dollar market cap um when it went to 800 bucks and then it obviously bounced back up. It was just the market cap differentials are huge here. And >> but like differentials are a very big deal. Whereas like if if we're going to say Ethereum is a store of value, there needs to not be a second best. And when there are like Salana people who are identifying with Salana and they sell their meme coins and they hold soul, there is truly a second best to ETH. And that that second best comes out of the value of ETH as a store of value. >> Yeah. No, I I'm not saying people didn't trade their ETH for soul to run, you know, to ride that kind of wave.

Obviously, they did. Uh but I guess my main point here is that I think um at market cap uh you have to kind of capture a new set of buyer like the crypto native buyers aren't really moving the needle there. Um maybe if Ethereum had captured the the the meta of of meme coins, ETH would have done, you know, better, but I think once you reach a certain market cap, you need those big money buyers. You just you just work out the math from here. Um and I think again that's what ETH was missing because of I actually think the regulatory side of things is why ETH was missing that. And that's why I say that that played a huge role in the ETHBTC downtrend. So Soul ETH is a different thing. I think you can very clearly attribute that to two major things. So

market cap differential which is huge on the runup and and the and the meta going to salon and them capturing a lot of users because of that and people buying sold that that's fine but if you're looking at like just purely ETH versus BTC and why ETH went down against BTC I think the main argument is because of the fact that ETH didn't capture that initial new interest that needs to replace the cryptonative interest right like if you lose the cryptonative bid you need to replace it with something and and at each market cap you need to replace it with the buyers that were buying BTC which we didn't see until recently and I argue that's because of the regulatory regime which I as I said we have the coming from the hor's mouths the people who now have these treasury companies saying that now Ethereum has regulatory clarity now ETH has

regulatory clarity it's not a security chair the other day said it is not a security like in his words he said it live on a mainstream media I don't know if it was CNBC or something like that so if you take all of that together that's my my main argument there a and going back to what we were talking about revenue venues. That's why I've always argued it had nothing to do with revenues. Maybe there was a little part of it, a little percentage of it. Maybe it's like 5% or something like that, but the the vast majority came from from from that dynamic, the the the um kind of regulatory dynamic there. And that's why the ETH treasury companies didn't come along until now. That's why the ETH ETF flows were a lot a lot less until now. And that's why ETH lost a lot of

value. So, I would that that's my attribution there. Um, I know people have opinions on this and maybe I'll just quickly hit on what you said about other things were targeted by the SEC. Um, I think, you know, there was a lot of other things that were targeted by the SEC, they're probably irrelevant because a lot of them don't really have any usage and and no one really cares about most of the other things that were targeted, but when it comes to to Salana, I think that the power of the cryptonative bid offset that, right? Because Salana didn't need to get the macro institutional bid on sold the asset because it wasn't at a huge market cap. it hadn't gone through what Ethereum has gone through over the years of kind of like different metaphases, you know, distributing out supply. There's a lot that goes into this. So, I

think that that that's why there we'll see how things go going forward. Like, is Soul ETH going to go down now because Solana doesn't have the same bid as ETH does? We don't know. It's too early to tell. As you said, like there's no point doing Victory Laps 2 months later. Like, it's way too early to tell. But if we fast forward a year or two, Soul ETH is down like a lot. ETH BTC is up a lot. Then I think you can make the argument that uh or or or say that like my arguments and and this isn't just my arguments. Other people's arguments like that flow along with this were the correct ones and everyone else that was arguing the other side were wrong based on you two years of evidence, not two months. >> Yeah, I I think I I think I agree. Um,

and like I there's like um there's like the barbell there's a barbell of buyers, right? So you have the Tom Lee's billions of dollars and clearly that's the more desirable pool of capital to go after. Uh but there's like a a Gestaltian uh hole is greater than the sum of the parts. If you get the tom lees and you hold on to the cryptonative trench trenchers, if you get both on the same platform, that's that's always like why I've been inspired by Ethereum and like what I pursue in crypto is like >> the whole Ether's Phoenix thing. Getting everyone onto the same protocol like global humanity coordination software.

And I want like Wall Street and memecoin traders to be in the same block space together because like then we're all coordinated. That's what I think is like the grand arc of Ethereum like why I'm into this whole thing. >> And so like >> yes I I agree with your points and then I also think it's like we should also pursue we should maximize everything. We should put everything on Ethereum specifically on Ethereum. Uh, and uh, I don't really know. I don't really have a a point here, but just like neglecting the cryptonative bid for the Tom Lee bid is actually negative EV into like trying to also capture the cryptonative bit. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's actually the a perfect segue into talking about like how do we do that, right? And you've been a big advocate for Ethereum L1 scaling because you think that's a

really big way to do that. And I think that's rubbed some people the wrong way or maybe a lot of e people the wrong way because you you tend to kind of give these statements and then you make the assumption that like there are certain things baked into that. I remember we were discussing this in the daily gray discord channel a lot like you were discussing it with me and other people in there and we were talking about scaling ETH L1 but like everyone was hitting back on you saying yes yes we're going to we will scale the ETH1 like we're not necessarily against that but we want to do it while preserving decentralization and all the other good things. And I think you made the assumption that every time you say scale the L1, you're assuming that people already understand that behind that you still think yes, we can preserve

decentralization, security and all that, but we still want to scale the kind of L1 here. So, so I think what I what maybe I wanted to kind of hit on is that obviously we've seen a lot of changes over the last 6 months, a lot of kind of more priority put on scaling the L1. It's like one of the three core pillars. Scale L1, scale blocks, improve user experience, >> right? Um, but you mentioned the other day that you think that there's still some to me in DMs that you you think there's some things in Ethereum that we're still doing wrong. We're still not doing enough of to capture, you know, those users that you say you want to capture everyone in in under the Ethereum umbrella. So, I'm not talking about L2s here. I'm talking about the Ethereum L1 specifically. What do you think is missing right now? What are you

happy with there? like has it addressed the concerns that you had and maybe the concerns that you saw that other camps had with Ethereum? Um and and yeah, what what do you kind of see with the current state with Ethereum L1? >> Yeah, there's definitely just been a newly uh elevated priority on some of the things that I think we understand blockchains to be uniquely capable at and we should focus on. And so, uh lowered block times and parallelism so you can like in salon speak so we can like reduce hotspots. Uh, and so like you know some people can do memecoin a degeneracy and some people can do memecoin b degeneracy and those things won't collide. Uh, and so that's like uh what was that block list. Um, uh, and then also like the sixsecond block times that are in Glamsterdam. >> Uh, not not in Amsterdam but like t like

the potentially being pro talked about in Glamsterdam like stuff like this. And this was like was not being discussed not even like six or nine months ago. Uh and and so like I think like the thing that we were talking past each other in the daily grid discord when I was saying scale the L1 scale the L1 and everyone's like no preserve decentralization. I'm like I never said don't preserve the the the the decentralization. Always preserve decentralization. That's table stakes. But I I fear I feared that the Ethereum community would say like no, we need to preserve decentralization as like a cudgel for anyone who wanted to like accelerate or push forward or go faster because we needed to act in a more core like >> Ethereum core devs are rough consensus and it's kind of kumbaya and we'll get it done and six months fork hard fork

cadences except it's really nine months and like what we were learning is like oh no there's like other teams out there with a leader who's got a whip in their hands and they're whipping their people and they're actually shipping the things and like that was my attitude is just like if you just apply pressure you can do more you can just do stuff and that's what I feel like was understood by the frustration by the broader Ethereum ecosystem is like we're just not coordinated and we're just like not moving as fast as we could and there are things that we could do to get down to lower block times that we there's just engineering juice that we can squeeze. There's just work that can be done. You can do stuff. You can improve things. You don't have to be a technical wizard to say that like yes, in the future we can have shorter block times. We can

have more throughput by engineering improvements and we just need to accelerate in that direction in a coordinated fashion and we need to get ourselves get into gear and we need to focus on the right things. Uh and I think a lot of it and I worry that the Ethereum community is has learned to say no a lot rather than to say yes. is like, "No, we can't do that because of decentralization. No, we can't do that because of decentralization." And I worry that that's like a spinal reflex that I frequently saw on the daily gray discord where the the reflex is like, "No, we can't scale the layer one because of decentralization." And I don't think that that's actually it's not a good reflex to have. That's actually like it's it's it's just it's destructive. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I I guess I I have

to push back here because I I saw I saw it a little bit differently. I I I didn't see anyone maybe there was maybe one person or two people. I didn't really see anyone saying that no we can't scale the L1 again. It was more like in the daily discord channel. It was more that people didn't realize you were baking in the assumption that we preserve decentralization everything behind your comments. And >> I I didn't say that initially but then I started to like say that repeatedly whenever I said we need to scale the layer one. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and I think the reason why people didn't really kind of um you know assume that assume your assumption so to speak is because you were plat at the same time you were platforming people like Max Resnik for example who wanted to make Ethereum basically

Salana. I mean he went to Salana because that more vibes with what he wants to do. I I remember saying like whenever he was causing drama like last year I said why is this guy even in Ethereum like he obviously wants to work on Salana so go work on Salana and and sure enough he did but I think that's why it got lost for a lot of people with you is that you were saying these things and then you were expecting people to understand that you were making you know the assumption or qualifying these statements by saying yes I still believe that we should preserve decentralization all that stuff but then on the other hand you were platforming people who don't necessarily believe that and we're fine like Max said I want to kill solo stakers he he said that, right? So, I I think there

was a confusion there and that's why a lot of people got got upset is because they they feel like you were trying to play both sides and, you know, you were kind of mudding muddying the waters uh with that. >> Yeah, I guess I guess that's Yeah, that's probably some ownership that I could definitely take where like when I'm platforming somebody like Max Resnik, I'm putting on the steelman hat and I'm like, "Okay, let's talk about like why from first principles a blockchain needs to go fast. Let's learn about that." And then I like have this knowledge now from platforming Max Resnik and I get to take it back to Ethereum and be like guys like we have this knowledge. It's why we need to scale blockchains from first principles.

