DAPPCON 2025: Ethereum Scalability Panel - Bartek.eth & Dankrad Feist

Transcript

[Applause] It's a great opportunity for me to have this conversation. Uh thank you, Dunkrat. Uh I hope you guys are going to enjoy it. Uh we're going to explore some of the uh more recent advances in how uh Ethereum researchers and leadership think about uh scaling Ethereum. And uh I'm Bartekch. I'm from Altoid. I'm like a skeptic, you know, like a blockchain skeptic, I guess. Um, and you know, we both uh have been uh in this field for so many years now. And frankly, I've never got a chance to uh to ask this question. So before we go into something

more serious and I want to keep it fairly technical for the rest of the interview, can you like uh kind of tell me uh how does it feel like you know to have one of the u scaling features of Ethereum named after your name the dunk sharding like like where did the name came from? What's the story here? It uh it it certainly feels very strange. Um, and uh, yeah, I tried for a long time to come up with a back acronym for it so that it wouldn't officially be my name, but uh, unfortunately I didn't succeed.

And uh, yeah, um, I don't know, it was more of like an accident of history that uh, some internal name from our calls became kind of the official way people started referring to it. Yeah, it just feels like, you know, this is maybe a mischievous way to like keep it in the space and now you can't leave, right? like you're you're Ethereum. Uh so um you guys must have remembered the block size was uh back in 2017 uh with Bitcoin that uh essentially resulted in the split in the community. Uh so before I go into Ethereum scaling, uh were you a big blocker or a small block at the

time? Well, I wasn't actually really that deep in crypto or part of any community. So, I would not say that I had a strong opinion back during the during that time. And yeah, I would probably also say that I'm kind of philosophically a big a small blocker but a pragmatically a big blocker. And to explain what that means is like I like I respected how the Bitcoin community decided to like um enforce their will against uh the miners. So I think that was a that was a great milestone in like blockchain history. But on the other hand, I would

probably have said pragmatically like um also like at uh at certain points in the Ethereum past, I would have been like, well, we could have made blocks a little bit bigger. Um it just feels to me a little bit uh when I uh was following the discussions on raising guys limit and this is like almost the core of our argument that you came uh as an extreme big blocker almost, right? And there was some push back from the community from some members of the community. However, that was nothing like we witnessed in Bitcoin. It was short lived and and seems like now community seems to be rallying, you know, behind raising gas

limit. Like what's your take here? Like uh how do you uh how do you how do you see this because Right. Right. I mean the difference in the situation is that we actually have a story on how to um how to really keep keep the values that we care about which I think um are really about uh verifiability and censorship resistance. Um which previously like the the story used to be well you have to have like these um small nodes that you can run at home and uh and we can now achieve them without making these kind of like the center like tenet of ethereum like I think we should really care about the properties

that of the system that we're building rather than like I guess the inner workings. So um I've heard uh the following arguments from let's call them a small blockers right uh the main one essentially goes about the the current gas price uh this is very very low uh at least for for Ethereum it seems like you know the users uh have moved to L2 which is what we kind of wanted uh in the original rollup ccentric road map and now the eve price have um you know gone down uh so maybe now everybody's is concerned that the tools have grown too big, right? And we don't have a good way of like pricing, you know, this this growth and and and there's this

existential threat that they might be too big and Ethereum too small, I guess, that they might break off eventually, right? Uh so is it all about the if price like if if was 10K, you know, that wouldn't be a concern or or something else because frankly uh I'm not entirely clear like what we're trying to achieve here. Are we trying to bring users back to L1? And I'm thinking short term, right? Like like let's let's like put away the discussion on ZKVMs and whatnot. Like shortterm, are we trying to get all these users from L2 back to L1 to to pump the price of Eve a little bit back up or are we trying to get users from Salana? Like what are we trying to do here? Mhm. Yeah. Right. So I guess like we have to see um

I mean it's a complicated question I think like it comes to like it certainly there certainly is like an economic question in the background that like a um like it's it does seem much harder for example to like maybe like 5 years ago we imagined oh that like um everyone wants to be on Ethereum and therefore like they pay whatever for the Ethereum data available so it doesn't matter whether they own L1 and L2 and that that has just turned out not to be true and um uh maybe we were a bit naive in that.

