Dankrad Feist: I Joined Tempo (And Why I Left ETH...)
26 Nov 2025 · 37:27
Dankrad Feist, a researcher behind Ethereum's danksharding roadmap, joins The Rollup to explain his move from the Ethereum Foundation to Tempo, where he is focusing on stablecoin payments. He walks through PeerDAS and the Fusaka upgrade's data availability improvements, the emerging L2 finality crisis, concerns around stage zero rollups, which zkVM he would pick for Ethereum's execution layer, and why he thinks Ethereum needs a wartime mentality to stay competitive.
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I think like Fusaka is kind of the biggest upgrade in that as kind of >> from our perspective it would effectively enable a far better base layer for L2s where no there's actually a more robust version of this that we're talking about. Today's guest is Danker Feist, one of Ethereum's leading researchers and a key figure driving the protocol's long-term roadmap. Since joining the Ethereum Foundation in 2019, he's helped shape critical advancements in data availability, scalability, [music] and the future of Ethereum's core architecture. Dankered Feist, a driving force behind Ethereum's evolution.
>> It's your baby, man. >> In a way. Yes, sir. >> Right. >> Welcome back to the rule. >> This is your home to learn from the biggest guests, the brightest minds at the tip of innovation. >> Our goal is to help spread the collective knowledge of everyone in our community. >> We are breaking crypto out of its echo chamber and taking it to the real world. Sit back, relax, and enjoy it. All right, guys. Welcome back. We are day two h live on rollup TV from Dev Connect. We've got Dankrad Feist up next. Uh we have a ton to talk about. Uh we've heard so many things from different Ethereum builders. Dankrad is the father of Danksharting. I'm looking at him right now. I I hope he's fired up. Uh we're going to talk Perask. We're going to talk tempo. We're going to talk
stable coins. We're going to talk fast finality. Get into the tech. Really looking forward to learning. You know, when we came here, we set out to learn from some of the smarter uh people in the industry. That's been the entire kind of philosophy. That's been that's been the mission since we started was talk to people smarter than us so that we could learn and and we could bring everyone along for the journey as well. >> Danrad, please come join the show. Thank you for joining. It's a pleasure to see you in person. >> Hey there. >> Cheers. >> Good to meet you in person. Hey there. Thanks for coming on. >> I think last we had you on, you were calling in from what looked like a movie theater in um in in somewhere in in Europe. Um how are you enjoying Buenosares?
>> Uh it's really great here. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. >> Is it your first time? It is my first time in Argentina. Yes. Yeah. I spent a few weeks uh in San Martin at Edge City before. That was very cool. >> Yeah. I've I've heard those uh those events. They put on a really good show and they do a good job and it's feels really community oriented and Yeah. >> man. I think the last time that we uh we spoke on the show you were still part of the Ethereum Foundation. I think now you're still part of it but at maybe a higher level and uh you have a a new role at Tempo. Could you talk us through the transition? why uh did you choose to make that move and and kind of what led up to it? Tell tell us the story. Um, I
mean for me it's um I when when I started talking to like the tempo people and metang it was just uh became pretty clear to me that this is uh currently one of the best if not the best opportunity out there to um to yeah get stable coin payments uh onchain and um at scale and like um actually touching billions of people's of lives and uh um yeah I mean I think like currently I I do think like um Ethereum is like on a much better path than last year, but currently >> uh I think overall actually this is not just Ethereum, the whole blockchain ecosystem has kind of um somewhat ignored the payment side of things and
uh and is actually um uh maybe a lot of people thought it was too boring or something, but I think like right now it's actually when I when I when I looked at I was like wow, this is like such a huge opportunity and like um missing that would just be like I think a catastrophe for the whole crypto space like the the opportunity is there and like we need to execute to like get in there now. >> Dra there's billions and billions of dollars on Ethereum now but you know you you chose to go to Tempo because they saw this vision very clearly and like you said Matt Hang was was able to articulate it. What was it that Matt said that really convinced you to join Tempo? Uh I think overall I mean the the so tempo is like is not just metang it's
like it's it's it came out of um an initiative of like uh not just stripe and paradigm act but actually many other companies that were out there were like we want to do something with stable coin payments right now that had concrete applications not like companies that was like oh we want to do something on chain no like they really had like okay these are like uh the pain points and like we need a solution now and uh and and that's really what convinced me because like I I think this is about like yeah solving these problems rather than like continuing to work somewhere in the basement and like trying to just like I don't know like make crazy things like work in some way like it's it's it's
nice but I think that's not where we are right now anymore in the crypto space like we have found this product market fit and like someone needs to actually execute and do it >> man we heard um I can't remember who it was Dankrad but they said the the term research fetish. Oh, that was Hanan from Codex >> as if and so Codex is probably Hanan from Codex the you know so you know similar idea right probably a lot of the similar frame of thought um and you know I think you're right and it's quite funny that uh we had payments and remittances seven years ago in crypto we we had stable coins were just kind of coming out slowly but it was like these unsexy kind of albeit boring use cases that are now coming to the forefront