Uh and now let's apply that to Ethereum and make it Ethereum coded. And like that's what I'm doing except I'm not really I'm I'm making the the leap the assumption. It's like we're going to make it Ethereum coded. We're going to we're going to do whatever Max Resnik said Ethereum coded. >> I'm not really saying the Ethereum part. I'm just like, let's let's take this knowledge and make it work and because we're all Ethereum and this is our community and we're just going to do it our way because that's how we do it. And that's like the assumption I'm making. And so yeah, maybe I was just like careless. I did try and say like in the daily discord where everyone was like we need to do it because we can't do that because of decentralization. I'm like >> we can do it and have decentralization. I started to just like say that at at

the the last like bits of that that that phase whenever I was in there. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I and and I think that's that's the source of like I guess like frustration for for a lot of people is that they're just again going back to what I said at the start. They're not seeing the whole picture. They're seeing bits and pieces of the picture and it's very hard because you're everywhere, right? You're on you know obviously the Bankless podcast all the time. You're on Twitter. You're in different Discord channels. Like you're everywhere. So if if you're trying to wear different hats by being everywhere that it's very hard for people to even get the context around this. So, not not to I don't want to grill you like obviously >> I appreciate the feedback. It's definitely a good perspective. >> Yeah. I think that's really the common

theme that I've you know people I've talked to about this. They're always like you know what is David's deal? Like I don't understand what he's trying to do and I'm like man I don't know anymore either. Like he's just he says different things here and there. So I think that's that's where a lot of the frustration came from is that yes okay you're bringing these things to Ethereum saying we should do these things. We should go faster. We should improve the L1. Um but then if people are seeing that you're only saying that because you're agreeing with this other guy who said you know we should kill solo staking on Ethereum. You can see how people make the conclusion that oh David wants to kill Ethereum like solo sters on Ethereum right.

>> Yeah. So there are like bankless fans who are in the Bankless Discord who will like consume my or Ryan's content wherever we go. They're like they have our tweets on notifications. When we go on to somebody else's podcast they go listen to that podcast. They listen to every single bank episode there. Sometimes sometimes they're even in the Daily Guay Discord and those people aren't confused because they listen to literally everything that I say and they totally understand my perspective. And so if you listen to every bit of content that I ever put out, then there's no confusion. And that's unrealistic for me to expect that that's what the average person's going to do. But like that's the again I'll totally taking ownership here. the naive frame of mind that I come into when I'm like I I've never said I like I've I've always been pro

Ethereum. I've always been pro decentralization. I said that over here on you know like 28 days ago like didn't you see that? Like oh no no you didn't. But yeah so like I guess that's just like a a function of just like >> being a relentless content producer who's chronically online in different spots and then forgetting forgetting to take a frame of mind of like other people. >> Yeah. And and honestly, that's the whole reason I wanted to do this kind of episode with you because I wanted like because I got to this eventually with you in DMs. I eventually realized this and I was like, "Okay, I actually understand now." Like I see the light, right? Um it took a lot of work to get here, but I see the light. And I figured that, you know, some people criticized me and said, "Why are you bringing on

David? You know, he's a grifter, whatever." Uh, and I'm like, well, look, out of out of everyone that has been become public enemies number one of Ethereum over the last, you know, 6 to 12 months, out of everyone, and I'm talking every single other person, um, you're the only one that I would ever actually give the time of day to to fully explain your position to be more rational with because I actually don't consider you to be a grifter, obviously. I consider you to be a good actor and we've been kind of Ethereum buddies and and friends generally for so long that I I think I know you better than, you know, most people know you. like they just casually observe your your content here. So yeah, once I got to the bottom of it, I was like, "Okay, I get it now.

I get what he's kind of trying to do here. I want other people to get this. I want other people to understand this." And it's it's refreshing to see, you know, you take ownership of this cuz I tried to get this through to you in DMs a lot. And you you kind of push back on me a bit in certain things. But I think a lot of the push back came from when I was criticizing other people. Like I I I constantly said to you, and again, I'll own this myself. I constantly said to you like, "Dude, why are you surrounding yourself with people who are like shitty people?" Like I called them shitty people and it wasn't even just about Ethereum. I just think that a lot of the stuff that they were saying was just shitty and you sometimes said to me, "Oh, they're just trolling, you know,

just I'm like that's not an excuse. I'm sorry." Like you can't just say something and then it's like that that meme. It's like just kidding, guys. Like I'm not Like when you say I'm just kidding. >> Just a prank. Yeah. >> Yeah. Just just a prank. It's like I I I I honestly hate that and I don't I don't vibe with that. But but yeah and and I think you know to bring it back to what I asked before about Ethereum L1 and prioritizing different things here. Another big contention I think for people was that um you know Ethereum L1 scaling is all well and good. Uh but what ended up happening was that the narrative became that Ethereum was pivoting right and this is a huge thing where people said well Ethereum pivoted to scaling the L1 now they gave up on the L2 road like all these bad

narratives happen right they gave up on the L2 road map they realized L2s were a mistake so on and so forth but but I obviously hit back on this and I said no it's not a pivot it's a rep prioritization and we went back and forth with this in DMs but what you said to me because I kept bringing up well look it's on it's it's on the road map right it's been on the road map and you said to me well everything's on the road map I'm like Okay. Okay. Yes. Yes. But that's also because Ethereum researchers tend to look very far ahead. And this is actually a criticism people have like remember Justin Drake giving his beam chain uh presentation five year five year road map right? But this is the thing researchers are supposed to look 5 10 years ahead and then they're supposed

to go through every possible kind of permutation of their research and then come to something workable and then eventually pass that on to the core developers and be like hey we think this should go into the network for such and such reason. can you build this? You know, what's the complexity? Blah blah blah, right? And and and I I think, you know, as as I said, you said to me, everything's on the road map. So, that's not a justification for saying this is a rep prioritization. But but I I still believe it was because I I went through as well the last 3 years if or even longer, Ethereum core developers were focused on other things, the merge, launching the beacon chain, the burn, all these other things. And I think only now have we been able to focus on the the L1 side of things, scaling the L1, I should say. But just just to finish

here, I actually want to admit something that I admitted to you in DMs. And this is this is hard for me to admit, but I will admit I I will admit that over the last 6 to 12 months, the fact that we had these voices that I disagree with on pretty much everything, being really loud about scaling the L1 and putting more priority on it. I will admit that that did play a role. Like, I'm not going to say it didn't play any role. did play a role in getting more people to pay attention to L1 scaling and like you know I will give them credit for that on on that little thing there but I do think and at the same time I do think a lot of the other stuff kind of like is a wash like I feel like a lot of the

other stuff that they said was just crappy as well um like the focus on revenues and stuff like that and and saying ETH is overvalued and whatever and kind of bucketing ETH into this this shitty shitty bucket. Um but but yeah, I will say that that push has definitely caused more attention to be on L1 scaling and is a net good for Ethereum. >> Have you have you seen that John Charo meme about it? It's like the reference to like the human centipede of like uh Ethereum palatability. And so first Max Resnik says it and everyone hates it. And then John uh John Sharono says the same thing and most people still hate it but but some people read the article and agree with it. And then David says it and like okay some Ethereum like half the Ethereum community accepts it and then half doesn't. And then Anthony says it and most of the Ethereum community

accepts it and then Vitalic says it and then everyone but it's all it's everyone's saying the same thing. It's just a matter of whose it's coming from. I thought that was a pretty funny meme. >> I mean, it's just it's just just quickly on that, it's it's human nature for that to to be a thing, right? Like you're you're more open to listening to people who you consider to be, you know, good actors, I guess, for lack of a better term here. But I I also will say going back to what I was saying before, L1 scaling, I know not everyone agrees with this, but L1 scaling was always on the road map. And I do believe that >> disagree with that. >> You'll find people that disagree. Um but but I think that the the main thing is not that it was always on the road map

