Ethereum's Boomer Era? Apostates, EF Drama, and Solana Fights Back - The Chopping Block

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That's such a uninspiring story to someone who's 19. Are you kidding me? That you're telling me that this Korean guy in a suit who's like telling me number go up is like the most impressive thing you can do. Like why would you even bother? I'm just saying like it doesn't seem like a very inspiring message. No offense. Like tell me this not offense to you. It's just you're selling the olds, you know, >> not a dividend. >> It's a tale of two fun. >> Now your losses are on someone else's balance sheet. >> Generally speaking, airdrops are kind of pointless anyways. named trading firms who were very involved.

>> Eth is the ultimate >> DeFi protocols are the antidote to this problem. >> Hello everybody. Welcome to chopping block. Every couple weeks the four of us get together and give the industry insider perspective on the crypto topics of the day. Quick intro is first got Tom the DeFi maven and master of memes. >> Hello everyone. >> Next we got Tarun Giga Brain and Grand Puba at Gauntlet. >> Yo >> joining us today we've got a double feature. Uh, first we've got uh first we got David, the crypto connoisseur and Zar of Superstate. Welcome back, David. It's been a while since we've had you on the show. People have been missing you.

>> Uh, thanks for joining us. Um, so we're actually we're specifically doing an Ethereum apostasy episode. And so we've got Max Resnik joining us once again on the show, the OG Ethereum atheist. Welcome back, Max. >> Thanks. Thanks. Good to be back. Well, I guess this is my first time actually, but back talking about the topic everybody wants to know about. >> We've had you. Didn't we have you on when you were talking [ __ ] about um when you first transitioned away from Salana? I'm pretty sure to Salana. I'm pretty sure we did. >> Oh, really? >> Oh, we did. You did. You're not remembering, but trust me, our guests remember or the audience remembers. The audience remembers. Uh >> I'd like to decline the identity of a Ethereum apostate. I I still like Ethereum.

>> Okay. Well, we'll be we'll be we'll be going through we'll be going through this. We'll be going through this. >> Okay. Anyway, I am a seed, the head of high man at Dragonfly. We're earlyation investors in crypto, but I want to caveat that nothing we say here is investment advice, legal advice, or even life advice. Please see chop and block at XYZ for more disclosures. Okay, so David, let me let me refine that a little bit. You're an ETH apostate, not necessarily an Ethereum apostate, but you've been gone you've gone viral quite recently. There's been a string of departures from the EF. There's been a lot of drama around how is ETH, the asset, doing? Um, you know, there's been there's been all this back and forth. You know, Max, I think you were the maybe the OG in the space to turn your

back on Ethereum. You originally were a very active and loud proponent of the Ethereum ecosystem. You defected over to Salana. David, you've made the waves. >> Wait, wait, wait, wait. You say Max is first. That Suzu tweet predates Max. >> There's a lot of people who defected before me, I think. >> Max consensus. >> Exactly. >> Max was inside. >> Max was he was Exactly. He was in the inner chamber, you know. He was in the the beating heart of Ethereum and he fought his way out out of pure >> betrayal. Um, so, okay, David, you you're you're the latest >> in this string of defections. Um, and many people actually I I asked Twitter is like, hey, what do you want us to ask if I we bring David and Max on the show?

And they were like, why are you bringing these losers on the show? These guys are turn coats. Like, what you know, what do they have to say? So, David, let me let me hand you the floor. What do you have to say for yourself? Why have you turned your back on ETH the asset after and I should give some exposition? You're the one of the co-founders of Bankless. Bankless was one of the early podcasts that really proitized ETH, DeFi, many of the core concepts behind these ecosystems. And you were perceived for many years as being one of the central voices in the media space behind Ether and the Ethereum ecosystem. So why are you now turning your back on ETH the asset?

>> Yeah. Um we built bankos as you said and and this like thesis around you know ETH is money uh ether the asset will elevate itself to be like bitcoin just like money and it's going to be priced as such and like I I think that thesis has to some degree played out. We we built that thesis in 2020, 2019, 2020. It's now 2026. That's about the kind of the time frame that we had, the the time horizon that we really had. And really, my conclusion, my choice to sell ETH came downstream of the fact that like I think it's going to be hard for ETH to get rerated up or down in any direction.

And so the ideas that we had, the thesis that we had, the ETH is money thesis played out with some degree of success and there were some failures along the way, but really like the decision to sell ETH came at just like the opportunity cost of capital is there are simply opportunities elsewhere. And I don't really I don't want to like be branded as this guy who's like bearish Ethereum or just like you know a defector and now he's writing bare posts. It's none of that. It's just like the thing the thing happened. It was it had some amount of its success. I was hoping for more and that's a wrap on the story.

>> Well, so the natural question is why now? Why in 2026 announce that, hey, I sold my last ETH? Because to the extent that you're like, look, my thesis was realized. We made this big call in 2020. Absolutely, you did. We nailed it. Ethereum built DeFi. They built the the Cathedral of Bazaar, the the ecosystem. and we got all the things that we wanted. Mission accomplished. Time to go home. What is it about 2026 that makes this the time to to say that? >> Yeah. It in order for like Ether to be rerated as an asset to have this like idiosyncratic jump up and like elevation in status, Ethereum and the Ethereum layer 1 and Ether and everything around it really needs to have momentum. And that's the thing that I think like

uniquely in 2026 I see harder and harder for momentum to uniquely uh come back to the Ethereum layer 1. And there's just so much structural architecture against value capture for ETH. Like layer 2 margins are at 98%. For example, you know, the fat app thesis is displacing the fat protocol thesis. And like as I was writing this article, like Ethereum as a as a open source project is kind of like a nonprofit. It doesn't take it doesn't take a take rate. It doesn't charge fees. It it services everything to its ecosystem at cost, which is an incredible property of Ethereum and why

