State of the Stake with Superphiz #48: The ravings of a lunatic

Transcript

hey everyone superfist here uh i want to record a state of the state i don't know what number this is it's going to be 40 something i don't know today is february 25th 2022 and uh i'm gonna tell you some secrets if you see me in my exercise clothes all sweaty it's because i have my most exciting thoughts while i'm exercising and then i rush home and i'm like i gotta get this out and so some of the things that have crossed my mind um today i have been shy about pushing client diversity about my role as the beacon chain health consultant because uh at heart i'm really i'm a school counselor like i'm not

i suck at calculus i i can't describe the deep underpinnings of ethereum uh yeah i've been involved in cryptocurrency since 2011 and and ethereum since the beginning but at heart i'm really just a normal guy um yes i'm i love this stuff but i'm not i'm not the smartest guy in the room and some of that has led me to feel like oh you shouldn't be speaking up but i also recognize that who i am is valuable to the community in the same way that who you are can be valuable to the community and that's kind of um that recognition gives me the ability to speak up and say if i can

do this then you can do this you can stand up for the good of the network if you believe it's the right thing and that's kind of what what takes me to talking today i want to start by talking about layer zero and layer zero is the social network that underpins ethereum it used to be like this conflict like oh if if your network relies on people then it's not really a solid network and who do you think runs all of the miners or validators or all of the nodes those are really people people underlie the network and if we don't have a strong community under the network then the

network is worthless and so that's the role that i've created for myself is to build this strong layer zero community for ethereum validators um i believe that decentralization is yeah it's so i'd have to think if i if i said it's the most important thing but it's a damn important part of the ethereum network decentralization means that the ethereum network is a thin layer of nodes validators network people all around the globe rather than just a network that's controlled by a few central operators uh

so my thoughts take me in 85 different places um but let me begin by talking about the current client diversity crisis and i'm going to do a quick screen share here let's see yeah uh and so i'm sharing uh pools not in viz.cloud uh and this is a site developed by oxyviz he used the uh the operator identifier he linked operators to their their provider um it uses michael sproul's client fingerprinting um and joseph cook's explanation and so if you have time i really encourage you to spend some time looking at this um and

so if you have listened to my previous state of mistakes in the beginning i i really encouraged solo operators like when i began eatstaker it really was to primarily support solo operators and and then with the realization that uh everyone can be a staker and our role as each staker is to support any staker in any way you stake if you're a coinbase taker we support you like i want to help you get up to speed and understand what staking means and if staking on coinbase is great for you or cracking that's great do it i want you to do that but as you learn and as you grow as you become more aware of the need for decentralization

on the network i hope that you then um begin to stake in ways that improve the health of the overall network so what i'm looking at on pools.cloud um coinbase is running 49 48 859 validators um and they are 92 percent prism they make up 24 of the prison contribution of the network so a quarter of the prison validators on the network are run by coinbase uh and then kraken 30 000 validators running prism 15 so together these two operators make up 40 of the prism um validators on the network now i i don't actually fault them they are

doing their job uh they are exchanges uh clients kind of demand that they offer staking service um and i don't blame them for offering it i know that it's lucrative for them and that's great i'm not against them at all um so when it comes to like my aunt who wants to steak sure steak on coinbase um yeah i mean yeah it gives me some mixed feelings but i know that if she wants to steak that's the only way she can do it she's not going to use metamask unless i do it for her and then it's not really even me staking that's that's i'm sorry not even her staking that's me sorry get excited um so

the point i want to make i'm not against coinbase or kraken offering a staking service i do need any staking provider to stake with the best interest of the network in mind and to talk to these providers and uh you know i i do understand they're making changes i need i need us as a community to continue pressuring them until that changes because as long as prism is 66 of the network our network is at serious risk um hey let me gather my thoughts so if you're a home validator uh let's say you're a solo staker and you are staking with prism

you're okay you're doing fine i don't i i know that i spent a lot of time before i had this grasp of the issue i spent time encouraging home operators to switch from prison to another client it wasn't until february 2022 this month that we got this data to tell us that sorry to tell us that uh to tell us that it's not home validators causing this issue it is providers and i think it was uh an oversight to assume that the providers were more

diversified in their clients than they were we kind of thought you know these big operators they they know what they're doing and they're not going to put the network at risk when we found that uh they had lapsed uh in that judgment then we were able to turn our attention to them and we now have commitments of change from them very excited about that i know it can change if you're a home validator running prism i appreciate you for being a solar staker uh all of the solo stakers all of the people who are contributing to the health of the network you are extremely valuable do not be shy or ashamed that you are running a home node with prism that's fine

i also want you to stand with us and point at these operators coinbase kraken binance and say hey you need to change um and i know that they're in progress but i guess my big message there is i mistakenly pointed the canon at home validators that was a mistake and now that we know the true issue i need the entire community to join with us in expecting operators uh these these enterprise operators to do the right thing yeah uh that is pools.viz.cloud that is the current goal to get coinbase kraken and binance to