here. My main point is that the priority thing because if you let's say these same people were saying these things two years ago and and saying it like they did over the last kind of 6 months. >> I don't think that the core devs would have been able to prioritize L1 scaling then because we had other things going on. So I think that it came at the maybe the right time like the timing was actually right for it more than anything. >> Okay. So, um, the rep prioritization or pivot, whichever word you want to use, it's semantic. And so, it's always going to be muddy, it's always going to be great. There's no perfect answer. But when the pivot word is said, uh, it's inclusive of a restructuring at the Ethereum Foundation, which is separate from >> I will actually admit that the EF

pivoted like the EF itself pivoted in what they were to a different strategy. I will admit that. >> Okay. So then you have a layer 1 roadmap rep prioritization alongside a Ethereum Foundation pivot and then you like zoom out to people who are like three degrees of separation away from Ethereum and like what word are they going to use? And additionally, when like the ETH BTC ratio is like down to like 018 at the very bottom, like at some point the market wants to hear the word >> pivot uh because it's attention grabbing. Uh it it talks about like okay, we're going to restore investor confidence. >> It's ultimately semantics at the end of the day. What I will say is important is that there the uh rep prioritization camp I think is motivated by a very strong need to always be right and not

be wrong and not want to admit that we did something wrong or that there was failure along the way. And I that's what I want to push up against because I see that in Ethereum there's this like resistance to ever say that we ever did a mistake and it's very like Soviet communism totalitarian vibes of just like uh uh like never admit fault never take >> true for the for the people who have been like the other side of the camp as well like >> probably and that's why that's why taking the high road really matters and whoever can say like okay we up maybe we put the layer 2 prioritization uh in the wrong spot thought and maybe we should prioritize layer one scaling and now we're going to pivot and fix that and just like being able to say as a community that like we did something

wrong and now we are going to fix it is like good that's a good thing and it's actually bearish to have members of the community who are like Ethereum's always good Ethereum is is never bad all other tribes are bad it's just very very alienating and and tribal and it actually I think reduces the investable like the investable nature of Ethereum, the louder that part of the community is. >> I I will admit that I think we didn't put enough focus on L1 scaling. Uh definitely like that's I think that's pretty obvious. Um but I I think you know a year ago or more than a year ago the um pump the gas website launched and this was done by Eric Connor Mariana Ki and at the time I pushed back a lot on this and and my push back like uh you

can go find the episode if people want on daily be hard to find but I remember my main source of push back was that I didn't think it was like an order of magnitude kind of improvement of Ethereum. Like I didn't think going from 30 million gas limit to even 60 million gas limit was going to really you know improve Ethereum as much as the L2s were doing because we had just launched blobs. Yeah. Blobs went live fees were now like extremely cheap on the L2s. That's the experience that I think people were getting, you know, users would get good a good good experience out of because we dropped fees. I think the fees were going like $5 or something like that at the time. We dropped them from even a few dollars to like less than a cent. Whereas increasing the L1 gas limit doesn't do that even if you increase it by 10x. You would have to

increase it by 100x. And that's obviously unworkable until we get ZK VMs which a year ago were unheard of. Like people weren't talking about enshrining a ZK VM except some of the researchers who were looking very far out. Everyone else thought it was a pipe dream. So I think when talking about these things, you have to really contextualize the timing here because that's very important, especially when it comes to technology because there's technology that has traditionally been like 20 years away or 10 years away. Like the ZK stuff 5 years ago was, you know, a long time away. It it was people were saying, well, maybe this isn't going to come for like decades. And now in 2025, 5 years later, we have ZK stuff live. The ZK VMs alive. And then we have very credible paths to maybe even in 2027 enshrining an L1 kind of ZKVM here and and and

obviously proving costs and all that stuff come down. That's what's made a lot of this possible. So I think over the last year things have changed very substantially. My opinion on these things have changed substantially. But I also think when it came to the gas limit specifically, um, people were I I guess myself included were too focused on just I guess like the magnitude order of improvements rather than kind of saying that well we can actually still have small improvements and that counts too, right? That that's actually better. Like even if it's a small improvement, it counts. And maybe it doesn't count as much on the tech side, but maybe it has a really big impact on the narrative side. as you said, like when you're three degrees removed from the Ethereum ecosystem and you're just at a really high level, seeing that Ethereum is

fixing the issues of fees, right? Like even if it doesn't make total sense, even if it's not totally true, it still inspires confidence in investors, which is good for ETH the asset, which is good for everyone, right? So, yeah, I will admit that like I probably missed that a year ago and I put a lot more importance on that now um than than I did back then and I've become a gas ball now. Like it's funny looking back on my episode I did a bit over a year ago now seriously saying that we you know who cares about this to now being like let's go as high as we can go like this is awesome. Um so yeah I I have definitely changed my tune on things a lot as well and I'm I'm happy to to admit that. Um but I I I do

still stick by the fact that I think it's a confluence of of time of where we are in the kind of like timeline of things too. It's not just we could have done this a year ago. I I don't think a year 18 months ago this conversation would have been palatable because the core devs were focused on different things. >> Um a lot of things seemed like pipe dreams like I said the zk stuff but now everyone's like okay we can do this you know this is we can be aggressive here. Um and I I do think that the EF change in kind of like um you know leadership and and and restructuring played a big part as well because it set the tone of things. Um, so I think we're in a really good place now, but I asked you before as well, like, yes, we're in a really

good place, but you still think there's there's areas where we could do better. And I I I I really want to maybe just hit home on that again. It's like, where do you think that we're weakest right now as a as an ecosystem? Not not maybe not eat the asset. I think the asset separate to this discussion, but Ethereum as a network community technology, where do you think we're still really weak? Like I'm talking so weak that we could easily be kind of run over by a 10 person kind of army sort of thing. >> Yeah. Yeah, there there are parts that I want to respond to in your in your first talk about and it might it might overlap with answering that question anyways. Um yeah, like going going back to like okay, do we scale the layer 2 and get hypers scale at the layer two or do we get like marginal scale at the layer

one? How do we like trade off of these things? And like I think I think we could go back to 18 months ago, two years ago when we're starting to make some of these decisions and these trade-offs and maybe maybe we all have like hindsight bias or rosecolored glasses or something or whatever. And maybe maybe actually it was just a a mess of kind of mid moves for Ethereum just because it was going through its growing pains, it teenage years. It's a research-driven project with 10 yearlong time horizons and the middle game for Ethereum was destined to be like murky and unfortunate and maybe there was always some centralized competitor like Salana that was going to be able to come up and capture that weakness of the middle game. So like may maybe that's true and like may maybe we go back in time and we you know go from 30 gas on

the layer 1 to 60 gas on the layer 1 two years ago and like the same future happens and actually didn't matter and that's totally possible. And so that that's what we're saying like may maybe the middle game was always destined to be a rough patch for Ethereum. >> I I think I think I totally agree with that. I don't think it would have changed anything. >> Yeah, I I think that's it's a it's I probably agree with that. Um at the same time, uh I'll I'll steal man the other argument which is like okay, it's really great that we got like hypers scale at the layer 2 sooner rather than later. Uh but like to your point um like maybe just the investor confidence of investing in the layer one was a a good signal but also at the same time I think whether you believe in scaling the layer 1 or scaling the layer 2 also really is

a function of whether you believe layer twos are ethereum or not. Uh and like that that is something that I think uh I would like when we talk about what what we feel is weak I think that's maybe it's not as relevant anymore that conversation ziki has kind of just moved on from that right now. Um, but like it's very related to like where did the revenues go? Well, we prioritized the Ethereum layer 2. We didn't prioritize the Ethereum layer 1. Uh, and so like where why are we inflating Ether just under the inflation rate of Bitcoin that's one happening away from being less inflation than Bitcoin like well we we scaled the layer twos and so like there's a whole uh like arc of Ethereum of like putting on layer 2's oxygen masks before it put on its own. uh and uh and so like that that with like ETH as an asset I think all of that is very

related of like Ethereum as a project prioritize layer twos uh and like you know Vitalic as a culture is very much of helping others and I don't think those things are like disconnected. I think leadership culture is set from the top down. It's very like Vitalic to be like you know what Ethereum's good enough. Let's make sure the layer twos are the best form that they could be before prioritizing Ethereum. Uh, and so like there's this whole complex of like these messy threads that get pulled on and it's why it's such like a hard conversation. Um, and like I think I I am an advocate of when we talk about Ethereum, we are talking about the Ethereum layer 1 and the layer 2 are are our customers. Uh, they are building on top of Ethereum, but they are not Ethereum. The Ethereum is the layer 1 protocol and then there's the Ethereum

ecosystem which is inclusive of its layer 2s. But saying that like Ethereum layer 2s are equivalent to the layer 1 is just not helpful or and it's not helpful to also say layer 2s are Ethereum and Ethereum is this grand thing that is both a layer 1 and inclusive of those layer 2s that's like if you have a certain level of buyin and awareness and comprehension about Ethereum specifics then we can talk about that but when we are saying like Ethereum and then we somehow also mean like base arbitum uh all these other layer twos it's so confusing using it's just like not what normal people how normal people talk and so to me I think Ethereum should be the layer 1 protocol and then there's layer 2s onto Ethereum and Ethereum is the only ecosystem like that there's no other ecosystem with layer twos anywhere close and we don't

need to like lump layer 2s into Ethereum I think it's very like detrimental in terms of communication for like what we're trying to communicate about Ethereum >> I think I'm going to push back on when you said not everyday people speak like that um maybe This analogy doesn't hit for everyone, but it hits for me. Um, the United States of America, right? When people say America, they're talking about America, the states, like that inclusive of that. That's the same way I think about Ethereum where I know people will disagree with this, but where like when I say Ethereum, I'm including the kind of things built on top of it, whether they be the L2s, DeFi apps, things like that, right? Whereas with your strict definition here, you're saying the Ethereum core protocol, the rules that make up that protocol, that's Ethereum. Like that's the only thing that's Ethereum.

