EthCC talks with Vitalik: Reflecting on the past 15 years of crypto protocols, ecosystems, and tokens

Original text arrangement translation: TechFlow

Guests : Vitalik Buterin , Founder of Ethereum; Christopher Goes , Co-founder of Anoma

Moderator : Michael Ippolito

Podcast source : Bell Curve

Original title : EthCC Campside Chat: Protocols, Ecosystems, Community Tokens | Vitalik Buterin Christopher Goes

Air Date : July 17, 2024

Summary of key points

In this special episode, Vitalik Buterin and Christopher Goes join us live during the intention discussion session during EthCC 2024! Key highlights from this sideline talk include: Vitalik’s reflections on the cryptocurrency journey so far, and his insights on the birth of Ethereum, unbundling blockchain components, and competing with centralized protocols. The interview ends with thoughts on social consensus and the importance of learning from past failures to better navigate future developments.

Reflections on the past 15 years of cryptocurrency

Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, has the following viewpoints:

Michael asked that the cryptocurrency experiment has been going on for 15 years, and Ethereum has been around for 10 years since the birth of Bitcoin. He asked Vitalik to review the design philosophy of Ethereum and share which aspects of the development were in line with expectations and which were unexpected.

• Initial design concept : Vitalik recalled the origin of Ethereum. When he first worked on some projects called Bitcoin 2.0 protocols (such as Covered Coins and Mastercoin), he proposed the idea of adding a general programming language to enhance functionality. However, the slow progress of these projects prompted him to decide to create Ethereum himself.

• Core design concept : The core design concept of Ethereum is to introduce a general-purpose programming language, which distinguishes it from other protocols. Other important design decisions include linearly growing money supply, ASIC-resistant proof-of-work algorithm, and miners can vote to determine the gas limit.

• White paper and application scenarios : Vitalik mentioned that he listed multiple application scenarios in the white paper, such as token issuance, stable assets, financial derivatives, decentralized file storage market, and parametric insurance, etc. Most of the application scenarios have been tried, but the development of the decentralized storage market is disappointing.

• Surprises and lessons : The emergence of NFT is a surprise, and some technical errors such as the 256-bit virtual machine are areas that need to be improved. Vitalik also reflected on the problem of underestimating development time, and believed that if the development time could be better foreseen, the roadmap might be simplified and focused on simpler proof-of-stake and scalability solutions.

Christophers opinion

Michael asked Christopher to talk about his experience in developing IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol) and share the lessons he learned about decentralized protocol design from Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike.

• Moxie Marlinspikes opinion : Moxie explained in a speech why he chose not to federalize Signal because it would slow down the iteration of the protocol. He believes that Signal needs to iterate quickly to compete with WhatsApp and other centralized messaging services while maintaining the values of privacy and user sovereignty.

• Challenges of decentralized protocols : Christopher believes that a major challenge of decentralized protocols is that social consensus for changing the protocol becomes more complicated and requires communication and consultation with multiple stakeholders, which significantly slows down development.

• Balancing rapid iteration and decentralization : Christopher emphasized that in the blockchain field, it is necessary to find a balance between rapid iteration and decentralization so that it can compete with Web 2 and traditional financial systems while ensuring decentralization.

How do we compete with centralized protocols?

Michael asked, as a designer and contributor of decentralized protocols, how can you successfully compete with centralized protocols? Centralized protocols have the advantages of speed and efficiency, while decentralized protocols face challenges in decision-making complexity and execution speed. How does decentralization become a superpower?

Vitalik’s View

Upgrading decentralized protocols

• Vitalik believes that despite the challenges of upgrading and improving decentralized protocols, Ethereum has proven its feasibility. Ethereum has successfully carried out multiple protocol upgrades through its multi-client architecture and consensus mechanism.

• Advantages of a multi-client architecture : This architecture not only avoids the centralization problem of a single development team, but also increases the diversity of expertise, improving development efficiency and innovation capabilities.

Benefits of Decentralization

• Political benefits : The multi-client architecture avoids the monopoly of a single team on the protocol and provides more choices and flexibility.