So there is an economic question about this, but I do think that the economic question also ties back into um the Ethereum project even if you see it from a pure cultural and values aspect because I do think that uh for example at least the situation where um there's one breakout roll up that basically captures say a huge amount of economic value while the Ethereum L1 doesn't that would fundamentally change the relationship between the two and would actually lead to a world where we would have less ability to like pursue our values. So I do think it is good to keep um the economic relationship in check as

well. Um, so I do think it's better to have like a strong L1 and I think this is right now the best way I see uh how we can achieve that and uh how strong L1 uh will affect the EF price. We'll see right hard to predict. I mean there's a there there are a lot of things going on there. So yeah. So I think the uh the question that everyone probably keeps asking I mean this is by far the most common question that you must have heard but I'd like to go a little bit deeper into that. Uh now that the focus seems to be on scaling uh L1 obviously everybody is wondering how does it really affect uh L2s and maybe before you answer because you know you get to

answer this question probably every single day. Uh I'll just uh throw two quotes. uh one is probably quite known from Anatoli from Salana like he says my jobs here is done I don't have to make fun of the L2 road map anymore but you know I mean he's from Salana right so maybe he's not the guy to listen here however uh two days ago uh synthetics uh which is one of the oldest D5 protocols and one of the earliest adopters of L2 because they were the first protocol that actually uh went live on optimism testn net if you guys don't know that it's is like a you know Ethereum scaling history of sorts. They actually wrote in the blog L2s are dead. Um the experiment

is over. Um and synthetics is going all in on L1, right? And I don't know. I mean that sounds to me like very harsh words. So um I wonder I mean maybe they were always too extreme, right? like you know maybe they were too early and now they like I don't know going too far. Yeah. Um I mean it's a complicated question. I mean like the the very the very direct way to see is just like the way we and it wasn't necessarily that we had to do it this way but the way we started doing rollups made them be in some ways like a kind of direct

competition with Ethereum mainet and for like a long time we were like okay with it because we were like there's no other way of doing it and now the question becomes a bit more complex but I don't think that has to mean that it definitely doesn't have to mean that we have to be like um enemies or so in any way right I think like tools right yes exactly like there are many uh good ways in which we collaborate I think for me the big difference is just that I would probably in some ways agree with Kane here not in all ways but I would agree with him that I would like to have his project on L1 and like There's nothing wrong with that with us saying like we

would like them to stay and focus on it. Um that doesn't mean they can't also be on L2 but like I guess like we will be have a bit more of an active role of like also developing the L1. Mhm. And um I think it's there are probably things in DeFi where we would see them like a little bit more like critically and we were like yes we want lots of liquidity on L1 and not all of it on L2s. And for other things like we would be less concerned and would be like oh yeah like um there are applications where we're quite happy if they continue being on L2 is the scale their scale can never be provided by the L1 and so like they can continue being there. So maybe the issue

was uh that you know we had one tech for building L2s but you know different competing visions of what L2s were actually meant to represent like uh sovereign zones with you know really good you know internal interability but not necessarily uh external like you know very similar to let's say commercial banks settling on a central bank right we don't use central bank to keep our accounts you know the uh the the actual commercial banks keep the accounts on so Ethereum was supposed to be like this settlement layer. Uh so that was one vision. The second vision is like this model thesis where you know tens of thousands of rollups you know like little tiny building blocks impossible for L2B to track. Uh that's a to me completely different vision. The

third one was that you know they should be like an extension of Ethereum right like interoperable to the point that you know it should be all seen as one huge sharded chains and um like to me these visions were like different and maybe maybe there was no guidance from from Ethereum Foundation like like what what are we actually building here? Uh so well I mean the Ethereum Foundation has taken a like in the past a very handsoff role in the whole thing and I think it's shifting a little back.

It's probably not going to go all the way the other way now but I would say like more closer to the ecosystem and more actively involved again. M so uh so what is your personal vision uh today for rollup specifically like and can you also comment on this you know this idea of the execute uh op code and how does it actually fit into this vision? Oh, okay. I mean, two very different questions. Um, but they kind of related, right? I mean, one is more shortterm, the other one is more like medium or long term. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yes. Um, yeah. I mean, I think like I I don't know if I have like a grand vision for this. For me, this is more like I mean,

it's like it's not that I have a grand vision for other chains or for apps or whatever either. So like I think like it is a natural thing to exist and that's great and like we can coexist and collaborate in many ways. Um there are probably some things where it would be like it's a more natural fit and there will be I guess you can say like less of a competitive dynamic if like the rollups go more into like the appsp specific direction or into applications that are not um tied to DeFi and so on.