>> State. Yeah. >> And yeah, the state, right? Like the thing that we run a full node for on our machines, that that's Ethereum, right? >> Yeah. >> Then these other L2s, they have their own state. They have their own nodes. They have their own sequences. Things >> have their own governance. >> Have their own governance. Yes. But but here comes my analogy again. the United States. You know more about this than I do because obviously I'm not American. But in the United you have the federal kind of government, right? The federal layer, the protocol layer of the United then you have the states within there which have their own sets of governance, their own sets of laws and rules and you know and they can if they want to they can leave the United States. They can literally secede and say, "Well, we're no longer part of it. We're California the country now, right?

>> They can't do that." And that's the big difference is like >> why can't they do that? because we will go with an army and we will put them back into the United States and if arbitrum wants to settle elsewhere and governance of arbitrum just says hey we're going to go settle on Bitcoin. >> Yeah. >> Uh it will do that and there's no army coming to stop arbitum. >> There's no army. It's not it's not like equivalent, but you can fork arbitum and you can say we're going to fork arbitum and put it back on Ethereum and if people want to stay on that fork rather than the one that goes over and want to bridge their capital cuz money is how we enforce these things, right? The capital, right?

>> If they want to get off this kind of like arbitrum that's settling somewhere else and say, well, we don't want that, we want this, then they can do that, right? Um there are examples of this playing out over the years. Um some failed Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash obviously. Um some relatively kind of successful in their own bubble. Uh Steemit and what that forked into after the hostile governance takeover from from Justin Sun. So this is not a far-fetched thing to say that in your example people could bridge their capital over or could just recognize the capital on arbitum that's on they're settling to Ethereum rather than the one that's settling somewhere else. Yes, we don't have an army that can enforce these things because that's just not obviously what what it is.

That's where the analogy breaks down a bit. But also the US army could not invade California, could let California do this. Like that's also a reality. You can't say with certainty, >> but that's a but but what I'm saying is let's let's maybe fast forward a h 100red years where the landscape is totally different, right? >> Like I I know that the analogy isn't perfect, but I think that when you're talking and saying like to bring it back to the point, when you're talking and saying Ethereum like logically and again you're talking about like three degrees remove people from Ethereum, they're going to think the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole. They're not going to think just a one protocol because they're not deep and and down into that, right? And they may not even know that Bass is obviously like settling to Ethereum or built on on

Ethereum. They may just see Bass. But that's the same thing for seeing Uniswap. Say all you're doing is um interacting with UniS swap through unis swap wallet. All the branding is unis swap. Maybe eventually they hide what chain you're on alto together and there's literally just like a button that says buy and sell and you don't even know what you're doing. Like there's no gas fees, none of that stuff. It's just like I want to trade USDC for this memecoin. You do it and you push a button. That's it. There's nothing. You don't see anything else unless maybe you go to advanced settings and enable that, right? Those people aren't going to know at all that what's what's going on in the background. Um, but it's still the Ethereum ecosystem. You're still part of of Ethereum here. So, this is a semantics discussion first and foremost,

I think. But I will agree like even though I I disagree with certain things there, I will agree with you that um the Ethereum L1 needs to take care of itself better, needs to prioritize itself. The deep in the weeds, Ethereum need to prioritize the L1 more than they have traditionally. That's totally fair and I totally agree with that. Um but I don't think that saying that the L2s aren't Ethereum is necessarily very conductive. I if you're talking about on the protocol level, sure, like nitty-gritty technical stuff, but I I still push back and say that I would like to say that the L2s are Ethereum. And there are technical disc there are technical things you can say as well where let's just say an L2 is on Ethereum and it's fully decentralized. It's stage two. It

doesn't even have any governance. Let's just say it has zero governance, right? Because there are there are constructions you can make like this. Yes, they're not part of the core literal protocol, but for all intents and technical purposes, it is equivalent to Ethereum guarantees of you can escape hatch to Ethereum L1 in any asset that you want. Let's just use ETH as an example because ETH's the only decentralized asset on Ethereum, truly decentralized asset on Ethereum, right? I still think it's fair to call them those things. But yeah, I know my analogy isn't perfect, but that's how I view it. >> Yeah, there's no there's no perfect analogy. Um Okay. I think you I you love to make these like tech technical rationalizations and like you make that argument about the whole arbitrum thing and like I'll take your point. Um I in rather than being a technical argument

or semantics argument I think this is first and foremost a political argument. uh this this is a political uh conversation first and foremost and I think for your community for your listeners as a daily guay it's perfectly like fine and acceptable to say like layer 2 are Ethereum because all of your community are pilled they're all ETH pill and that works inside of that community uh and then but my disposition is trying to get people who are not pled and pill them and the people who are not pilled can't take >> can't accept that layer 2s are Ethereum because they because they're not pilled yet and so like one of to continue on this analogy inside the United States, maybe you don't know this, Anthony, uh but when you are in a state, Washington state is where I'm I'm from, and you are in some sort of government um uh

building and it has a flag out, there's a there's a flag for every state. And I I think this is true, or I'm bullshitting and blowing this out of my ass, but I think this is true. But on but it's it's law that the United States flag flies up top and then it's the state flag below. >> The state flag comes below. >> And I I would probably assume that there's some law about the size, too. Like United States flag has to be larger or equivalent to the state flag. And with all of Ethereum's layer 2s, it's the arbitrum symbol, it's the base symbol, it's the uni chain symbol. The Ethereum symbol is not really elevated there. And there are all these like VC funded with return expectation of returns to elevate their symbol and their brand above the Ethereum brand and like arbitum unis swap optimism base

these are all highly aligned because they've politically shown to be aligned but there's total opportunities for a grift layer 2 to come in and say we're an Ethereum layer 2 and we're equivalent to Ethereum and me as an ambassador of the Ethereum brand I don't want that layer that grift layer 2 to represent my my belief structure, my political statement. And so like I don't want Ethereum layer 2, which is a permissionless thing to do, to by default be inclusive of the Ethereum label, the Ethereum brand. I think you have to like earn it. Just you have to you have to earn it. And like, you know, the next Grift L layer 2 that comes on that like Roocci Manch is the head of uh like I don't want him to be able to like what's it called? like you leverage the

Ethereum brand to to promote his valuation of his token. And so when we talk when we talk externally, I think like that's also the frame of mind that we have to we have to take. >> Yeah. But you could make that argument for everything, not just L2s, right? You can make that argument for for different DeFi apps, NFTTS, and everything. I know like what you're saying. I get what you're saying and I don't necessarily disagree, but I think that's just a broad argument you can make across anything that's built on Ethereum um as part of the Ethereum ecosystem. Maybe it's worse when it's an L2 because people are literally saying L2's >> we are Ethereum >> Ethereum a they're not saying that they are Ethereum >> yeah but if we think about it from the perspective of an outsider right that's not in the weeds they're going to it's it's all the same to them like I don't

think they make the distinction if they see there's some scam that launched on Ethereum like people already do this with Salana right where they say that oh all these rugs and scams and memecoin stuff launching on Salana like it gives Salana a bad reputation which objectively I think is true and just like it's been true in the past for Ethereum all the NFTs griffs were on Ethereum it gave Ethereum a bad reputation right um from that perspective so so I think that argument holds for for everything not just the L2s but I will say you you spoke about laws and I think this is really important because in if in the I guess like a permissionless blockchain ecosystem there are laws they're protocol rules right but like they are only enforceable in of on themselves They can't you can't enforce this on other kind of people. The Ethereum protocol can't enforce its laws on

everything. It can only enforce it in its kind of confines of the Ethereum network. So when you go and create your own network that yes, you know, you're enforc the Ethereum protocol is enforcing some of its laws on these networks. If you're settling down to Ethereum, you can only, you know, you use blobs. You you have to abide by the blob kind of technical specification of what what to do there. So on and so forth. But for the most part, you've got autonomy over your governance, right? over over what happens especially if you're not a stage two roll up. If you're a stage zero roll up you can rug funds like simple as that right. Um so so it's all about enforcement I think and this is actually something that I've argued about when it comes to uh fear revenue is that like the L1 itself is very bad at enforcing like it's