exercise true client diversity i desperately want to see them um running i'm not even i'm not even i we have some some obligation to to set a standard or a goal um but really i need them to just be below i would say to start with below 50 percent uh prism in the long run and that is in the next six months a year we need to get all um all exchanges all operators below 33 crystals none of the four clients should have more than 33 but right now the goal is break the super majority of 66 prism uh then we can go from there

all right so that is the current claim client diversity crisis i know that it's choppy um i had all these thoughts swirling in my head while i'm exercising i didn't take any notes i just threw it out there it is i appreciate your time for listening uh while we're focused on this crisis i also want us to look at the long range um and i guess maybe this is the medium term for the next year or two what do we expect from client diversity now to begin with i expect um prism lighthouse nimbus and tekku to each be below 33 that is a thing that needs to happen um and we must keep pushing until it happens

that is one layer of decentralization decentralization is not one layer it is lots of layers another concerning layer of decentralization and it's the one that i intend to target next no enterprise operator should have more than 20 percent of the validator share there are a lot of operators that aren't going to want to hear this centralized services have accumulated power and they don't want to relinquish that power it's natural for them to want to continue to accumulate power i don't blame them as the community as layer 0 we have an obligation to push

decentralization to its limits and with that um we as layer zero need to expect operators not to have more than 20 percent of the validators under their control that means that coinbase shouldn't have more than 20 percent kraken lido finance rocket pool yes i'm a fan of rocky pool but it should not have more than 20 percent of the network and people will say well fizz you like rocket tool wouldn't it be great if all of the network was run by rocket pool no no it would be great if all of the network was run by solo validators and i know that's not going to happen any

operator provider middleware service should not have more than 20 control over the network um that that doesn't take away from any of the things that i like it just means that my priority is not any single product my priority is the health and decentralization of the beacon chain of the ethereum network um that's why i believe that's why um people listen to my message because i'm not trying to to gain i'm not trying to get anything i'm only trying to promote the health of the pikachu and so yeah i'm i'm probably going to wrap that up there

actually one or two more things i want to mention um i'm looking forward to [Music] someone to fork the rocket pool installer to work as a single node operator um and so a solo node operator if you've ever installed installed rocketful you know as a node you know that it's simple it's like three or four clicks thanks so much to joe clappis for streamlining that uh and to the rocketpool team before joe got there for creating a really good um installer the rocket pool installer was great um before joe came and he definitely made improvements to it to to involve all four clients um and even lodestar is on isn't the beta

but what we need is someone who can fork that rocket pool installer and let it run as a solo validator the reason for that is rocket pool makes it easy to install any of the four clients with a press of a button it actually suggests a random client to begin with um and if we can get peep solo operators to run rocket pool uh sorry to run the rocket pool installer as a as a solo operator they can number one easily install any client and number two in the future they'll easily be able to switch between clients so um i don't have all of that ironed out yet if you're interested in doing that feel free to hammer away or uh come find someone in trading and i'm sorry that's

the rocket full training discord and say hey what's going on with us and they're going to say i don't know ask jizz um i'm not looking to be bombarded but uh it is something that i will begin pushing in the future another thought that's been on my head i just got back from east denver i had a great experience one of the things that constantly blows me away about ethereum is the the desperate need for developers everyone is hiring developers all the time um there's practically a fight over over employees at these these conferences like it's to say aggressive is kind of an

understatement everyone is hiring um and so i want to kind of think about our layer zero solution to this the community should be promoting education that increases involvement with ethereum in the long run education is where all of this starts whether that is giving kids access to good primary secondary education i really think many of many of these startups should consider offering scholarships to undergrads and you're gonna say that's not gonna pay off for four years but if we begin seeding those fields now with skills for the future

we're going to reap tremendous benefits um you can't expect thousands yeah we literally need thousands thousands of developers to come from nowhere you cannot squeeze water out of iraq in order for us to prepare for the future growth of ethereum for the future development of ethereum we really need to begin investing in undergrad and even graduate education for people in cryptocurrency uh in blockchain development in smart contract development um in complex math that is that is us preparing for the future if we had done this four years ago um we would be in a much better position than we are now with developers

yeah um i i just had so many thoughts on my mind i wanted to share them with you um i love doing state of the state when i when i feel uh engaged about it sometimes i do let my own imposter syndrome kick in and i just need to flush that out um and when i'm ready i'm glad to to help guide the entire community in the the best direction for decentralizing ethereum so um thanks your time thanks for listening i hope you'll join us each staker i am superfiz you can follow me on super on twitter at superfiz uh or i also love uh reddit uh i spent a lot of time in e-finance or on the e-staker subreddit um and yeah you

also i i have a a good family in the rocket pool trading discord so um come say hi and um i find a way that you can fit in and do this this is building on ethereum being a part of the staking ecosystem is a good thing um and i'm glad to have you all in the community thanks a lot