I think Ethereum is really going to grow because it does all of these incredible things at cost. But for ether the money to be like the thesis to be fully realized it would needed to have maintained like a huge market dominance so that it can continue to do things at cost but while having like 90% of like smart contract revenue and activity share dominance and now that it doesn't have those things it really needs ETH's money in order to be rerated as an asset it needs somebody to push it there like like we need to do work and have like strong executional leadership to push ETH back up this hill that it needs to climb back up. And that is the thing I'm kind of bearish on because leadership at the Ethereum Foundation

aren't really aligned with these goals. And even if they were, I don't necessarily believe in their capacity to like kind of think like a startup and to operate with excellence is they're just a different skill set of people. And so, you know, ETH is in this trough and it needs to be, you know, elevated higher and it needs to be growing in potential energy and I don't see how it gets pushed there by this like kind of diverse set of different stakeholders that don't have strong coordination amongst themselves. >> Okay. So, let me let me recap a bit what's happened with the EF because that's also been a center of discussion that maybe is partially a catalyst for your um your coming out and saying that you're departing from ETH the asset. So over this year we've had Tomas um who's

previously been on the show. He was co-executive director and kind of the public face of the Ethereum Foundation. He stepped down after about 11 months. Um Bastion I believe is his name was was named the interim co-executive director. Bastian unlike Tomas is very non-public. Um I've never met Bastion. I don't know that he's done any media or he's certainly not active on social media. Um then we had Barnaby and Tim Beo. Both are the protocol cluster co-leads. They announced they were moving on uh earlier this month. It Carl Bequezen, seven-year veteran who worked on the beacon chain in POS, he resigned May 29th. Uh Julian Ma, who was working on Fosil, he resigned after roughly four years there.

Uh you also had Josh Stark who was a co-order of the board, seven years. Trent Van Eps on the protocol guild, he resigned. Pablo Verart, uh he resigned. And then Alex Stokes announced he was going on sobatical. Um, you also had Dankrad, uh, who left the EF a while ago to join Tempo, uh, last year, also coming out and being somewhat critical of the changes that have taken place within the EF. And Vitalic came out with a post addressing this. I think he'd been pretty quiet about what was going on within the EF. Basically came out to say, look, 2025 things changed. We we we made some changes in response to what we thought we ought to do in order to be more um be more efficient, be more focused on execution, be more concrete in our goals in shipping. We're doing that now. But the EF is not the

number go up at work. That is not our job. That has never been our job. Our job is the way that Vitalik put it is our job is to make Ethereum impressive. We want to be impressive technology. And that impressiveness comes from our prioritizing the core values of Ethereum that make it distinct from other layer ones. The crops values of censorship resistance and you know all the all the stuff you know and love. Um but his claim is that look the EF is going to be a smaller ship than it has been in previous years. uh the EF only has 16 basis points of all the ether supply uh less than many other individual holders.

Um and so he's saying look uh we're not going to be the central node in Ethereum. If that's what you think the EF is going to be, you're wrong. We would like to see other organizations step up to the plate and take on that role and we're going to maybe even try to help enable that, but that's not our job and you should not look to us for that. That was metallic statement coming out to all this. So Max, I want to bring you in. I see you smiling inwardly at all of this. Um what what is what is your take on the recent conversation around Ethereum? >> Um yeah so my perspective has always been as a technologist first and so the reason that I left was because I didn't perceive Ethereum to be making any meaningful progress on the technology.

So on the moneyiness side I didn't have a strong opinion about that then. I don't have a strong opinion about it now. Uh I do think that there's tremendous opportunity with the new regulations with clarity coming along and there's $500 trillion dollars of securities in the world and the SEC is saying we want this to be on chain and it's a really big missed opportunity to not have people pounding down the door in Washington and at the DTCC and at the transfer agents to make sure that that happens. Um, so I do think there's a missed opportunity there. But I guess I'm very content with the decision I made because I sort of saw all of this coming and said, well, that's not the

place for me. It doesn't give me any uh happiness because I still believe in crypto the mission. >> I do see a big smile on your face. I will note that >> it it makes me at least content that I made the decision, but I think it's like bittersweet in that it means that the possibility for the future that we all thought was going to come in with decentralized global blockchains has one fewer player pushing to make that a reality. And they may still be pushing to make something else a reality, but it's not, you know, basically moving this corrupt financial system with a ton of mailmen onto a blockchain. And so now there's like only a few ecosystems left doing that.

>> How would you characterize what Ethereum is trying to do? >> I think what happened is that Vitalik is also a technologist first like when I talk to him I think that part of us let me see eye to eye on that. And so that's the part that we can connect on the most. And what happened is he built this thing that was supposed to be technology first and it turned out there was a way bigger thing there which was like the ETH is money and I don't think he liked that very much although it turned out very well for him personally but it was like in my opinion a big identity crisis for a lot of the early people at the EF where they tried to build this technology and what they actually ended up building was this like $400 billion asset or whatever it's trading at now

and then that thing was so much bigger than the thing that they had been building towards and it kind of broke their brains a little bit. And I think what this is is a real focus on don't mess up the asset. Like this technology stuff that we're building is like cool, but it's not really going to be $400 billion technology project. So, let's like not mess up the asset. That's my understanding of what they're trying to do is like basically not uh not screw up and end up nuking the asset by say taking a chain down or doing some protocol upgrade. Um they've already done some upgrades that I would argue

did do that like 4844, but we can get into that. But I think at at this point they're basically totally risk off. Preserve the value of the asset as much as they can and not try to take any risk. >> Yeah, I I totally agree with that description of the Ethereum Foundation and and ETH's leadership. It was it's it's always been like there's one thing you could say where, you know, the EF is just not really focused on BD and price growth and thinking like a startup or thinking like a for-profit and they're indifferent to that. A deeper kind of conspiratorial take I have is like part of the EFDNA is actually adverse to growth and Vitalic truly just doesn't want the responsibility that and baggage that comes with just all of the economic