enforcing anything really. It can enforce its own protocol rules. But beyond that, because it's permissionless, it's very bad at enforcing things and it's not like a traditional kind of database where you can just revoke someone's API key access to it, right? You can't like no one can stop you from building on Ethereum. No one can stop you from building whatever you want on Ethereum, whether that's a scam or something else. Um, and I think that's that's been a source a lot of the contention for people when it comes to these discussions, is that yes, you can socially call it out. You can socially shame them. You can say this is a scam, this is a grift, whatever, but you can't stop it that so there's so while there there is I guess like a social understanding, you can't stop this from happening. And I think this is the same

thing like when you talk about freedom of speech in the US, right? Like you can disagree with the speech, but it's protected under under law and there's an enforcement there that that that like physical enforcement, right? you can go to like if you try to stop someone from saying what they want or you try to stop them, the only way to stop them really is to probably like literally physically go after them and stop them from doing it, then there are laws that kind of are enforced there. Um, same is true for the Ethereum protocol. If you do things that go against the protocol rules as a validator, you'll get slashed, right? The protocol will slash you. Um, but if you're doing things that go against the social norms, um, and maybe that are baked into the social contract, that's not enforceable. like you can't in you can't stop someone from launching a

grift or a scam on Ethereum um you besides doing the physical thing and there's no kind of like recourse there because if they're in North Korea they're not going to be able to be prosecuted by America right like yes they're sanctioned but like hey they don't care they're they just stole a billion dollars worth of ETH from from Bybit um you know they're they're fine so I I I think that's critically important and the reason why I brought up the the L1 fe thing is because I don't know if you wanted to say more about what I just said but the next thing I wanted to talk about was like how L1's are really poor at capturing fear revenue and that you know it goes back to what we were just saying about enforcing things and I think enforcement is a very big topic here >> right uh I don't have anything specific

to respond to uh I think where you're going with this is like revenue at the layer one like since the Ethereum layer 1 protocol is kind of like the last in line to capture value because apps come first then then there's no long-term fee revenue so why are we focusing on reb >> yeah I I mean, yes, and it doesn't just apply to Ethereum L1. I think it applies to every L1. Um, and I think every L1 is just long-term going to have a really tough time capturing fair revenue. And I can explain why. >> Are we are we doing the REV conversation? Is that what we're doing right now? Is that what we're trying to go into? >> I I I I mean, I think so.

>> I'm just curious if there was a transition if we were talking about a new subject now. >> Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was a transition because we're talking about enforcement of things and and specifically what the layer 1 can enforce in terms of, you know, social norms and protocol rules and technical things because I actually think it's a perfect segue into talking about revenues and why I strongly believe and I think has been proven somewhat over the years that the L1 is really poor at capturing revenue. And you mentioned it just then, you said that it's because it's last in line, right? It's like, let's say there's a bread line. There's 10 people in line and there's only nine and 3/4 of bread. Well, the last person's not getting any, you know, is only getting three, sorry. Yeah. Not the last person's getting three quarters of bread instead of a whole bread, right? Like that that's

kind of where I'm going with it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, right. And I generally agree with that. Uh, I think that's the base case. Um and so like because there's application specific sequencing or apps the motivation for apps become chains they'll the capture the value will just be captured first. Uh the Ethereum protocol eats last. Uh which is bullish because that's how you actually foster an app ecosystem or a chain ecosystem. Like that's the incentive. Uh nonetheless there will always be some amount of leakage of value. It will never there will never be perfect value capture upstream. And so Ethereum is kind of like the last to eat but it eats globally. It eats everything. Uh just the last little crumbs. It's the last little filter.

There's probably um >> like a biome conversation here of just like the food filters down and they get nibbled at by the big fish and then >> you wrote a lot of posts using biome like and nature kind of analogies. >> I like nature analogies with Ethereum. Yeah. Um but like the to me the importance of rev is indicative of growth. So when I see like a positive REV number to me, what that tells me is that that particular ecosystem is growing and continuing to grow and it's actually like yes, it's going to REV is going to zero, but not when there's always something new. When there's a new app coming online is imperfect of value capture, it's going to leak value and that value is going to show up in rev. And so like rather than like rev being

this static thing that's eventually going to compress, I kind of see REV as like continually growing the a signal of a continued growth of a chain. And so if a chain is holding positive REV for a long amount of time, to me that is like as if a country had positive GDP for a long amount of time. And so yes, REV is bad in the sense that like sure there's ME it's toxic blah blah blah. whether it's like bad components that we want to eliminate, but like I will always take a higher REV number than a lower REV number. >> Yeah. And I don't think anyone's going to push back on that. Like I I tweeted out something uh uh what was it like a month ago now or something where I said the ETH Maxis kill Rev and people took it the wrong way,

>> dude. >> Dude, no. You know, it's funny like it was actually supposed to like it actually succeeded in in getting people riled up because that was the whole point. But like my >> Yeah, but it it like it made you appear unreasonable to the prov camp. >> Dude, I am I am already unreasonable to them. Like they already hate me. Like I really don't. >> It doesn't have to be that way. >> No, but the thing is is that we had this discussion I think with with the the role that I feel it does like I'm the Ethaxis Ethaxi and I'm happy being that and I'm you know happy you know and and and and comfortable being that. I'm comfortable with you being what you want to be because >> right I feel like that's why we butt heads because like you're you are trying

to drag the Overton window to the ETH Maxi camp and I'm like yo bro be be reasonable to everyone be reasonable to everyone >> and that's just not like personally like who I am as a person like that's just not like I can have a reasonable conversation with with anyone but at the same time I'm not going to like doing it with certain people because it's just like I I can't pallet Like if I think someone's bullshitting me, I actually can't just sit there and let them do it. >> I totally get it. I >> like I can't I and and that's you know that that's that's just way >> I mean when I go and I talk to like John Sharo or you know pick your favorite ETH concern ETH hater like I don't feel like I'm also averse to but I don't feel like they are bullshitting me when

I talk. >> Yeah, that's that's fair. That's fair and and I get that. It's different perspectives on things like I have a very low tolerance maybe like lower than yours and very low bar like what I consider When when I hear I have had to like excuse myself from an audience when I was sitting in an audience in Tel Aviv at the Starware sessions and Emmens Ger Gear was on the stage and I'm like >> I'm just going to heckle this man and it's that's not appropriate and I need to leave like I can't do this. I can't do it. >> I'm not I'm just not going to listen to him. >> That that's that's me. I'm s I will I will actually like I I don't think I've noped out of an audience before but I will sit there and stew in my rage. I'll

be like, "Ah, I need to like call this guy out. What the?" Like, you know? >> No, I'm the same way. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's just just kind of like the way I am. But then, >> yeah, bring it back to to the to the L1 stuff like I I as I said, I agree or the fear of a new stuff. As I said, I agree with you that like number going up is better. But the problem is is that if you look at the alltime fee chart of like Ethal one and even Salana right now as well you you'll see like fe went up a lot a lot a lot a lot and that's because of me primarily and it's not just direct me it's also the uh consequence of just state contention in general like when a lot of people want to do something on

chain fees are going to go up because there is a competition to do that and Our competition is you almost always won by me bots who are constantly running 24/7. They don't sleep because they're machines, right? Constantly running. If they can make 1 cent by spending 99 cents, they're going to do it because they're just doing this a million times. >> $1 from 99 cents. >> Uh oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I meant one cent profit um of that that I see. I see. >> Yeah. If they're going to even just make 1% profit, they're going to do that because it it's profitable, right? So if 99% of the transaction is a fee, they're going to pay that fee because they're still making profit right from that. So we've seen this with Ethereum. We saw it

with DeFi. Yeah. >> Saw it with NFTTS, right? When there is high state contention, there's high me. We saw it with Salana with memecoins. when there is high state contention for one part of the state because I know they have multi-dimensional kind of like fee markets there um and and separate fee markets but still because there is contention for that specific point of the state it gets bit up by me bots because they're the ones that are willing to pay the fee because they're making profit from it from employing different strategies and it's not just normal kind of AMM trades it's liquidations it's they're running all kind of complex strategies here so my argument is that over time the MEV that's captured by the L1 gets abstracted away. It gets captured further up the stack by the apps because the apps will be like why am I leaking all of this value to you know the L1

when I can be capturing it myself by by the wallets the interfaces they'll take their cut because as soon as you start taking fees you start eating into the ultimate capture of the MEV bots because if you're taking a a feed to >> from the user directly then um you know that is being taken from the ME bots um you know further further down the stack. So you have like a whole stack here of people that capture the different value. Um and I think it's a net good thing for obviously for me to go down. It's not like a lot of me is toxic. Um so that's why I think on on the if you look at the alltime chart of fear revenue it's a very dumb picture to look at. I think what you have to look at is a mature ecosystem when the ecosystem matured in from the mav perspective which I think