again Um and and so you know you see this as a way to make this impact and and and really kind of take uh this industry to a more practical adoption phase. Um what is going to be your role at Tempo? What what what job do you want to play there and how will you make your mark? >> I see myself already now as a protocol architect. I kind of like dropped the title researcher more or less in my work because I think like a lot of things I mean and nothing against research and I did some research at the F as well but I think like um right now there there are not that many things that like need this kind of like academic research focus. I mean I it's still appropriate for many things but I think like also we just
need to be much more clear that like there are many things that are possible now and like yeah I mean research fetish was like an interesting I I do think like the the Ethereum ecosystem was somewhat guilty of falling into that trap where like basically like maybe like 10 years ago it was like it was all about research. there were so many things like we didn't understand and uh and that's not really quite true anymore and now now you need I would say like the full spectrum and before like and we fixed that at the Ethium Foundation to some extent this year like we kind of like stopped having this very big and um kind of almost academic research team and like integrated everything together with the engineering teams which is a really great idea. Um but yeah like
basically we need to realize that now we need the full spectrum of things. We need all the like all the intermediate roles and as well who like are actually implementing that research and that's like engineers, research engineers and architects and so on. >> Do you think there's a world and I I'd imagine that you do where there there is successful uh tempo is successful and Ethereum is successful. What is your bigger vision for what this space becomes a as a a as a whole, right? Like Ethereum the role it plays and Tempo the role it plays. Could you describe the world you see you know into the future in which both of these sustain?
>> I mean almost certainly I mean right now I don't even um like with with what uh Ethereum's focus is now. If you look at the reality of what happens on uh the Ethereum chain and uh and including most L2s then um there's almost zero overlap with tempo like these are almost disjoint sets. So I I I don't know like I mean a lot of people hear oh it's now one and then for them it's like automatically competitive but if you look at the market dynamics actually there's almost zero competition like Ethereum's main business is DeFi and Tempo at the moment is not trying to do any DeFi and we might at some point like I mean I think like what makes most sense is of course all kinds of stable coin adjacent things things like forex
and so on that's years into the future and again is not something that's kind of currently big on Ethereum. So I think like um I I don't see them as competitive at the moment like almost at all. Um it's also like tempo is not trying to launch its own currency in a way like it might have a token at some point but it's it will have a quite a different role from ether. Um and uh yeah so so I think there will be there will be synergies for sure. So like basically if you think about it in the end like every like I mean people talked a lot about network effects and the one type of network effects we definitely have in crypto is like every crypto user is kind of a good thing because like once they are somewhere in the crypto ecosystem and have some capital they can
bridge it anywhere very easily. Like the the hardest part is still even getting them on there at all. And so from that perspective like tempo is kind of good for everyone maybe except anyone who's like themselves directly focused on payments >> as protocol architect there you know we've had this thesis uh on the role for at least the last 18 months which has been just around like the purpose-built nature of blockchains going forward right we saw the uh rise of the general purpose or universal chains in 2020 2021 2022 all L1's Ethereum you [snorts] know you name it and then we kind of really saw this specialization kick in where we saw you know specialized change now for perpex for gaming platforms for defi unit chain hyperlquid g you know well
the list goes on with tempo it's very clearly a paymentsbased chain uh what is the technical architecture required to make a highly successful payments focused chain and what does that look like from uh your perspective >> I mean there there are just some some very clear things like of things that you want you want um like we want fast finality you want very high scale for payment specifically which is like luckily like a little bit easier to uh to achieve than like general purpose compute. Um you want and then there are like some some basically like details but that turn out pretty important things like basically like that you can pay fees in stable coins, right? like basically let's say a huge annoyance if you would
have to keep around another currency and like maybe like account abstraction exists but it's not quite really like all there yet everything and so like having that like really smooth that you can pay uh well depends of course like and then it's a little bit easier for those chains that focus on one stable coin which is not what we want to do like we want to be stable coin neutral um which means like we have we need to have a mechanism so that you can pay in any stable coin >> go anywhere onchain instantly with relaylink relay is closing in on 10 billion transferred. Go to relay.link to bridge [music] your assets now.