strength and power of like a big you know Ethereum economy and it's not really what he signed up for and it's not really has never been a priority of the Ethereum Foundation and so there's actually some amount of like psychological resistance to doing some of that behavior that would lean more towards the growing the economy side of Ethereum. I mean how how much of this is do you think just like reflective of the fact that ETH price has been so stagnant and kind of you know lagging for the past few years versus like you know if if ETH were really outperforming maybe not even as a result of EF efforts maybe you know um Bit Miner or something were doing extremely well and ETH were just ripping um I mean it's a little bit of

like kind of like the Bitcoin problem where it's like you can be you can use Bitcoin you can send it and like it it still functions that's its thing almost independent of like small multiples of the of of the price. So I don't know I I guess when I when when I look at E I mean one it does feel like there's this constant identity crisis where every four months I mean what was it like four months ago we got the you know uh was it like the booklet it wasn't the infinite >> the mandate. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That and then before Yeah. Six months before that there was no you know a real business and real applications have to be built and and like it's like you this means nothing because six months from now it's going to be going to have something else

versus like oh just the asset is is is underperforming. >> Yeah. Well, I I categorize Ether in a similar category or I aspire to categorize Ether in the same category as Bitcoin where Bitcoin's fundamentals are the price actually. And so to some degree like the fact that the price is down and has been sustained down or or just lagging the market is fundamentals from like an ETH is trying to dethrone Bitcoin perspective. And so it's a little bit self-reerential of just like yeah that's that's actually the problem.

You're correct. Trun, what's your what's your take on the uh ETH identity crisis as it's now been framed? >> I mean, go to all the events and people have gotten older. There's no new blood. That's that's I feel like that's the real signal, right? You don't see if you don't see new people. I feel like that's kind of a oification sign. Um, in a way that probably means like, hey, they're not people building new exciting projects as much. And I don't know, follow the talent. Obviously, crypto has bled talent like there's no tomorrow, but Ethereum has bled more talent than the already fast slowing crypto talent market in my opinion. That I think

that's the simplest answer. >> Well, Ethereum is the oldest, right? So, it's like if if sort of you imagine, okay, the standard tenure at a company is maybe four four years, six years on the high side, eight years is a really long time to spend at any single company as a technologist. Um so a lot of this is like okay you know the the names I rattled off a lot of those people yeah they hit four years they hit six years they hit eight years um so there is some natural turnover that you're going to seize on when there's this other outer shell of a narrative that oh you know the EF is falling apart and everything is terrible and the ETH price is down only um the the reality is that like ETH has you know since the highs it's not performance has not been that different

than Salana's uh it's just kind of the L1 there's just been an L1 drag like every L1 one is down a ton. Um, and like there's it it we're we're really searching for a story that isolates Ethereum and attributes it to individual personalities. Um, but I I feel like it's a little bit of a just story, you know, on the day. >> I don't I don't I don't know about that. I think like to Tom's point, if Bitmine was ripping and ETH was back at 5,000 >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I still No, no, no. I I still don't think I would see new entrepreneurs in Eth. Like I I don't think that changes that much if like dads are the final story, right?

Like that's that's such a [ __ ] uninspiring story to someone who's 19. Are you kidding me? That you're telling me that this Korean guy in a suit who's like telling me number go up is like the most [ __ ] impressive thing you can do. Like why would you even bother? I'm just saying like it doesn't seem like a very inspiring message. No offense. like Tommy, this is not offense to you. It's just you're selling the olds. You're not selling the youngs. >> I I would just say the specific names that you rattled off as are all people, if you know the sort of internal political landscape, who are on the side of what David wanted to have happen and also what I wanted to have happen way back, which was for BF to take an active role, for it to push development faster,

for it to figure out ways for the protocol to make revenue. um all of these like these are kind of the pushers that there's a natural tendency for every L1 to have the people who are very aggressive who want to move quickly who want to make the protocol look more like a business and then the sort of credible neutrality move slow keep the thing up and we have it at Salana there's certainly a different queue of ranges of that spectrum on Ethereum but all of the people that you listed were sort of more on the aggressive side of that spectrum.

So it's it's not just random. >> You're also on the aggressive side. I take >> I'm I'm on the aggressive side. I was on the aggressive side for ETH and I'm also on the very end of the aggressive side of the spectrum for Salon as well. So >> can I bring up how um there's one other variable that I I want to bring up which is um like we're talking about, you know, Ethereum in the context of competing blockchains, right? Ethereum is has not done well as as Bitcoin other ecosystems have grown further. But also just zooming all the way out. The market environment around crypto collectively has collapsed to some degree. Uh there's a really good tweet that I read about like the notion of strong crypto versus weak crypto where strong crypto is uh you know DeFi, NFTTS, crypto culture uh

like you know the the cypher punk rebels where we're going to rewrite finance uh with our own under our own power and like we're doing finance over here and and this really the the culture and and activity that got spawned out of 2021 2022 just drawing crypto cippher punk crypto uh you know [ __ ] [ __ ] Wall Street crypto and And then there's weak crypto, which is, you know, blockchain technology is a back-end efficiency upgrade for some of the world's biggest financial institutions. Weak crypto is doing really well right now. Strong crypto, not so well. And you know, DeFi especially, which is Ethereum's core driver, is the weakest it's ever been with the amount of hacks coming from AI. And so like strong crypto, which was the environment in which Ethereum produced and excels in,

is is also under attack. And so it's not just about Ethereum's not really doing as well as its competition. That's one thing, but it's also the environment about what crypto as an industry is is also just not the same. And it's something else that's not quite as conducive to like ETH is money and ETH competing with Bitcoin. You know, when was ETH the most money it ever was? Was when everyone was stuck inside during COVID under lockdown and everyone was forced to be on their computer and money was like mostly >> Let me get a word. Let me get a word edge here. Um, >> so the problem with having two [ __ ] podcast hosts on the podcast.