Ethereum has at this point and then start judging its fair revenue based on on that right and then look at it. Don't look at what it was when it was the wild west where everyone was like scamming everyone, everyone was like taking money from everyone else. When you look at it as a mature ecosystem, that is probably a better way to measure the growth. Cuz if you're looking at Ethereum revenue from 2021 and saying, well, you know, there were some days we were doing $50 million of fair revenue. We're not going back to that anytime soon because most of that was from the toxic me capture at the time and from like the toxic contention of state that was from unsustainable activities as well which is the extreme speculation side of things. Now in a more mature ecosystem where we have less extreme you know maybe less extreme speculation we have

me abstracted away we have apps and wallets and stuff capturing more of that value rather than the L1 then that's where you measure it from and and the final thing I'll say here is that the L1 can't do anything to get this back itself the L1 cannot enforce cannot force people to pay it more right you can raise the the the cost of operations on the network but if the fees get too high people are going to go elsewhere whether that be an L2 or another L1 one. So again, like at the top, I said L1's have very poor fear of a new capture. And this is why I think that's the case. And ultimately, this is why I think that an L1 asset being valued on its fear of a new is really bearish. Like that's really bearish. It means that that asset is worth very little and is going to

continue being worth very little. Whereas if it's valued as a store of value, as a money, it's worth trillions. We see that with BTC. Hopefully we see that with ETH. And then I think the other L1 assets will probably launch learn that lesson over time. >> Yeah. No, I I I agree with with everything you said. Yeah. I think Yeah. So like the whole like Salana RAV, Salana burn that happened with all the the u meme coins that happened in 2024. You're just correlating that to like well that's Ethereum in 2021 and it's actually it's it's what you're what you're saying is that okay what I said is that REV is indicative of growth and if there's REV that means the the ecosystem is growing. You know that means there's margins out there. If people are paying fees, then >> it's true that the ecosystem is is

growing, but like at that like snapshot in time. >> In that snapshot in time. Yeah. And so like when I when I see like fees rev I'm like okay that like Jeff Bezos quote that margin is going to become somebody else's opportunity. Somebody else is going to build an app and then all of a sudden there's a new app there and it's going to capture that fee and then the Salana ecosystem grows. Uh and then what what what you're saying is like yes that's also true but also uh is indicative of an ecosystem like a of a emerging economy that is just like getting off the ground and it's hyper inefficient because like there's no actual y like streamlined economy there and so like actually lower im uh rev is indicative of a mature ecosystem. I take I take that I like that. I take that part. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's

that's kind of um how I how I view it there. Uh, one thing that I'm I'm I'm going to So, I'm I think I've convinced Yanowitz to bring me on Empire podcast with Santi and also Mike. Uh, and I kind of give him gave him not a dissimilar like conversation of us had today. It's like, yo, I'm I'm mediator. I can mediate between block works and Ethereum. I would like to like repair this relationship. And one of the and things that I intend to go do is like talk to them and be like, "Guys, for the the sake of the industry, REV is like suppressing all of our bags. It's not it's not ETH, it's not Salana, but like the REV perspective is like >> basically synonymous with being bearish." >> Yes.

>> And you're you're you're actually holding the industry back by focusing on REV because it's a bearish perspective to have and it's actually a choice that you can make. And like um Dan Smith made a tweet. He's like the Salana guy on Blockworks Research. I think he made a tweet uh that was like >> at Blockworks we just call balls and strikes. We're just calling them balls and strikes. Uh that's what we like to do. And and like I agree. I like that perspective. That's why he likes REV. It's an objective measurement. And I I I like that Blockworks wants to be an ecosystem that calls balls and strikes. >> And then like what I hope to communicate to them is like well you know strike zones are subjective. that is an extre subjective strike zone and is a choice to prioritize REV. I don't really know how much they wanted to prioritize REV,

but I think one thing that definitely happened was that the Ethereum ecosystem was so anti-REV that they kind of forced Blockworks to like dig in and double down on REV. And so now there was a reaction that happened. And so the Ethereum ecosystem reacted against Blockworks. Blockworks has since reacted against the Ethereum ecosystem because REV is a true metric. It's a good metric for measuring what it wants to measure. Is it a capital G good metric? No. I think that's what you you and I are agreeing on right now. Uh but nonetheless, like I think there was a reaction there. And now these two ecosystems have like pushed each other apart.

>> So I'm I'm hoping to go into that podcast and like bring them a little bit closer together uh and bring Block Works more into the Ethereum ecosystem, which I think would be good for Ethereum. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't disagree with that, but at the same time, I push back a little bit on you saying that they look at these things objectively because I actually don't think that to be true. And I'll use an example. >> They try to do that. That is their goal. >> They they try, but they fail spectacularly. And I'll I'll explain. I'm sorry, but I have to I have to call this out. >> They had a bull case for Celestia, right? and this bull case >> they like brought B blockworks broadly or somebody >> I mean a lot a lot of Blockworks people were shilling you know Celestia and also

Salana earlier um and they were saying and they were shilling it saying we expect Fear Avenue to grow for such and such reasons it's like that's not an objective thing that's subjective if you're projecting out something into the future based on your own assumptions of things you can't objectively say that that you know fe is going to grow you're going to subjectively say we believe fear revenue is going to grow because of such and such reason and that's why this asset should be worth more because of this. So like there's you can be objective and look at the numbers but you have to kind of qualify that when you're making subjective statements about the future, right? And and that's where I think a lot of people rub got rubbed the wrong way because on one side you had the block works guys saying that we're extremely bearish on Ethereum

because E3 revenue has gone you know Ethereum fair sorry extreme bearish on ETH because Ethereum fair revenue has gone down only but we're really bullish on Celestia because we believe that Celestia fair revenue is going to go up only but then they also pushed back and said we don't believe ETH is a special snowflake. We don't believe ETH is a store of value or can be like Bitcoin. But but that's another subjective thing. But then you you flip it around. They've actually kind of been wrong about that so far. Like again, it's a short- termism, but they've like ETH is becoming more like a store of value obviously with these treasury companies and ETF flows becoming more of like a macro asset or more of a special snowflake as you know to use their terminology here. And the Celestia thesis hasn't played out like this is

this has been the last six months. It hasn't played out there. You know, Celestia is using has less data posted to it than Ethereum L1 does. and Ethereum L1 data capacity is way less than than than Celestia right now, right? So, so that's why I think they get a lot of push back is because they say they're being objective and they think that they're being objective and they're just looking at the facts, but then they'll give a thesis on something that's based entirely on their subjective views about it, whether that be Celestia or Ethereum. That is the contention there. And I hope I don't know if any of them will watch this and understand that, but I I hope they can actually understand that that's why they get push back on things because you can't play both sides. You have to you have to be truthful to one side. And

what frustrates me is that I'm truthful to who I am. I am owning that I'm an Ethmaxi, right? I am very truthful about that. I am not pushing back on that. If people want to call me that, that's what I am. But if you're going to say something and then not own it in other areas and contradict yourself, that's why people will push back. And I think that's that's the what we've seen on on I mean mostly on Twitter. >> Yeah. Yeah. I don't have any defense for that in any particular I'll have to leave the Block Works people to defend. >> Yeah. I'm not Yeah. I'm not expecting you to defend it. I think I just for the audience it's worth explaining and maybe for you as well in case you I mean I've explained this to you in DMs plenty of times is where I see the contradictions

um in different things there. I I will give like a block works perspective I think of um like the timing of when block works got a lot of growth uh was post like 2021 2022 I think and they because they were there they were an events company and then they got smacked by co and they pivoted to being I don't know pivot but they they >> very prioritized >> they they evolved their digital media side of things their podcast and their website and all that kind of stuff uh in the 20 in the postcoid era in20 22 and that was like a well after bank list had already like like we tried to suck as much oxygen out of Ethereum media as possible like we just had incredible dominance there and so if they wanted to get growth in that that arena they

needed to they like there's no it's no coincidence why they started with the Salana podcast not an Ethereum podcast like there was already bank list um >> but then also if you wanted to build an Ethereum company finding talent was easier in 2019 through 2021 And Blockwork Works consistently grows and grows and grows to their credit to Jason's and and Mike's credit, but they are they have been growing in 21 through 2025 because they have this grand vision for what they want Blockworks to do. So the talent pool has come from those generations of people like the 2022 plus generation of people and those people are like younger millennial zoomers uh who resonate with Salana, Celestia downstream of Ethereum things like we are Anthony, you and I are millennials.