• Diversity of expertise : The presence of multiple development teams results in a larger pool of expertise, which drives more efficient development and innovation.

Christophers opinion

Diversity and innovation

• Christopher emphasized that the biggest advantage of decentralization is the diversity of opinions and ideas, as well as the diversity of organizational structures. This diversity enables decentralized protocols to innovate and improve from different angles.

• Ethereum’s success : He praised Ethereum’s successful completion of the “merge,” one of the most complex distributed system upgrades in human history, which proved the feasibility of decentralized protocols for complex tasks.

Diversity of different projects

• Christopher believes that different decentralized projects should provide different perspectives and solutions rather than simply copying existing protocols. For example, the Anoma project aims to provide research perspectives and solutions different from Ethereum to supplement and improve the existing ecosystem.

The challenge of financial assets

• Slow changes to decentralized protocols : Once financial assets are involved on the blockchain, it becomes very difficult to change the protocol because users do not want any errors to affect the security of their assets. Therefore, decentralized protocols need to be changed very carefully.

• Exceptions to fast response : Decentralized protocols need to react quickly in the event of an attack or system failure. This is one of the few situations where quick action is required.

• Exploration of capital structure

• Christopher suggested that new capital structures should be explored to avoid the problem of difficulty in subsequent changes caused by a rapid launch. After the launch of many projects, the speed of change slows down significantly due to the involvement of real assets and decentralized operations, which needs to be fully considered in the design stage.

Ethereum’s Roadmap: What’s Next?

Michael asked Vitalik about the future development of Ethereum. Vitalik published a blog post a few months ago, mentioning that Ethereum has changed from a 0 to 1 problem to a 1 to N problem. Michael hopes that Vitalik can explain the content of this blog post in detail and discuss the future development direction of Ethereum.

Vitalik’s View

Complicated upgrade process

• Vitalik stressed that Ethereum’s “merge” is a very complex process, not only in terms of implementation, but also in terms of specifications and ecosystem adaptation. He pointed out that future upgrades will be relatively simple because a lot of the basic work has been done.

The maturity of the L2 ecosystem

• Ethereums roadmap is now more inclined towards L2 (Layer 2) solutions. Vitalik mentioned that users and developers have gradually adapted to the L2 environment, and many applications are already running on L2.

• Blob data structure : The Blob data structure introduced by EIP-4844 allows L2 to process data more efficiently. This change makes future upgrades less impactful on L2, and L2 can continue to run without major modifications.

future career

• Vitalik noted that future work will be more focused behind the scenes and less disruptive. He believes that over time, upgrades will become more gradual and non-disruptive, with less impact on applications.

From L1 issues to application layer issues

• Vitalik believes that the focus in the future will gradually shift from L1 (Layer 1) issues to issues closer to the application layer. He believes that developers now have enough tools to build applications that are both user-friendly and in line with the cyberpunk spirit.

The role of Ethereum L1

• Vitalik explained the role of L1 in providing a better user experience. He proposed two possible roadmaps:

• Minimize L1 roadmap : As the settlement layer, L1’s main responsibility is to ensure security and censorship resistance, allowing L2 to provide fast confirmation services.

• More complex L1 roadmap : L1 provides faster confirmation times, thereby reducing the burden on L2, allowing some applications to continue to run on L1.

• Vitalik mentioned that if he could make some changes, he would choose a simpler version of proof-of-stake, which could save a lot of development time.

• He also emphasized the uniqueness of Ethereum in dealing with 51% attacks. Ethereum not only relies on social consensus, but also actively designs response plans at the protocol level to ensure automatic recovery in the event of an attack.

Censorship resistance

• Vitalik stressed the importance of censorship resistance. He pointed out that if L2 decides to censor users, the user experience could be significantly degraded. Therefore, he believes that it is valuable for L1 to provide faster confirmation times, which can ensure that in the event of L2 censorship, the user experience will not be severely affected.

The role of standards

Michael asked, as blockchain gradually moves towards a modular world, what is the role of standards?

He mentioned that in the real world, there is the concept of the tragedy of the commons, where complete reliance on the free market can lead to over-consumption of resources. In the blockchain space, how do standards play a role in this context?