>> Well, today I'm the podcast host. So, David, you gota you got to calm down. Um, so, okay, first thing I would say, first thing I would say is that I completely dispute this characterization that like DeFi is the weakest it's ever been. I think this is the standard crypto selective memory is that like dude, we FTX exploded like three years ago. uh that was that was a moment where DeFi was much weaker than it is today. TVL collapsed on chain. TVL has been grinding its way up over the last several years. Now look in the last 6 months it has come down but you know yes onchain markets are cyclical but TV like onchain and defi look stronger if you zoom out than they have in a long long time. You look at trading volumes, you look at, you know, onchain flows,

they're actually very robust. And the total amount of TVL onchain has also been over long periods of stretches of time very robust. So I think like there's a there's a little bit of like, oh no, you know, markets are down, therefore everything has been bad and we're rewriting history a little bit. I think that's that's just not true. And if you look at Ethereum, you know, I I would tell you about a year ago, it really felt like or maybe even, you know, called a year and a half ago, it really felt like Ethereum was losing the plot and Salana and Bass and, you know, Tempo wasn't around back then, but now people are talking about Tempo. They were all coming for Ethereum's lunch and it was it was just, you know, it was it was game over. Like the bear was going to come and eat Ethereum alive. And here

we are a year and a half later and do you see Bass eating Ethereum alive? Do you see Salana eating Ethereum alive? Do you see Tempo eating Ethereum alive? Like I say all those things didn't really happen. Ethereum is still massive still has vast majority of the TVL. Go ahead Max please. >> I think if you're being honest like on the developer side Ethereum has been losing to Salana over the past it may not be B. I think B has not done very well but Salana has been doing pretty well on our developer metrics. >> Salana has been doing well but I would not say Salana market share among developers has increased over the last year. I think that's just >> Salana developer market share was absolutely I mean I can just tell you as a VC we see the leading edge of what founders are building on Salana was

all-time high probably a year and a half ago like right now I I like it's clearly crested in terms of the market share of people building on Salana now that being said that's not necessarily them building on Ethereum mainet there's a lot of other options that are EVM compatible that they're building on but um it's definitely not true that Salana is I don't know I mean Tom Tun you guys tell me what you're seeing But like I think Ethereum is not the place you're going to build place, you know, day one necessarily, but if you're in any way successful, you're going to deploy an Ethereum. >> You know, if I were to redo the the basis for everyone campaign for Ethereum, it would be Ethereum is for boomers because like there is a lot of activity, but it is this kind of boring.

>> You have metallics receding hairline, you know, and just like little screenshot of it like we're getting old now. >> It's just more like that what Dave is pointing out, right? There's kind of like this boring stuff that's like web 2.5 and that stuff loves Ethereum, right? Like they're just like that's the place we're going to go. Why where the [ __ ] else would we go? And Salana's making an effort there, but like if you look at the volume, it's like clearly not even a question. >> Yeah. But I mean the other thing to keep in mind is look the the reason why people are so mad at the boomers is because they have all the [ __ ] money. And that's kind of what you see right now.

>> That's true. I think that's one version of the world but there's the other version of the world which is like oh so multiples equals DTCC is multiple you know like it went from like oh every new technology maybe future of the internet >> what extent is any L1's multiples >> yeah yeah yeah but now you're like oh okay like the people who want to use this are all these people whose equity to income ratios are extremely low uh and so it's like okay great we're the infrastructure for all these people who are building businesses with like PE ratios of six, you know, like it's not that's not like a that's not a >> No, no, it is it's not I'm not saying that that's like a horrible place to be.

That's that's a good place to be, but you're kind of an established boring business. You're a utility at that point. You're not like an >> Okay, so I I I I wrote this tweet. I wrote this tweet that I said um uh Ethereum has become the Microsoft of crypto. And I think this got a lot of people arguing. I heard some people at this dinner I was at last week really fighting about your tweet actually about it. >> It was a good roshock test because I actually didn't mean it as an insult or as a compliment. I meant it as like a purely descriptive claim which is that like Microsoft Ethereum is very old. It is it was the first um it you know it was the original progenitor of the of the whole space. Um it is now very enterprise beloved. It is baked into the

bread of things. It's very difficult to remove it from a lot of these flows. Um, it's very safe. It moves very slowly. It's kind of lame people. It's not cool. It's not going to be the first to integrate your new fancy thing. Um, but it's not going anywhere and it's really valuable. So, like the reality is like Microsoft has been that way for like whatever 30 years and it's also not going anywhere. Still one of the three most valuable companies in the world or four or whatever it is. Um, it's it's extremely valuable company and I think that's kind of Ethereum. Um, that said, like I I find it hard to believe that Ethereum is I I feel like my my claim is that I think one, we are overindexing a little bit on the EF. I think the EF actually doesn't have that much

explanatory power for the price of Ether. Um, and I think you can see that because all this stuff has happened, right? Like I mean that there's been these EF defections and you know, David selling his, you know, all this stuff has happened last week and Ethereum hasn't really moved that much. It's not like, oh man, it's over now and you know, the great unwashed masses are dumping. For what it's worth, all I'm saying is not necessarily that it's over. I'm just saying it's like you're at the end of the the sigmoid. You're not at like a high gradient part. You're like, "Okay, we're plateauing, right?" Which is what it means is that fine, right?

Negative. It just means you're kind >> Yes. Yes. Here's what I think it means. Here's what I think it means that Twitter is not pricing ETH. >> We might be pricing Zack. We might be pricing, you know, Venice. We might be pricing some of these other things. We're not pricing ETH. So whatever Twitter thinks about ETH is just not where the marginal buyer is coming from. It's not why the price is getting set. The Twitter sentiment is kind of like the the intelligencia of crypto. The intelligencia of crypto is clearly despondent with respect to ETH. >> This has to be the dumbest intelligencia in history. If you're telling me CT sounds counts as intelligencia. >> That's our esteemed guest. I'm speaking of our esteemed guest. That's what I'm referring to.