>> Not your keys, not your coins. From the team that pioneered cold storage, Treasure has just released its new wallet. Guys, if you are still using hot wallets in 2025, 2026, you [music] are missing the entire point. Secure your coins. Get a treasure at treasure.io. The rise of stable coins has given birth to stable chains. Uh there's several of these. Um, what is your what is your take on the competitive landscape here as we're seeing more and more of these stable chains come live? >> Um, I think it's unclear yet, but I mean my guess would be that this is all about distribution. So, I would uh I would think like chains that have [snorts] a particular advantage in distribution are
the ones that are going to make it and the other ones I I'm not sure. Like >> so we've got you know the whole cohort happening in distribution more specifically payment providers institutions point of sales systems regional dominance combination of all these things. >> Yeah I mean you need to work with those people who actually have like real pain points there. I don't think like I don't think the the the thing like oh like let's put X on chain is like an interesting one. I think that never works. Like if you don't have a particular pay pain point why this has to be like a stable coin for example, it's not going to do much.
>> All right. So Tempo is not launching a stable coin. You heard here first. They're supporting all stable coins though. Uh want to be kind of more agnostic which is actually a different strategy than what we've seen from ARC and plasma and stable. Uh I think Codeex is probably more aligned with that. So >> and that's incredibly neutral stance. That's a value that comes from the Ethereum ecosystem. It, you know, is that where that philosophy comes from? This this idea that it's better for us to support the entire breadth of stable coins rather than launch our own. It's >> just a business decision. [laughter] >> Yeah.
>> Not everything's philosophy here, Rob. >> Well, that's that's my question is like what what is the business case to not >> to not right to to support all of them instead of launching your own? >> I mean, it depends what you want to do. And I think like this one I I I I can't actually speak for the business decision, so I >> All right, guys. We're going to talk about the upcoming Fusaka upgrade. Some some context here uh from you Dankrad, you know, your journey first started when you began working with the EF team in 2018, later joining full in 2019. Um and basically this upcoming Fusaka upgrade will finally implement Peris. Um you know, we're going to get bigger blobs, more blobs, more space. Um tell us more about your work on Fusaka. what went into this upgrade and why is it
really important for Ethereum's rollup ccentric roadmap? >> So the upgrade is um so the the fundamental new thing that it introduces is like the the idea of data availability sampling. So we have this data availability layer on Ethereum now and um and at the moment it works by um it's it's essentially just a mechanism to post all the data on chain and um and uh that that's like we we kind of like as a first step like that was like the the EIP 4844 prototank sharding it introduced this idea of like separating it from the existing execution so it's not as contentious anymore but now for the first time it will actually be scalable. So like what happens in Fusaka
is that now like nodes don't have to process all this data anymore and so we can yeah put more data on chain than like was possible before because not all nodes will now have to download this data but they can still through this mechanism verify that all the data is available >> and so from like a a tech perspective effectively you've got all this data that you need to verify uh its its accuracy you know and instead of having to go you know verify every single line, every single uh block. You can basically take a random sampling mechanism and verify through that that uh the data is indeed available and is basically uh saved from any data withholding attacks.
>> And then why does that enable Ethereum to scale for higher throughput for L2s and cheaper gas costs >> for L2s like the ones? So the rollups, the ones that post the data on the Ethereum chain, um they can use this to to basically like get get cheaper data and get post more data on chain. Um so so yeah, we'll have uh much more transactional throughput. It is actually also important for the future of Ethereum. So like this year we kind of made the decision that we'll start to scale the L1 as well.