Christophers opinion

Differentiate modularity

• Christopher first distinguished between modularity in protocols and modularity in networks. He pointed out that modularity in protocols usually refers to building abstraction layers, while modularity in networks tends to add many intermediary nodes to the network.

• Impact of capital structure : He believes that modularity in networks is driven more by capital structure than design philosophy.

Modularity in protocol design

• In protocol design, modularity is very important and the roles of different entities need to be clearly distinguished. For example, in the Rollup-based roadmap, the L1 chain provides data storage, data availability, and sorting, while in the Plasma roadmap, the L1 chain only provides sorting.

• Decoupling and coupling : Christopher believes that protocol designers should try to decouple different roles, but in actual operations, certain roles may be coupled due to economic and incentive factors.

Market structure and protocols

• He believes that the benefit of free market competition for protocols is that ideas can spread and evolve freely, which is conducive to research and progress. However, a decentralized protocol development ecosystem may lead to complexity that is difficult for users to understand and use.

• Advantages of centralization : He pointed out that successful consumer software companies are often large hierarchical organizations that are able to coordinate software development and interface design to provide products that better meet user needs. Therefore, he suggested exploring a capital structure between the free market and centralized organizations to enhance the user experience of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Vitalik’s View

Maintaining a unified sense of Ethereum

• Vitalik stressed that it is very important to ensure that the entire Ethereum ecosystem still feels like Ethereum when entering the L2 world. He believes that users should not be confused when switching between different applications, for example, without having to manually switch networks.

• ERC-3737 standard : He mentioned that users should be able to enter an address in a browser wallet and click send, regardless of the chain the recipient is on.

The value of standards

• Vitalik believes that the greatest value of standards is to simplify the user experience, allowing users to easily operate between different applications and networks. He also mentioned that some entities need to have sufficient incentives to promote the implementation of these standards.

• The role of the Ethereum Foundation : He believes that the Ethereum Foundation can play a larger role in driving these standards, for example through coordination across L2 infrastructure.

Incentives

• Vitalik discussed the idea of incentivizing Rollups by changing the rules for issuing ETH. He believes that this mechanism needs to be designed very carefully to avoid being politicized.

• Indirect selection mechanism : He mentioned that the best technology is often an indirect selection mechanism, rather than directly selecting who gets funded. This mechanism can reduce politicization and increase fairness.

Splitting the blockchain

Michael asked a question about blockchain splitting. He mentioned that we usually discuss blockchain splitting from the perspectives of data availability, execution, and settlement.

However, he argues that we are actually unbundling the core components of blockchain: assets, security models, and communities.

Christophers opinion

Bitcoin Bundle

• Christopher first reviewed the history of Bitcoin. He pointed out that Bitcoin originally bundled assets, protocols, and communities together. The early Bitcoin community believed that these elements were tightly coupled, and few people tried to separate them.

• Decoupling of Ethereum : Over time, projects like Ethereum have begun to decouple these elements. For example, there is a correlation between the Ethereum community and the ETH asset, but it is not exactly the same. People in the community may not hold a large amount of ETH, but they are still part of the community.

The relationship between community and assets

• Christopher believes that the value of Ethereum comes more from the community than just the asset itself. He pointed out that even users who only care about the dollar value need to consider how many people are willing to buy Ethereum with dollars. This demand comes more from the communitys support and trust in the project, rather than just the use of the protocol level.

Capital structure of assets

• He suggested that one benefit of decoupling these elements is that different capital structures can be explored. For example, asset A could distribute 50% of its supply to holders of asset B each year, and vice versa. This mutual allocation mechanism could enhance collaboration between different assets and reduce duplication of work.

• Governance challenges : However, this mechanism also faces governance challenges. For example, the problem of deciding how assets are distributed is difficult to solve through abstract mechanisms and ultimately requires people to make subjective judgments.

Vitalik’s View

Uniqueness of the Ethereum Community

• Vitalik emphasized that the uniqueness of the Ethereum community lies in its diversity and inclusiveness. He pointed out that people in the community may use different technologies and tools, but they all share the values and goals of Ethereum.