Um yeah that's what that's what how I think about it at the moment. Okay, so let's switch gears a little bit and talk about scaling u data data availability because this is how we started and you know um having dunk sharding name into it you know this is certain responsibility and um if anyone's interested in scaling VM ZKVM that's going to be like a different conversation right so so data availability uh Celestia has announced that you know they have on test net 128 megabytes uh blocks you know they're trying to build gigabyte blocks and seems like we're so much behind. Um what's your take like you know I mean I

remember your talk from Amsterdam a few years ago when you said that dunk sharding you know sharding generally of data should be the top priority I mean you're certainly not happy with where we are are you? Yes, there I am. I mean, okay, so there's there's a complicated question and there are several layers to this like one is that yeah, I do believe that we have been um not ambitious enough with Ethereum in the past and we have to realize that we have to like um have a somewhat consistent offering with the market. Otherwise like a the pure um yeah extreme sort of cipher p cipher punk concepts are not going to sell. um on data availability it's especially

hard because so with Celestia um I would ask them a question back like how are you going to get sampling for like a gigabyte per second because if you have a few thousand sampling nodes this means you're talking about many megabytes per second more nodes right per node yes of course like if your vision is to have millions of nodes that's great but I mean that is also a very very hard thing to achieve like I uh so I think yes there are many there are many questions about this to be answered as well I don't I and and I think this is this is a real question that everyone as a data layer for example will have to ask themselves where they see themselves on

that spectrum and I actually would say I don't have the answer even for Ethereum right now because traditionally yes we have gone the very conservative route and said okay like we only want to do data availability if it has these very high security guarantees. But then the question is like is that actually valuable to anyone what we're building like this is unclear at the moment. Yeah. And the conservative conservative almost feels to me like uh this is a big bet from Ethereum that the the people will care right and they will actually pay for it and they will prefer to use Ethereum as a settlement layer because you know it's like arguably the most decentralized after Bitcoin but you

can't do much on Bitcoin right so you know like institutions should uh like use Ethereum almost as a default however this is not what I see you know I mean Ethereum is dominating Yes, but I think the issue is more political rather than, you know, tech oriented and I would be personally very concerned, you know, if there's like more lobbying for let's say Salana or for for something else. I mean, how do we how do we convince, you know, um the big stakeholders here and by them I mean institutions uh that Ethereum is the best place for let's say RWAs for example, right? because it's like the most decentralized. Do they even care? And if they don't, then again, what are we building? Well, I

mean, I think yes, this is like kind of where you have to find the middle ground where what you're offering actually works. And I do think we can build a lot of things there, but I I think it is hard to find that ground. And I think like on data availability, for example, we still have to find it. We still have to find what is actually the right offering. we have started. I think what we have now is definitely not good enough like we need to build a lot more but what exactly that is I think a big question for the coming years. I think on the like surprisingly on the L1 scaling is it was a little bit easier to actually figure out because I think we can see where the technology is going and what we can probably do in a few years without like too much compromise

but also what is a good enough offering like for example I am quite confident that 100x scale del will do a lot for users and will be very valuable for the world but on on the data question I think it's there's a lot to figure out right Mhm. So uh so when I like look at Celestia DA and and Ethereum, I mean I see Celestia trying to be as much decentralized as possible with the novel P2P network built you know uh for supporting those those mammoth blocks as they call it. On the other hand, IDA is like, you know, cranking the volume as much as they can by being centralized and saying that it doesn't really matter so much because, you know, they like

settling to Ethereum and this is where the ordering comes from. Uh so, so very very different like set of trade-offs, right? And it's like you said, I mean, do we know exactly what trade-offs are we pursuing with Ethereum? In other words, um can Ethereum support as much um you know blob space as a Celestia? Like technically is there any reason why Ethereum cannot in the future, you know, support that much DA or or that would like go against some values of right whatever they are. Well, I mean like technically like again the question is like what do you what trade-offs are you willing to make? for example like yeah right now the the the most fundamental ultimate limit is um how many nodes are

sampling. Mhm. Um and I guess we can try to get a lot more sampling nodes but that will also be very hard work and uh I think like we can we can do things there and I think like what we're doing now also with scale the L1 will push in the right direction because we are adding much lighter nodes to the whole system as well. So we can have more of these but I think at least from what I've seen so far pushing to millions of nodes is going to be very tough. And then how does this sort of compare to DA where you know you you use you don't really sample anything. You just like disperse you know chunks and and that's

it. And uh with no P2P network at all with no no P2P network. Right. Right. Right. Right. Well, I think actually the peer-to-peer network is not really the critical part in making it like verifi verifiable by a large number of nodes. Um it but the sampling is I do think they want to do that and I do think they have a yeah it's a plan but yes yes um okay um I was asked uh for 5 minutes for the audience to also ask questions from Dankrat but beforeh you know I started on the light one I'm going to end on the light one because we could go like really for hours you know uh going deeper and deeper and this is always a great opportunity you know to to be able to