>> Um and uh and so far that happens using like um by by improving the engineering by optimizing things. So um so that's kind of like the plan for the first two years or so to hopefully get to a scale of about 10x. Um and then like in the future we want to use this addit additional technology which like ZKVMs that basically allow us to verify um the execution at scale and but they also suffer from this basically you could say like um the Ethereum L1 will itself become a rollup right like and uh and so it also needs to post its data somewhere and you need to be scalable so otherwise you'll just be limited by the data instead of the execution and so like probably in a couple of years like we
will we will make use of the same layer to actually scale the L L1 as well. >> Yeah. And [clears throat] we're seeing this uh phenomena of roll-ups coming back to Ethereum. It it feels like you know they all kind of left uh the execution was pushed off chain but now the idea of native roll-ups and based roll-ups is bringing these roll-ups back to Ethereum bringing them bring the sequencing back uh via based roll-ups and then bringing the execution back via native roll-ups. Uh you know when you talk about Ethereum becoming a rollup of its own where does the data go? How does this how how might this affect the enduser experience?
>> Uh well I mean that depends a lot right like I mean I think like if you if you use Ethereum through an RPC which is like 99% of all users then um then it doesn't affect it at all. Um and uh so if you're if you run if you run a node for example if you want to run a validator then basically it will allow you to like run a much lighter node because suddenly there are like a lot of things that you don't need to do anymore with your node you can in principle get to a place like uh where where you don't need to run this execution layer anymore which is like 80% or so of the work right now. So like the node can become much lighter while at the same time the scale becomes much larger. Um, now if you still want to if you want to run
like your own node in order to like use that to to use Ethereum, then it doesn't really help you that much because now you still need um to have the state around. We can probably get rid of the execution part because we can just like post state diffs and you know that they're correct kind of. So like there are still improvements that you can get from it. Part of the, you know, I guess message that we've heard this week, Rob, has been we need to improve finality in Ethereum. We've heard it from Luca, from L2B, from the arbitrum team, from the optimism team. Um, we had Espresso on yesterday that they're kind of like, well, that's us, but Ethereum is kind of like, well, we don't want to give this to another L1. Um, >> why is finality such a big issue right
now for Ethereum with regards to its roadmap? And you know, we've heard a lot of these cries for help, if you will, and I sent a I sent a message to uh the the e the EF chat, and I got some push back saying like, look, well, look, the like, you know, the the Ethereum Foundation isn't, you know, responsible for helping everyone's problems here. Um, you know, maybe uh we should have a better way of approaching this. Let's talk about the issue. Let's talk about what the technical solution is and then let's, you know, kind of think about how we implement. Well, I mean I actually think like there are actually three separate issues and they all need to be addressed. So I I separate into like there's the kind of like time to inclusion. How quickly well actually no sorry the first one is actually time to
um uh time to get uh some type of confirmation. So like an optimistic confirmation. Then there's a time to inclusion and then there's time to finality. And they all matter for different things. Like basically time to get a pre-confirmation is like good for UX. The faster you can get this to a user, the better the user will feel about using the chain. Time to inclusion is basically how quickly can you especially like time to inclusion for contentious transactions. For example, if you want to trade or something, right? Then someone might exclude you intentionally because it is advantageous for for them economically. So basically how quickly can you get your transaction in under adversarial um conditions like this. Um that is very important for economics like that's for example
important for the DEX economics. And then there's a time to to finality um which yeah depends a lot yeah basically matters in a way like in a very abstract sense for all L2s like in a in a like in the broadest sense you can include things like exchanges and so on also in that category basically anyone who who in who uh interacts with the chain in like a hybrid way right and so they need finality in order to like be sure that for example they have taken custody of an asset or something. Um, and yeah, I think like uh I think I mean my my sense is we need to improve all of these a lot. Um, and uh like I mean like