>> Yeah. I'm just saying it's it's kind of insulting to people who >> Okay. Charming. there. It is it is kind of poetic when you see time see people on Twitter also posting these screenshots of like the EF OTCing to like Bit Miner and it's like that kind of says it all you know it's it's like you know our ETH is now you know in the ETH of uh you know this uh this DAT and like that that's just kind of the way things are going and um I I agree I was mostly concerned I think a year ago about all these stable coin chains basically just ED eat ETH alive right like we had stable and plasma and arc and tempo and those are really mostly fallen flat and I don't really see them regaining momentum in the short term. I mean it's it's you know we still

have many many years to go to play this out but like um yeah if anything it's like the inertia kind of keeps doing its thing and um it's I don't know I I don't I I think on on um the DeFi side I think you know like the hyperlquid threat um you know is kind of real but in the interim like I I don't see any any of the stable coin activity or maybe frankly any of the tokenized RWA activity kind of going away anytime soon. All of these metrics are fake. All of this is fake. Stable coin volume fake. It's just it's like totally fake.

Like you just see you break it down into what it actually is. And I'm not just talking about Ether. I'm talking about Salana too because that's the one I spend all day looking at. It's like none of these things make any sense because it's people transferring money from one exchange deposit address to another and that's a hund00 million of stablecoin transfer volume and it's not actually >> people do like the adjusted people do the adjusted volumes in order to suck that everybody's skill issue on the >> talkingum noted volumes >> aum is realum is real Martin Luther vibes right now about like this stuff doesn't make any sense.

We all spend all our time looking at >> Max has graduated >> from just Ethereum apostate to Ethereum and Salana apostate. Okay. >> Just the whole thing. Yeah. Damn. >> Max is a good apostate. >> Okay. So, one one of the last things that Vitalik mentioned in his response to or in in this big mega post is this idea about there potentially being other orgs that might be the number go up or for Ethereum and that the EF might put their weight behind them or try to help them in some way. Um, what are you guys thought about this? There's there's always been this uh idea floating in the air of like a second foundation. Um, and that it seems a little bit like what he's alluding to. Uh, David, I don't know what what your thoughts were about this little uh tidbit in his post.

>> Yeah. Uh there are yeah there are people at the EF who are talking about this and thinking about this and like thinking about how to do this. Um I think it's going to need like a combination of the actual EF like getting loud about their support of this second foundation. Bit mine also needs to get involved here. Bit mine as like the $1 billion well more than I don't know what the market cap is10 billion dollar entity uh giving its like endorsement of this like DeFi founders. So there needs to be kind of like a rallying cry of of legitimacy around this hypothetical new foundation that people are talking about. Um I mean we haven't it hasn't it's not out yet

but people are working on it. So, I'm I'm eager to to lend my support because as as I said in my article and I'll say again, it's like super bullish Ethereum the network and really what's missing is just like a for-profit startup-minded entity who wants to like be a rallying cry for shareholder interest. That's kind of what Etherealize was, but Etherealiz only went so far. Part of the Ethereum's problem is it's just like a discordant collection of different layers of this socioultural tech stack and you need a lot of coordination across all of them. And so this to your point has about how like everyone was kind of overindexing on the EF because kind of like the one thing that we have to point to. We need like more

coordination around different parts of what makes Ethereum Ethereum and having like a a forprofit for-profit foundation or a ETH investor foundation is very very needed. I just think like one issue with it is that the title itself of like head of the EF is very important. It's sort of like if you tried to make a new government for the US whose job was to go overseas and get them to invest in US companies, nobody's going to take your meetings. But if you go overseas with the president on the China trip, you can go in and meet with all the people who want to buy your soybeans, right? So, I think that was part of what Tamas's role was.

>> And the fact that he was >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what his futures did. >> We have lost the plot if we're not cipher punk enough to [ __ ] get onion futures, right? Let's be real here, guys. >> True. >> Well, this remember our debate, Hib, where you took the pro side of Ethereum and I took the uh the bare side of Ethereum. One of my arguments and and and you you said, "Look, look who is in charge here. the market has forced Vitalik's hand to instill Tomas uh to you know make Ethereum more operationally minded and like my counterargument was like uh you know Bob Iger what was that metaphor something about Disney like the somebody put Bob Iger in charge at Disney but he wasn't

really in charge uh and actually the market the market didn't really actually bend over and in fact it was uh I'm butchering this metaphor but uh I know Michael Bledo fed me this one but the idea here is like is that actually it was Vitalic the entire time? Sure, Tamas is in charge, but with if Vitalik and Ya have the board seats, uh they're actually the ones in charge. Uh and so like it could just be the Ethereum Foundation to be this entity, but it would require Vitalic not having absolute governance over whoever this person is. And like that's kind of my fear is Vitalic has so much sway and influence in Ethereum that that he can't be doing what he's doing in Ethereum

while also giving power to this new differently minded entity. >> I just think the entity name matters so much. Like you could take Lily out of Salana Foundation and put her in charge of like Salanialize or whatever and she wouldn't be able to do anything because nobody would take her meetings, right? Like people want to be meeting with the person who's in charge. Like people who are in charge want to meet the other person who's in charge. And I think you could make a new organization that says Ethereum Foundation 2 and people would be like, I want to talk to whoever's head of Ethereum Foundation one because that's where the real power is.

>> Yeah. Like part of the issue is like you could see Vitalic writing an article and he would just say, "I'm not in charge anymore. I'm done and don't look at me anymore." And then everyone in Ethereum would be like, "Oh my god, such a great article." Uh, I can't wait for Vitalic to write something next so I can listen to what he says next. Like it's a trap. Like we everyone just loves and follows Vitalik. And he didn't he doesn't even want that. He just wants to be some guy who doesn't want this responsibility. >> It's hard to stop being Jesus, I guess. >> Yeah. It's hard, right? Jesus is Jesus, dude.

>> I look I I I think these are very well-made points. Um, you're absolutely right. creating a second foundation doesn't make it so doesn't give it the moral authority to be able to go and like do the soybean deals with Xi Jinping or whatever it is. Um and I agree with you like Ethereum has got to do some soybean deals in order to stay powerful and to stay on top. Oh, sorry I shouldn't say that. It's helpful to Ethereum to be able to do the soybean deals. Um part of my >> also the soybean farmers are coming to them though in like in a lot of the articles.