>> Mhm. >> We like Ethereum. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> We're not the Gen Xers like Alex Thorne who like Bitcoin or or like Michael Sailor who like Bitcoin. were the millennials who like Ethereum and then the like the zoomers and you know younger millennial zoomers like Salana and and other newer shinier chains and part of it just comes from like when block works took on a lot of talent and I think that has partly defined their culture and I don't really have any like I don't know what takeaway there is from that but I think it's just important to add the context >> that that that's actually perfect context because it's something that I was trying to whenever I would defend you guys at bankless I would say Guys, you have to look at the incentives here, not of David and Ryan, but of bankless as a as a platform. There are, you know,

a for-profit business, a media business. They need to cover what's popular because that's how you grow. And obviously, Blockworks did the same thing. I think Bankless owned this. Block Works. I don't know as a as a whole. Like I'm judging like obviously a lot of people here and I'm honestly judging Block Works based on maybe just a few people that are very active on on Twitter, but I feel like and I get the general sense that they don't tend to own what they are. They tend to try and pretend that they're something that they're not. If they came out and said, "Oh, we're doing all of this because it's good for Block Works growth and this is what people want." Like if they specifically said that, like I'd be fine with that. There's nothing wrong with that. But but I I think yeah where the where the probably issue lies is that

they they kind of try to downplay their incentives because they're VCs as well, right? They they invest in kind of early stage projects and things like that just like Bankers does with Bankless Ventures. >> Yeah, they have VCs but they took on VCs very late in their lifestyle and so >> sorry themselves as well like they invest as I should say angel investors and they go into different project. So they have a whole mix of incentives here, right? Just like just like everyone does. Everyone has a mix of incentives, but but what my main issue is that when you try to like downplay those incentives or try to say that they don't matter and they don't influence your opinions, that is the issue for me. Whereas I will never say that me being a massive ETH maxi doesn't influence my opinion about Ethereum and my bias about

like that. That's literally like me saying that, oh yeah, no, I'm I'm uh I'm not biased towards Ethereum because I hold this other asset. Like yeah, I'm not an ETH maxi or what? Like it's just it's dumb. Like that that's my question. >> What what is block works? What are they that you think that they are not saying? >> No, I I just think that they in in the guess public communications generally that they do they tend to to downplay or at least not acknowledge their their incentive structure here and they try to play both sides. And and I I'll give an example of this maybe that's clearer for people. You had Yano, the co-founder, one of the co-founders of um of Blockworks say, I think three weeks ago or something that ETH is extremely overvalued, right? He said this on a

podcast or he's very bearish on ETH, right? And then he puts out a tweet saying, "I want to say nice things about ETH, but then the ETH Maxis are going to hate on me." It's like, dude, like you can't just like >> why why can't he do those are not mutually exclusive? But but but they they are seen as that because and I'm try I guess like I'm trying to explain my point here because two three weeks ago you're saying that you're very bearish on ETH and then you fast forward and you're like well now I want to say nice things about Ethereum and ETH and I want to be bullish on ETH. It's like dude like that's not it's >> I don't know if he said he wants to be bullish on ETH. He wants to launch an Ethereum he wants to take blocks and

launch Ethereum ecosystem >> but you don't launch a podcast for something that you don't expect to to grow, right? And then inherently that's like a bullish view like you're not going to launch >> okay they they are actively looking for an Ethereum host of an Ethereum podcast on Blockworks. And I think it's like noble of them to for for Yano to who publicly say it's like, yeah, I'm like I'm bullish Salana and I'm bearish ETH and I don't think ETH is going to grow and yet I'm still going to launch an Ethereum podcast because I want to, you know, give Ethereum what it deserves, which is fair and equal coverage. And all the ETH people are like frustrated about how anti-E block works are. So let's fix that by fostering an Ethereum podcast. I don't see anything wrong with that. And I think as Ethereum community

members, we should be encouraging of that. >> But but if you think that like if you're bearish, why would you la like that's that's the >> what if he's wrong and what if he says like maybe I'm wrong so I'm going to launch what if he's hedging with an Ethereum podcast. >> But but the thing is he he doesn't specifically say that. That's what I mean by downplaying, right? He hasn't specifically said, "Oh, I could be totally wrong about it." and uh >> but but his personal attitudes about the future of the ETH the value of the ETH asset I don't think is related to whether or not Blockworks launch launches an Ethereum podcast >> but but I mean he is the he is a co-founder right he sets the direction like if he didn't want an Ethereum podcast to launch he wouldn't they wouldn't launch you know like under

block works >> I don't implying that there's like that like because Yano is bearish ETH that he is going to like pump the brakes on launching an Ethereum podcast. >> Uh he but the thing is is that like that's what I'm saying. If he was actually truly bearish on it, that would be this is my view and maybe this other people's view as well. I don't know. It would be more logical to me for him not to want to like do that, right? Because then like he's not even saying he's like it's it doesn't gel. Like if it's a 3we timeline, like if it's a multi-year time frame, sure. But it doesn't it doesn't make sense to me that you would like me. >> I think you're reading into this like way too much. >> Yeah, but that's but that's the thing is is the in incentive structure here. He can be bearish on ETH, but then also he

can be like, well, it'd probably be good for Block Works if we have an Ethereum podcast. And then for me, I know you say that those two views can exist, coexist together, and that's fine, but like I don't understand how you can be bearish on on ETH while still thinking that it's worth it enough for Blockwork Works to have an Ethereum podcast because it will lead to growth. You know what I mean? Like it's like me saying >> I see I say you're saying that because because he's launching an Ethereum podcast, therefore that is indicative of the value of Ether. >> Exactly. But it's indicative of him like like he can't hold two. You can't be bearish on ETH. Being bearish, let me define the terms here. Being bearish means that you think Ethereum is going to become less and less relevant over time. ETH is going to become less

valuable over time. But but launching a podcast, a new podcast just dedicated to Ethereum comes with the inherent kind of I guess uh be going to be relevant. Yeah. >> That Ethereum is going to grow in relevance and it's going to lead to growth for block works. Right. >> Okay. Okay. Well, well, first he could believe that like maybe the ETH asset is cooked, but Ethereum is a very high utility. Like that's that's a coherent belief that like it's all about Ethereum, the network. But like really, I think it this we're you're just reading way too far into it. Like he's got a media company. He wants to grow the media company. He doesn't yet have, you know, he's he's like got Thanos. He's got all his jewels, but he's missing the Ethereum jewel and he wants to add the Ethereum.

You have to really think about it more than that. Why are they adding that now? Why didn't they add that last year? You're like, but the timing >> cuz Bank list has been super dominant. So they they lagged on Ethereum after they launched a Salana and then after they launch a Celestia podcast. >> But why would that's what I'm like why would they launch a Celeste? Like >> cuz they got a grant from Celestia to do something. >> There we go. Like that's that's what I mean, dude. Like there's all these incentives that are >> Okay. Okay. I don't see why we are being antagonistic to Block Works launching an Ethereum podcast. That as an Ethereum person is good for my bags and we should encourage them of that.

>> I I will admit that it's objectively good because it's a wider reach for Ethereum. Sure. But but what I again I go back to what I was saying about how I just don't like when people aren't honest. Like I really don't >> I don't see that as him being dishonest by any means. >> Yeah. But >> I think you can find a way to rationalize it. But I think you are you're like mid-curving it. You're just >> you're thinking way too hard about it. You're thinking way too hard about it. >> May maybe I am. But I don't know. There's enough evidence out there of the just general attitude of of kind of block works towards Ethereum when it was doing I guess you could say poorly like ETH the asset was doing poorly and things like that. And then fast forward to when you know ETH is doing really

well and suddenly they have an interest in >> they were they had they had this position on this ETH podcast I opened for the like the last four or five months. >> Okay. But then but the thing is is that they're now like talking about it a lot and then you have like them saying oh we're going to and then you have them being bullish on ETH. Like it's the timing for me, dude. It's the timing. >> This is good. This these are good. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm saying like we're we're going off like on a tangent here. I think it's important actually. I I think I think the Ethereum community should be more open and accepting and interested in pulling Block Works into our sphere of things and we should reward them. When Jason says, "Hey, I

don't want to get torn down by the ETH community." We should be like, "No, Jason, please tweet more about ETH. Please do that. Yay. Have a like." >> Yeah. But I think I think also the the the relevant context here maybe it's pretty important context is that like they spend all this time being really bearish ETH pushing a narrative that ETH should be judged based on Rev and all these things which I think objectively did some amount of damage to Ethereum and ETH as an asset right and then all of a sudden they're like well we're going to try and do positive things for Ethereum now it's like it's like you want them to do it >> no I know but but use an analogy here it's like someone stabs you five times and then says, "Oh, I'm going to stop stabbing you now and I'm going to give you medical care."

>> That's a good >> I know. But what I'm saying is that I'm not saying it's not good. I'm just saying that it's just it's it's very like dumb. Like it's just dumb to me. Like it's very it's not it's not honest. And and it's fine. Like I'm happy for everyone to be an ETH bull. Like don't get me wrong, I want everyone to be an ETH bull. But I'm speaking for myself and other people in the community that have had problems with not just Block Works, but other parties, let's say, in the ecosystem. this is how they view things. It's like you went from doing this, you went from from all over us to now wanting to be part of our crew. We're not just going to open you like a lot of us aren't just going to welcome you with open arms, right?

Especially because we can't trust you. What if in 6 months time you you're suddenly bearish on Ethereum again and you're going to go back to to doing what you were doing before. >> And and that's what the perspective is is that it comes back to trust and honesty. And that's why you see a lot of the, you know, Eve maxis, they're just not going to trust someone who is just stabbing them, you know, a lot and then suddenly, oh, I'm going to give you medical care. What if the bandages are laced with poison? We don't know, right? Like, so that's that's my perspective on it. I think that's that's the Ethaxi perspective at least. >> Yeah. It's it's the tribal perspective. And I don't say that in like a negative way because like tribalism adds monetary premium to the asset, right? Like those things are connected. So I understand.