I I hope that we'll like Ethereum can get to 6cond block time next sometime next year. Um, that would be really good. So that would be a factor of two in all of them already. And then like on finality, yeah, like we have like a lot of research in the works to like improve that massively. Um I think there are like at least two or three different efforts and I think like we still have to figure out exactly which one will be the one to go with. >> Finality is one of the things that we've heard. Uh I'm curious what from your perspective what is the the most significant technical bottleneck or limitation that Ethereum is still facing today that that we should really prioritize and focus on? Um I mean the the biggest the the most difficult part in getting there. Well, I mean, okay,
there are two things like basically so um Ethereum has for a very long time not done much work on the peerto-peer layer. Like basically when we started when we launched the beacon chain, we just uh used the lip. We're like, "Oh, it's great. Like there's a ready library. A lot of projects are going to share it." That ended up not being true. Like Ethium is by far the largest user of it, but it's not been adapted to Ethereum specific use case at all. And I think like we're changing that now. like Raul joined the peer-to-peer team this year or he actually like is kind of leading it and so it's like um yeah I mean I think like we we'll see hopefully like very big changes there because I think there's like there's like a lot of slack so you can actually improve that a lot
um and then the other big I guess like problem way that Ethereum faces is like we have this massive validator set and so that makes like a lot of things a lot more difficult like a lot of things would be possible if you had like a thousand validators >> arguably too decentralized That's too many validators. >> I mean like the thing is it's not actually we know there's only like 10,000 or 15,000 nodes. I don't know the the exact number. So like right now basically like we have kind of you could call them logical validators like in the consensus we keep track of like more than a million entities but they're not like real validators in the sense that they are independently managed. So like that's kind of unfortunately problem. We try to trying to fix that with a maxi, but I think the incentives are just not
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And in a tangent to that thought, what do you think about Justin Drake's lean Ethereum proposal and and work? Is that what we need to uh scale the L1? What's your general thoughts there? >> I think that's separate. So lean ethereum is a big initiative on consensus and um and I think like I mean so for me like a huge like a very important part of it is like the postquantum road map like that's absolutely uh very important that someone like um really figures that out how to do that. So that's amazing for lean Ethereum. My personal opinion on it is like I I don't believe it should come as like one big upgrade like the merge or something. I think like it's great that Justin tries to build this like
consistent like chain, but I think like um what we should probably try doing is to iteratively uh pick and choose the improvements that it brings to us and like bring them on a much shorter time scale to like to Ethereum. >> I have a counterpart to my earlier question about like what the most problematic things about Ethereum are. Now I'm curious, you know, the flip side of that, what do you think have been the most significant achievements or milestones in recent times that Ethereum has pushed Ethereum to its success? Well, I mean I think like um I mean oh I mean we we did uh I mean like clearly there they end up ended up problems with the rollup ccentric road map but I think like we did definitely um execute on it
and it definitely like was in some sense a major success like that would not have existed without it. Um, I mean I I think like to me personally like what is closest to me like I think like Fusaka is kind of the the biggest uh upgrade in that is kind of >> that's your baby man >> in a way. Yes. [laughter] Right. Um, >> yeah. >> Yeah. >> Very cool. >> Um, so within the the lens of this uh finality conversation, it ties into Lena theme a bit. It also ties into some of the prioritization. Let's say we we get this right. we solve this finality uh you know issue here.
What would that look like in a postf fast finality Ethereum world like not single slot times or single slot finality but you know somewhere closer to where we are today from our perspective it would effectively enable a far better base layer for L2s. It would really facilitate a better rollup ccentric model. What actually technically uh would be better for developers, for users like in that in that world, what is going to be better for us? >> In what world? >> In the post faster finality world, >> right?