>> Right. Right. Right. And this is what I was going to say is like part of my Microsoft thesis about Ethereum >> is that like look I think we're kind of in the Steve Balmer era where like Ethereum is kind of doawling along. You know, it's sort of it's a it's it's a little bit doesn't know quite what it's doing. it's kind of pulling in a bunch of different directions and it's kind of going to succeed anyway is more or less my thesis is that like the reason why Ethereum is Ethereum is not because okay Vitalic is such an amazing organizational mastermind or because the rank and file of the EF are just incredible executors at everything they do. I think Vitalic is great. I think EF is great at the things that they're trying to accomplish. But I think their centrality within the ecosystem, I think

the most valuable thing for blockchains today. The thing that they're really competing on is not performance. It's not the, you know, how many deals you're landing with Caner Fitzgerald or whatever. The thing that they're competing on is just being the biggest, most trusted chain. And I I kind of think that's where the premium is going to come from over the long run. Uh like Ethereum is going to be the last guy to get there. They're absolutely going to be incredibly slow and painful to watch in the same way that you saw Microsoft just like fumble mobile, fumble the web.

You you you saw that like 15 years of Microsoft just bleeding in public and making every single mistake possible and nevertheless they just had they had nine lives because they had the right to because of how lindy and deeply integrated into the enterprise Microsoft was. Um, that's kind of my base case for Ethereum is that like yes, everything you're saying I agree with. I would love to see a more muscular Ethereum. I'd love to see Tomas still running the show. I'd love to see Vitalic giving more voice and being more thoughtful about the the fact that like yeah, you know, a second foundation or having like some head of head head of adoption at the EF is not a solve for the degree to which one thing about the Microsoft analogy though is

that Microsoft, you know, had this huge upswing.com crash kind of flat switched to Steve Balmer really flat and then eventually new leader knew tried to expand markets, whatever. Um, and look, being able to make Microsoft Teams a horribly dog [ __ ] product that still has five million times more users than all your competitors, uh, you know, is is a nice place to be, but they did find ways to evolve eventually, right? And like I think like that comes from like talent eventually coming in. And so the question is like where's the new talent?

That to me is like everything you can say whatever >> I think. Yeah, I think that renaissance for Ethereum comes when the EF runs out of money. >> They're they went from what was it like? >> Yeah, they went from like how much was it originally? Like 1% plus um probably way more than that, right? What was the original what was the EF have originally? They had a lot they had a lot of the ether supply and now it's down to 15 basis points. >> So, and they're and they're spending quite you know they they have they have it's a little bit of a socialist uh% >> 8.3%. Okay. They went from 8.3% of the E supply to now down to 16 basis points.

All right. And because it's a little bit of a socialist utopia over there, like almost by necessity, they do have to start cutting. >> They have to, you know, it's like the whole Doge thing is happening out of necessity at the EF, which does mean the the equivalent of the EF to the extent that there is an equivalent of the EF has to get reconstituted through private funds, through private organizations just coming together and saying, "Okay, the EF no longer has the muscle. It's not happening anymore." And of course, like the client development still happens at companies that are, you know, they're to some degree funded by the EF, but they also have their own businesses.

So, like a lot of this has already been done in part, but I think you will see just over the next few years, the EF and and this is what Vitalic is saying in so many words. I mean, he didn't put it this way, but he said, look, the EF is going to get smaller. It's going to be quoteunquote one node within Ethereum. He points out the fact that there's only 16 basis points. The EF is just going to die. Like, it just will. um has no revenue, >> which was always a plan. In the same way that like the Steve Bomber generation, they eventually died. >> They literally just they ran out of energy. They all retired and then Satia Nadella and the new generation of of Microsoft leadership realized like, "Oh, [ __ ] Okay, we fumbled we fumbled uh mobile. We fumbled the web, but let's

pick up cloud >> because there's still a lot of game left to be played." >> People don't exist. Like there is no new there is no Satcha Nadella joining the ranks of Ethereum core developers today who will be ready to assume the reigns in 5 years when EF dissolves itself which is >> probably counts for something because you know the EF is just one node >> again you're not [ __ ] attracting >> client development led by Tom >> you're attracting money you're not attracting talent >> those things are correlated >> uh sort I think the vacuum itself attracts talent. No, no, no. I think the vacuum itself attracts talent >> and like when people see that there's room like if you go to the EF today, you

want to get hired. I mean, Max, I mean, I don't I don't know how close you were to the EF per se when you were at Consensus, but like you go to the EF today, it's like, okay, great. I can be responsible for absolutely nothing and be responsive to like a bunch of, you know, 80-year-old dinosaurs, right? Like that's effectively what working at the EF is like. Like the power structures are there. They are immutable like Ethereum itself. like it's not you you have no ability to move anything if you come to the EF give it a few years >> but the EF will be gone in a few years right and I also think you're very very much underestimating the effect of the funding on the client development I think that most of the client development is funded by funds from EF even at companies like Nethermind that

have another business it's just charity work at that point like I worked at consensus we had clients we they still have clients there but those are funded by a grant. So if that grant went away, then >> thank god for all super cheap. Anyway, we can cut we can cut cut the client development teams to like development teams. >> There's one client. It's all written by AI. It's formally verified. Done. No more client development teams needed. We can go to single client finally. >> There you go. AI saves once again.

>> Yeah. Um, >> I I really do enjoy the Microsoft comparison because it it expresses what I was hoping to express in my article, which is like not bearish. It's just it's going to track the market. It's not going to go too high. It's not going to go too low. It'll mostly keep up, but it's not going to like impress anyone. >> It's a utility company that is more or less a fixed income asset with dividends rather than equity value. I think there's equity value. >> There's no dividends. There's zero dividends. It doesn't pay any dividends.