>> Exactly. Exactly. And I and I think I've argued with you before that while I agree that not everyone should be an ETH maxi that's in the Ethereum community, you need every kind of walk of life in a community. I do believe that having a very strong but small, it can be small but strong contingent of people who are die, you know, live and die by the ETH Maxi kind of flag is incredibly if not critically important to Ethereum as an ecosystem, just like it was for Bitcoin. I think I've been critical of this before, but I think I changed my tune, you know, a little while ago that the BTC maxes having them be m has been really good for Bitcoin. >> It's been really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh I I agree with you there. The the one thing that I will say is I think at times the Ethereum community gets in its own way for and we just have we just have cell phones and I think it's like worthwhile as a worthwhile practice for all the maxis to like always be able to you're a better maxi if you can steal man the other side and still be a maxi. And so like making sure that when like Blockworks wants to launch an Ethereum podcast that we encourage that behavior >> or or or maybe you don't agree with that because like maybe the bandages are laced with poison, but there are times when it's actually better to not be maxi and it's able to be like open up the doors and be more inclusive. And so like

whether what the decision is in based on fact and circumstances is up to everyone's individual choice. But overindexing on maxess can be a failure mode when we could have opened up the doors and let more people into the club. >> Oh, I mean it absolutely is a failure mode if there's too many of us. Like I am actually really happy with you not being like me in terms of ETH maxing it, right? Like I'm very happy that people like you exist that can go to the other camps and bring them over. That is a necessary part of the Ethereum ecosystem. But I'm also very happy that we have a contingent of ETH Maxis who have a very very kind of like low tolerance for Um, and maybe they read too much into things. I don't think that's necessarily a negative. I think you, you know, we've used this analogy for a long time uh on across our

own podcast, the immune system, right? The immune system response. And sometimes, you know, the immune system attacks itself and can cause, you know, cancer, which maybe we saw at the beginning of the year. There was a lot of infighting in the Ethereum community, even between ETH maxis, right? Um, but I think one when you have a >> sometimes it also goes after SPF before he ever steps foot in Ethereum. >> Exactly. Exactly. Some, you know, it goes both ways. So, I think that's that's totally fine. Um, but I, for me personally, I don't think I'm going to ever fill the role that you fill or be more like you. And I don't think you're ever going to be more like me in terms of being extreme. That's the thing. Like, I I think we we serve and fit our own roles. And it's our own personalities, too. It's not just

Ethereum. We're not just like this with Ethereum. like this with probably a lot of things in life. Um, you know, I I've been known to become very obsessive with like everything that I that I kind of pay attention to. >> I can't tell from your goddamn background, bro. >> Yeah. Okay, that's fair. Um, but just like, you know, anything that I kind of just get into, I just get obsessive with it. And that's just the way I am and the way I've been for a long time. Um, which is >> Ethereum, figurines, and bike riding. >> Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Like I recently, well, 3 4 months ago, really took my fitness seriously and I've just gone like crazy with it to the detriment of >> Thank you. But to the detriment of my fiance cuz I go crazy with my diet and she's like, "Why can't we just eat the same things?" Like, "No,

I need to eat this at this time, you know." So, so there is that that aspect, too. But no, I I think that might be a perfect place to actually end the end the chat today, dude. We've gone for a solid almost two hours here, and I think that I've achieved my goal with this podcast, which was to give people was very productive. >> I appreciate you bringing me on. >> No, that that that's fine, dude. I I think I've given people the true David Hoffman kind of view on things um >> that that they may have not gotten. I think we gave the whole picture, which is good because that's what was missing. Um but I guess before we end, I do want to just ask a question. Are you happy like 6 months ago compared to today? Are you much happier with where the Ethereum

ecosystem is today versus kind of 3 six months ago? Um but and and what would make you happier going forward? >> I am happier today because vibes are good and like seriously like when Ethereum and vibes are good like that just shows up in the rest rest of my life like I'm just have a higher energy like each vibes are my vibes vice versa and so like unquestionably like vibe I'm happier today. Um >> what was the question? What what make you happy in the future? you're happy about like also like what would make you happier going forward because price action is temporary, right? Like we have bull and bare cycles, boom and bs. Like what would make you happier going forward when price goes to again? Like what would you like to see?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Like the the big concern I have is like we're all super happy that we have these ETH treasury companies. Uh but like I'm viewing them as like a shot in the arm rather than a sustainable thing. And so like I think we get a a shot in the arm because we're pull we are truly pulling forward demand. Like I've I've looked at some of these deals, the ETH treasury deals. I understand mechanically how they work and they work by pulling forward demand. Uh which means in the future that demand won't be there because we have will have taken that shot in the arm. And then when that day comes, like we'll maybe we enter a new phase of of the market that like rewards a different style of like protocol behavior that Ethereum doesn't have or or something like that. And so

I'm worried that we are papering over our weaknesses by short-term bullish price action by a shot in the arm. Uh and so what would make me happier is actually more or less the trajectory that we're we're on. shorter block times, uh, block level inclusion lists, um, uh, a culture of acceleration. Um, a culture of acceleration I think is really, really good. Um, and then I've just heard through the EF different, um, things that they are incubating and working on and it's like really bullish. uh Andy 8052 who's like one of my friends in uh in Brooklyn. He was on the round tables with me for a while. He gave this take that like if you're going to launch an an a chain in 2025, you can't just launch a chain that goes super fast. Fast chains are a super are

a commodity. The reason why Mega ETH is valuable is not because it's super fast, but because the mega mafia and all the mega apps are dope and that's why mega is valuable. And so like the lesson there is like okay the EF needs to go and do BD uh and they need to do BD in like a smart way and it's not just about like building the next cool like fun little DGEN app. It's actually like going and doing BD with like nation states and like things at the highest of levels and I heard that something along those lines are happening uh with like currencies like global currencies getting more that was the initiative they want to get more global currencies on chain and they want to incubate that and that makes me bullish uh and so >> uh >> uh I'll like I do kind of like the whole

like uh decentralized NASDAQ as a vision uh Vitalik said in a podcast recently on epicenter that like if you go and optimize for high frequency trading you'll lose some of your soul and I would like to know what he meant by that but without understanding more about what he meant by that I would like to optimize for high like trading trading assets on the layer one putting Wall Street on the layer one and that's what is exciting to me and that's what will make me more happy in the future is like Wall Street coming on layer one because in the words of a very wise man if they adopt crypto protocols and they adopt crypto values and so putting Wall Street on Ethereum I think it's noble for crypto values like then then Wall Street is on Ethereum. Um, >> yep. >> And I see that happening through

tokenization. And so like the trend is really good. And maybe the shot in the arm is like a shortterm band-aid that gets us over this unfortunate like middle-aged middle like teenage years hump and then we can actually like slingshot that short-term shot in the arm into tokenized stocks, tokenized securities and the real world assets just come on chain and then and then that was what we needed to get Wall Street on chain. Maybe that's what happens and that would make me very happy. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I think that obviously price, you know, is really good after being really bad. >> It is. It is.

>> It's okay. >> Well, contextualize it to just three months ago. It's really, really, really good. Go back, you know, a year or two years. It's okay. Like, that's that's the thing. Um, >> I I will I will start becoming like happy about the ETH price at like $6,000. >> Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't I don't blame you. Like, I don't blame you. But I think for a lot of people, it's more the kind of fact that it's just >> we're not sucking eggs right now. >> Yeah. We're not we're not sucking we're not it's not sucking lemons basically. Um uh but yeah, I agree with you that I would like to see the current kind of acceleration trend continue for the Ethereum network itself, building different things, doing BD, doing, you know, more marketing stuff, uh doing

more layer 1 protocol work, and I don't expect that to slow down at all. I think that the layer 1 protocol is in a really, really good place right now. The development, I think the core developers are accelerating. Um if we launch Fusaka in November, it will be a six months hard fork cadence that we've actually stuck to and then we do Glam Amsterdam next year in like you know May or June sort of thing. If if we if we do that then I think that'll you know convince everyone that hey you know this is a new kind of paradigm in in core development here. Um but yeah I I think trying not to get lost in the price action is very difficult. Uh and we have to keep reminding ourselves that you know things are still like especially when it comes to like the the Ethereum ecosystem

generally. Yes, there's been some bullish news like Robin Hood and stable coin growth and stuff like that. Um, but we we can't just rest on our laurels and we can't just make fun of competitors because they're, you know, short-term they're not doing as well. Like doesn't matter. Like we need to win allterm games like short, medium, >> long term games. I think that's the right attitude. Yeah. >> Yeah. Great. All right. Well, I guess on that note, thank you David for for joining me. As I said, I think we accomplished what we set out to do. Uh, and I hope people enjoyed the conversation. So, till next time, everyone. Thanks for listening.