>> I I think it depends a lot. And I think like basically this is kind of like it it it will allow us to to have um much faster um roll up settlements and things like that. Now the interesting thing is that right now that's actually not even bottlenecked by L1 finality. It's bottlenecked by the by the proving times. So I think like right now it's kind of I think right now the most significant thing you would get is like uh being able to deposit to exchanges more quickly. I think that's that's actually the biggest uh um improvement you would see if you improve that right now. But I I think users are demanding that like 250 second millit time or
millisecond confirmation time like what they're used to on Hyperlquid or what they're used to on all L1s. >> And it feels like um institutions are actually demanding the finality >> because they want confirmation and guarantees near instantly because that's effectively what they're used to getting in [clears throat] their world, right? I mean or or or something close to that. Like if I send you a Venmo, I I I'm I know that it's sent. As soon as it's sent, it's like, you know, it's it's it's final. >> Well, I mean, it's very clear that for institution, this is important. I mean, like I I don't know if the premise that you're putting there is right because like actually the biggest problem that they often face is like the two-day or one day settlement, right? Which are much much user perspective, it feels
final. >> And for the intrain institutional transfers, right, Venmo account to Venmo account all happens on the Venmo ledger that they can process near instantly. when we're doing things on the Ethereum world or between different institutions, they're looking for a similar settlement time. >> No, but yeah, I hear what you're saying. It's maybe not the best analogy. I have a question about the ZK road map. Justin Drake has been talking about this, but this is part of the technical road map of Ethereum overall. Um, one of the things that I've heard is a push back to this has been that it would effectively kingmake one of these ZKVMs, whether it's risk zero or succinct or risk 5 or one of these. Um, is that the case or is there something that's that we're kind of missing in the discourse where no, there's actually a more robust version
of this that we're talking about including in the Ethereum protocol? >> I mean, I think currently the plan is that there's not going to be a single ZKVM, but there's going to be a choice of several of them similar to like the multiclient road map that they would like basically like it would be something like two out of three or four out of five or so. >> Have to agree in order for them. >> Exactly. Yeah. And I think that makes sense. I mean I but I okay like this is this is kind of like a debate that's ongoing. I mean I would actually personally be for some king making there and actually be um like making making a choice. I think like there are other people who like say like oh it's like should be completely up to the user to choose which ones you want to trust and
so on. I'm not that convinced of of that way of things because I feel like the incentives are quite bad. But that's Yeah. I gotta ask if you were in char like if you were just gonna >> I knew that was coming. >> If you were if you were king of Ethereum right? >> I mean, you're father of a father of uh of D charting, but if you were king of Ethereum, uh which ZKVM would you choose? >> I don't think I would be ready to make that choice right now. I think it is kind of too early at this point. Like I I don't think they're quite metro enough yet. >> And so what metrics would you be looking at to determine the one that is ready for it?
>> There are several of course. I mean there's there's performance but I think most importantly and this one is like very very hard to do like it's just the maturity of the project how certain you are and again I I I do agree that it shouldn't be one I think like having like I think probably two out of three or something like is is a great way of doing it >> on the lens of tempo of institutions of of payments of boring stuff we get these weird like cycles of narratives [clears throat] in the space where something's really hot one year takes like 5 years to actually build it out from the time that that it was exciting and then it becomes hot again. Privacy is here again uh for probably institutional reasons, for regulatory clarity reasons. Um Vitalic has came out
and put a uh kind of a open statement to Ethereum saying, "Hey guys, here's our privacy kind of roadmap." Um may maybe >> tool kit maybe you could explain this toolkit um why this is important to Ethereum. >> Do you actually think it's going to get adopted? like what is this, you know, where we at? >> I haven't looked that deeply into what Vitalik is building, but I do think that privacy is super important and I think like it is it is the right push and I think like I agree that like there are like a lot of things that seem right right now. And I do think like also like I'm very happy that like um the crypto community is like kind of getting much more mature about privacy, right, at picking the tradeoffs which are like which are just there, right? like you I
I think like you cannot build a system that is like made for North Korea to launder hundreds of millions of dollars. Like we don't want that. Um and we but we do want like privacy and like um and and I think it's like I mean this this is what I see what people are building now and that's amazing and that's great and um I think like also for tempo it's like super important like we like privacy will be like at the forefront of payments as well. >> Privacy for payments is a is a must. Um >> uh when it comes to We're going all over the topics here. We're just trying to fit as as much of it in. We I put out a tweet. I was like, "Four of the top 10 uh rollups or L2s in Ethereum are stage zero."