• Importance of standards : He believes that standards are very important in maintaining community consistency. For example, the ERC-3737 standard can simplify users operations between different applications and networks and enhance the sense of unity of the entire ecosystem.

Design of incentive mechanism

• Vitalik discussed the idea of incentivizing Rollups by changing the rules for issuing ETH. He believes that this mechanism needs to be designed very carefully to avoid being politicized.

• Indirect selection mechanism : He mentioned that the best technology is often an indirect selection mechanism, rather than directly selecting who gets funded. This mechanism can reduce politicization and increase fairness.

The success and failure of cryptocurrencies

Michael asks a final question: If we look back at the cryptocurrency experiment 15 or 20 years from now, what are the factors that determine whether it was a success or not? What will make us feel proud that it was a worthwhile investment of our time? Conversely, what will make us disappointed? How can we avoid disappointing outcomes?

Vitalik’s View

Practical Application of Technology

• Vitalik believes that what ultimately determines the success of cryptocurrency is the actual application of technology. If cryptocurrency can become mainstream, or at least become a trusted alternative to the mainstream like Linux, it will be considered a success. For example, Ethereum accounts can replace social account logins, or cryptocurrency becomes part of the financial system, DAO becomes an alternative to enterprises or non-profit organizations, and decentralized social media or prediction markets are successful.

Sign of failure

• Conversely, it would be a disappointment if the cryptocurrency space was remembered as a dwindling group of idealists shouting their praises, or as a bunch of people trading digital monkeys and celebrity photos with each other.

High leverage jobs

• Vitalik believes that the current work has a high leverage effect. While some insignificant applications (such as digital monkeys and celebrity photo trading) are not affected by fees and user experience, truly valuable applications do rely on reasonable fees and user experience. Therefore, improving these aspects can promote the popularity of actually useful applications.

User experience improvements

• He gave an example of how important improvements in user experience are to the success of an application. For example, the trading experience on Augur was very bad five years ago, but now the experience on Polymarket has improved significantly. The user experience of decentralized social media has also improved significantly, and these improvements have promoted the wider adoption of these applications.

Christophers opinion

Autonomy and interoperability

• Christopher believes that the promise and limit of encryption technology lies in the ability to balance autonomy and interoperability. In todays world, most systems require the community to choose between autonomy and interoperability. For example, if you want to interoperate with the US financial system, you must use the SWIFT system. However, encryption technology can provide standardized protocols that enable the community to clearly divide which parts need to rely on others and which parts can operate autonomously.

Low switching costs

• If the protocol promotes easy interoperability, then the switching cost is low. If you want to change the topology or dependencies of the community, you can do it easily.

social influence

• Christopher hopes to become completely irrelevant in 15 years. He believes that blockchain technology should become as boring as database technology, becoming an infrastructure rather than a hot topic. One of the signs of success is that blockchain technology becomes so common and boring that only a few professionals will pay attention to it.

Live QA

• Nathan mentioned Vitalik’s previous comments about the existential dangers of social consensus, and asked if there is value in taking an accelerationist approach to economic problems in the space so that we can quickly go through all the failure modes and have a chance to fix them before the space becomes larger and more difficult to coordinate.

• Vitalik replied that this is indeed an interesting point. He mentioned that if the early Mt. Gox collapse had not happened, people might not think that decentralized exchange technology is important and might rely more on centralized exchanges, which might make later events like FTX more serious.

• He points out that the threat response is a very messy system that can easily be correct but can also be easily exploited by bad actors to justify their actions, even if they are not justified.

• Vitalik personally prefers that these experiments take place on a smaller scale than Ethereum. He believes that we need an experimental environment with an economic scale between the testnet and the mainnet. For example, experimenting on an L2 with a TVL and DeFi activity level of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, rather than on a scale like Ethereum.

• He mentioned that L2 can serve as a crypto-anarchist special economic zone where people are encouraged to conduct crazy experiments and ask regulators to allow these experiments as much as possible. If people are willing to experiment in this environment, they can do so, otherwise they can stay in the regular world.

• Vitalik believes that the risk of Ethereum itself as a sandbox has become too high, but the scale of L2 feels just right.

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