chat uh but uh my final question to you is like why did you stop blogging? you know, I really appreciated uh your blogs and I think, you know, they were great explainers for the community of hard concepts, right? Like like people are so confused about, you know, like what does it even mean, you know, the censorship resistance, the 51% attacks and whatnot. Not to mention the famous KCG explained that everybody that I talked to say like, "Yeah, I mean, I've read that, you know, Dunk's post and finally I got it, you So, and I checked and it's been three years, Duncan. Like Yeah. Um, well, actually, I don't know.

I Yes. I had So, I'm like representing the community call, you know, like like please blog more, you know, then I I think my suggestion would be if you if you if there's something where you would really like an explainer, then hit me up and I will think if that's something. I mean it used to be more natural and I think like I guess for me right now we're in a very different stage in some ways. So it has become harder. So there were fewer topics where I felt naturally but if there are things that pop up where you think this would be a great okay topic then yeah just hit me up and I will think if I can write a blog about it. Okay let me give it to the audience.

Uh we probably have time for like maybe two questions right? Yeah we have about five minutes. Yeah. Okay. Any questions for Bartekch and Donard? Hi. So I have this question here into the Hi. So I have this question about uh why focus on scaling DA, right? Because we see at least last I checked that the blob price is essentially zero. So it seems like that the demand is met. Is it the fact that we're anticipating more demand and essentially how it plays out with with the focus on L2 being more application specific?

Will they then use more DA? What's the vision? So I I don't think that that uh present mainet demand is actually a very good uh way to measure this right now because we do know that there is a substantial amount of latent demand that's not coming on Ethereum blobs because like for example layer 2 like salo simply like already when they made the decision they looked at and we're like well there's no way we can go there. um polygon which might not have now have changed strategy. I'm not sure but they were also we were also talking to them like a couple of years ago and they were like well we can't like put it on blobs right so they are defin there's

definitely a question of like which projects can even commit to being a rollup given the current throughput and it's not a lot right many of them can't um it's a it it's a very big commitment because you're basically saying I can never have more than these transactions and like by scaling it more we are losing that what we all What we can also like achieve is simply like I mean it's a similar question to scaling the L1 right like if I want to build a project and that's especially big project like a rollup where I'm going to do a lot of BD I want to know that there is capacity for future growth so I think like right now the answer is like what we have right now is simply not good enough like it's it's it's

almost meaningless if you want to build a big project like you simply cannot commit to build it on uh Ethereum DA and at the current level. So I think we definitely have to go away from from there no matter what. So for me if I can like add one thing you know if I see let's say onchain games using LDA um I'm not concerned if I see apps like Cello uh using LDA I am concerned you know there's really no reason why they should use LDA and I guess I'm not going to be satisfied unless they can use you know just for the security right I mean we're talking people's funds um and and we're talking projects with very significant DL are using extreme extremely insecure all DA bridges today to the point that

you know at L2 to beat we're actually making this effort of trying to like push them really hard you know to use a good DA bridge but we found that this is actually hard it's a hard task to convince people that this is important because then you know questions come up like who's running this DA bridge you know who's the relayer there right who can upgrade you know what is the upgrade delay of this bridge I mean all sorts of you know like pondero box of questions that no one and who's paying for this right Um, another question for the panel if not then we'll we'll wrap it up. Can I have one more? Can I have one more?

Okay. Yeah, of course. Please. Like uh what are the main uh points of disagreement with you and Vitalik? Oo. Um, because like the reason I'm asking you this is that you know I heard rumors that there are some rumors of that there are some there are some there are some points that you disagree with. No, just just kidding. But on the we had well I don't know I think like once we discuss we can usually like come to an agreement like we had recently some discussions they're public as well. you can see it like about um provers like do we need to be able to run provers at home and like I said well it's like a nice long-term

goal but it's really like not the thing we should be most concerned about right now also given that like the technology will advance massively and I think like I had more discussions recently with him and he was like oh actually like um he's come around to that and I think makes much more sense to just check that it there there are lots of alternatives to get the GPUs that that you need rather than insisting on it being at home. So I don't know like um yeah I I don't know if there are really very big disagreements right now. That's good to hear. I mean we don't want these guys to to really disagree, I guess. Okay, thank you so much. Uh thank you everybody. I

hope that it was um useful. Please a round of applause for Mark and Don.