>> Um and I put this was a massive issue for Ethereum. Some people were like, "Dude, you're over exaggerating." Some people were like, "This is huge. Like this is a big problem." How much do you personally care about stage zero, stage one, stage two? >> And like what would be your call to action to L2s as as far as their progressive decentralization? Yeah, I mean this is very interesting because like I think um I mean my view um has changed probably like a lot on this and it is it diverges quite a bit from like the kind of like EF and maybe Vitalik's view on this. Um I think like basically what most rollups see and why they are like stage zero or stage one um is that yeah building these bridges is really
really hard because like you basically yes like it's it's smart contracts but it's like incredibly complex smart contracts and now you have to suddenly say like 100% like all the all the load goes on these and uh and the interesting thing is like when you actually start looking into it it matters mainly for one thing like for the ether that's bridged to the rollups, right? Like for for other assets, we're now seeing the trend that um they they are just issued um like on um like natively anywhere and like for the real world assets like in the end that just makes sense. I mean I do think there's like a world where like we start seeing direct like equities directly being
rooted on some chain and that's great and we should work towards that. I do think that's like decades away realistically. Like I mean the DTCC is still keeping paper certificates in safes. Like this is how slow like these things change like these laws change. So I think like for a very long time we'll see these more like indirect solutions where you have a company that keeps this the the security somewhat custodially and then issues an asset on chain and obviously they can ch issue that on many chains and they get great advantages from that because now well they don't have to trust the bridges like basically the node software is way more mature and that's like what these rollups rely on
for these assets and uh and they can then do mint and burn bridges which are like much faster than anything else that exists. >> The push back for the stage two in the context of what of what you're describing here as far as the different use cases has been if there's a bug there's a bug and there's no squashing of that bug. >> I mean that doesn't have to be exactly true, right? Like you have these constructions like where you have a security council that can only intervene if there's an actual bug but like it's very very hard to actually do all this. Yeah. But from stage zero to one, it feels like we got to get there >> for next year.
>> Like all the big chains need to be at stage one. >> You talked a little bit about the Ethereum Foundation's uh you know uh transition over the over some some several months. Um we're calling this a bullish reversal. Uh you know like there was you know 6 months to 9 months. Yeah. You know >> the stops. >> We we've also kind of said that Ethereum is kind it's in wartime mode uh and and feels like now is the time to ship. Now is the time to make positive change. Uh would you agree? Would you say Ethereum is in wartime mode? >> My honest opinion is it's like yes there it it has like started going there but I don't think it's enough. Like I think like my opinion would be uh we need to do a lot more and I think like there started to be push back and I think like
basically people start oh do we really need to do that much and I'm like I think like I think we need to do more personally but that's my opinion. >> All right Dan Grant we got a couple fun things for you. First thing is we're building a Spotify playlist uh this week for all of our guests. And I'd like to ask you what song you'd like to add to the Spotify playlist. Give you a chance to think about it. [laughter] Whether it's a favorite song, a song you've heard here, something that you've been enjoying lately. What would be your your song? >> Wow. I don't know. >> What What kind of music do you typically listen to normally?
>> Who's your artist of choice? Are you like a rock and roll? Are you like a lowi? >> I I'm now like actually Yeah, I mainly listen to Loi these days, but I don't have a specific song though. It's just like I just go on Spotify and find a lowfi playlist. >> We'll add a nice little lofi. Uh this one's called I'm yours. Uh Loi Fruits. Um we also have a gift for you, Dankrad. Uh we'd like to present this to you and I think you'll enjoy [music] it. Um because on the show we've been uh kind of pioneering this idea of return to fundamentals. And so [music] uh we've we've brought this as our slogan of the show because to us it feels like the entire [music] space is evolving into a a you know build something real get something done.
That's probably a lot of the reason why you're going to work at Tempo you know. So talk to us about what return to fundamentals means to you uh in the lens of your personal career, your journey um and you know your future work. >> Actually to us I feel like I've always been very much a fundamentals guy. I think uh my my views has views probably haven't changed that much but I would say like probably like at the beginning I was probably much more uh careful about about it because like I didn't really like I mean there was a lot of things going on in crypto and maybe like a lot of it was like I don't understand it to be honest I don't know why this is value and I think like in a way I'm feeling much more comfortable in an environment that is much more about
fundamentals. All right, 60 seconds. Dankrad lightning round. Question one. Rank these three trade-offs: speed, scale security. >> Uh, security, speed, scale. >> Fill in the blank. Ethereum is blank. >> The future of finance. >> What do people fundamentally misunderstand about you, Dankra? probably that uh I I have taken a particular role for the Etheum ecosystem but like I think like um it's it has to be seen relative to like what exists rather than like this is like fundamentally like I'm like only about make it fast and uh I'm I'm very much pro security and everything >> is ether money >> um as it is used no right now no but it could be
>> what is your biggest sleeper project or protocol in the Ethereum community skip. >> If you could deliver one message to the Ethereum community, what would it be? >> You got to fight for finance on Ethereum. >> Thankf live from Rollup TV. Lightning round. Thank you, Dankra. It's been an absolute pleasure, man. >> Appreciate it. >> Thanks for joining us for coming on.