>> I I I meant it I meant it metaphorically, >> but this is not financial advice to be clear. Just to reppers that >> I I >> you're waiting for your Ethereum dividends. You know, you might be waiting quite a while. >> I me meant it metaphorically of like there are these companies that just like all the smart people leave like they've reached some point. Everyone's like why the [ __ ] would I stay here? And the new management that comes in is some M Harvard [ __ ] who doesn't know anything about how the company actually works but says like you know what let's just fire everyone give out dividends and then hope we hope the power plant doesn't blow up. And that's kind of what that's kind of what I analogy right >> who's going to go okay so let me let me let me push back a

little bit against the core of this argument which is that I actually don't know that the problem is that Ethereum is not moving fast enough from a development perspective. I don't think it's like a clear problem to solve that would change their outcome in their opinion >> which which tells me like I think most of the problem is not that oh the client development is not getting done and like Vitalica is slowing everything down I think it's more that the spiritual leadership the the business leadership the competitive leadership is what's missing right that energy that drive that killer instinct doesn't appear to be valued within the Ethereum foundation the same way that it is among other competitive foundations right tempo has that Salana has that a lot of these other groups have that and if you don't have that for too long you're you're

going to lose something in like you know the whole make America great again we want to renegotiate these deals for America like look it might be unwise but the energy behind it is clearly um valuable to holding on to your position in the world you need some of that you can't have zero of it right I I think that is more what the spiritual illness at the core of Ethereum is I think it's more what people are pointing to not that nothing's ever getting shipped that there are no protocol upgrades like there Max might have that objection but I I don't think that's the main objection that people have.

>> I think you need talent to come up with new ideas and new things to do also, right? And like that seems to also kind of >> when you say new ideas like what do you mean new ideas? You mean new startups or do you mean new protocol changes? >> Okay, simple. You you want to keep we want to really lean into this Microsoft analogy? The Satya Nadella thing was like stop making people use Microsoft at our data centers. lean into our cloud product and tell people to stop [ __ ] relying on licenses for our existing software, which yes, that carried us for 20 years, and then also just copy every enterprise SAS software like Slack and whatever, and make a shitty version. So all the lawyers who are forced to like force all their clients to buy Word because they'll only sell in legal

documents and that are full fully track changes compatible with Word have to use us still. And that, you know, those don't sound that crazy, right? But they were like e evolutionary, let's say, changes for Microsoft that were like completely necessary to get out of the era where Microsoft was like, "We're going to build Bing. We're going to build a social network. We're going to build an MP3 player. We're going to build every [ __ ] thing that doesn't make sense for us to build." And I think like that there's not that energy, you know, like that. There's not like a a like, hey, you know, and and I my point though is you need to structurally be able to attract the talent that's

willing to come in and do and you're saying like the existence of a vacuum implies the existence of an antiarticle. It's like it's like it's like a positron and it's antiarticle and it's like I don't see why the [ __ ] that exists here. Like I don't see why the existence of vacuum means someone there's so many. >> Yeah, I I think Etherealize is the is a good example. Well, so look to the extent that the EF is like okay crops decentralization maxis like Ethereum is for the the the dissident and the people who are running away from governments.

That's what Ethereum is for. It's sanctuary technology. Etherealize is not sanctuary technology, right? Etherealize is we are for enterprises. Period. Full stop. End of story. You want to make decentralization compromises, we're going to help you do it. That's what we're here for. We're here to actually get Wall Street on chain. Um that to me is what you're talking about. That is the okay let's let's let's let's let's violate the sacred cows of the previous administration in the service of adoption and actually winning the game. Now Etherealiz doesn't run Ethereum. It doesn't I mean as far as I know it doesn't run anything besides a company. But I think what you can see is that if the EF weakens in power and becomes less the central node of Ethereum things like Etherealize by

definition become a louder and louder part of the overall footprint. And I think in a way like that's like you know when Steve Balmer was in his prime doesn't like Sethia worked at Microsoft for like 20 plus years. Yeah. >> There were dudes there. >> Well I think that's Max that's Max's point. That's Max's point though. Who is are there is there a pipeline of that now? Not really. Like that's what it sort of feels like. >> I mean look I'm not I I don't know that there's a like obviously it's not exactly the same because there's no CEO of Ethereum that's going to Nobody's going to step up and become the CEO of Ethereum. No, but someone has to be in the ecosystem to understand the mores and nuances of the ecosystem for a long time. They're not just going to show up and be like,

>> I'm in charge now. Like obviously that's never going to work. >> And the reason why Satia was able to ascend was, you know, he started low, ended high was because he was able to ride up a for-profit company for that entire time to pay him a salary where there's no equivalent inside of Ethereum. You can do a startup or, you know, Etherealize is a for-profit thing, but it's not. >> Okay. Who who right now is the spiritual leader of Bitcoin? >> Sailor. >> One name. Sailor. It's Sailor, right? Why is it Sailor? Why? >> Cuz he's Cuz he's he's pushing Bitcoin up the main quest line.

>> Because there's nobody else who has a strong enough voice to overcome the financial um force of Sailor. Sailor has a stronger gravitational force than anybody else in Bitcoin. Sailor is a [ __ ] public company CEO. He ran an enterprise software company and he is Mr. Bitcoin now, right? Everywhere in the world he's Mr. Bitcoin. So the idea that like this can't happen on its own I think is just insufficiently imaginative. It literally already happened. >> I think it's the biggest world. >> I think it's different when your asset is like the entire goal is just to be like we're gold right easier for it's it's much harder for Ethereum. Like you do need someone to >> I think the reason why it's harder is because the EF exists and because

Vitalic is Vitalic. I think if you give it a few years and the EF has >> What if you become the CEO of Ethereum? No, I'm kidding. >> You know what? I've got all I need is the glasses and I can become the Satio Nadella. I'm ready for it. I seem to be the only bullish person left who's willing to say good things about Ethereum. The most likely outcome here that hib that I think you're pointing to is like Bitmine takes a far more activist role and works well and pairs well with this second foundation that's on its way.

>> I have a question for you. If Ethereum never made another relevant protocol upgrade again, can they still be successful? >> Are they decreasing are they like increasing the gas limit or like literally never again? I mean, let's say that they increase the gas limit by like 30% a year, which is what they're doing right now. >> And that's it. >> Yeah, I think I think that I think they're probably fine. >> And And why do you say they'll be fine? Are they going to make any revenue? Are they going to what are they going to do? Like they're not going to make any they do that.

I think what happens is that like I mean look the thesis that I have for blockchains and maybe I'm I'm going to hope that there's a thesis that other people have for blockchains is that uh it's a classic you make it up on scale is that as more and more people more and more assets more and more value finds its way on chain um the like you you forgo revenue today because when you get much much bigger and there many many more people running through your pipes you don't need to be charging 2% on every transaction which is like what it would look like in 2021. um you're charging a very very small percent on a very very large economic base. If blockchains don't get there, then we kind of lost. We were kind of wrong about the thesis. And blockchains are this weird little artifact. They're,

you know, one of the many things in the world that exist. Um I don't believe that. I believe they're not going to be one of the many things in the world that exist. I think they're going to be one of the main things in the world that exist technologically. When you describe how the world works in 15 years, blockchains are going to be a big part of the explanation. Um, if I'm wrong about that, then it doesn't matter what Ethereum does. There's no thing that Ethereum is going to do to be able to to to hold on to that kind of economic might. I think the only way that it works for any of these chains is to get their own scale. That's my claim. I think that the reason why you could get away with the highway robbery that we had in 2021 was because there was no

interoperability. There were no other options. There were no escape valves. There was money that was just fundamentally stuck in these ecosystems that couldn't get out. and all the volatility, you know, the sort of the the snow globe was shaken up too aggressively that so much me was getting created that it it couldn't escape. Um, I don't think that's going to happen again to the same scale it did in 2021. I think the answer has to be that you make it on scale. >> What What happens if everybody's ready to come on chain, we get clarity and it's time to put this [ __ ] on chain. It's time to put DTCC on chain. Okay. and they go to Ethereum and Ethereum says, "Well, based on our current rate of increasing the gas limit, we'll be ready for you in >> 2100 >> 31 or something like that, right?" Yeah.

>> Yeah. >> Whatever the date is it and then they just choose to go somewhere else like Salana or >> Hyper or wherever else they decide to go. Isn't that a real risk? >> It is a real risk. It is a real risk. And so that's why I am very supportive and was very supportive of all of the I can't remember the name of it, but the initiative of let's scale the hell out of Ethereum and let's make it let's scale the L1. I I was one of the loudest people saying we need to scale the L1. We need to refocus, you know, move move away from the L2 maximalism and redouble the focus on the L1. Um, as far as I know, nobody is claiming that Ethereum has abandoned that goal.

>> Um, well, except people who just left were the loudest champions of that goal at the EF. if you read >> they may well have been I I mean again I I I don't know the politics within the EF as well as you do. So you you are >> do we even know if the DTC is going to like pick a chain? Why why like NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange both are doing their own internal blockchains? Like why why is it coming on the public chain? Do we even know that? >> I I don't think we know that. I think that's got to happen. We got to pound on the door and get them to do it. I think it's it's a real risk for everybody that these guys are going to do their own chain. I mean, they charge six cents a

transaction at the DTCC just to like change the number in the spreadsheet and they make $1.5 billion a year or something like that, but that's still not really enough to justify theorem's valuation right? >> Correct. Correct. And and look, the the another thing that's worth underscoring is like, you know, the the the narrative for Ethereum has changed over time, right? Right. So, it started as a world computer. Then it became um what was it? Super ultrasound money. Um now I'm I don't know what exactly it is. It's like uh the was it there was the L2, you know, whatever where like the Grand Bazaar. Um and then now it's like we're sanctuary techn you know. I don't I don't know what exactly the new

narrative is. And then of course Tom Lee it's the chatbt of of uh blockchain or whatever. Um so >> stable coins are the chat GBT for crypto. So it has nothing to do with Ethereum. >> Stable coins are the trag of crypto. Sorry, that's what it is. What what is what is ETH? What is his line about ETH? I don't actually know. >> And and stable coins are on Ethereum was his coins. >> Stable coins are the chat GPT of crypto. >> Hey man, that that line >> we've talked about this before in the show. >> $100 to alltime highs. So you can't really laugh at it. I I can laugh at it just from one standpoint which is like one involved a lot of technical innovation. One involved taking a a decentralized technology and making it

slightly centralized. Like what the [ __ ] How the [ __ ] is that comparison even like that's like an embarrassment to like I don't whatever. >> Sorry. >> I mean I think it's about adoption as opposed to >> Yeah. Yeah. I know. But like the technical comparison is like >> he wasn't making a techical comparison. you was making a technical comparison to something tells me Tom Lee was not comparing the technological complexity. >> But um yeah, >> this is why this is why you this is this Yeah. I I I this is again I I How you going to inspire anyone smart to want to work on this stuff if you that's your best selling?

>> Yeah. Okay. So the Okay. So let me let me one final question, I guess, because we're running up on time. We had we had some other stuff we wanted to talk about, but I don't know that we're going to we're going to get anywhere off this uh off of this, but >> Okay. Wait, wait, Can you guess? That's a salana pitch. >> The pro. >> I want the other side also. >> Explain to us. >> I want to hear the yin and yang, right? Like >> is that the yang? Is that the yang? Okay, I guess >> it's orthogonal. I don't know whether it's the correct yang. It's one of the many possible yangs. >> I think tempo is the yang to be clear.

>> Yeah. Okay, let me let me give it real quick. Um there are $500 trillion of securities in the world. They are going to come on chain. uh I do not believe that the regulatory environment will allow them to go on to basically another centralized thing. I actually you know we'll see what happens but I think that the statements from various members of the regulatory regime have basically said you know we are doing this for crypto not for your centralized piece of [ __ ] Okay. So I think that's going to be very bullish for decentralized blockchains. And then there's basically two choices, Ethereum or Salana because everything else they don't even know what it is >> because it's a zero in their head. It

has no activity. It has no mind share. So it's basically Ethereum. >> Hyperlid was stated in con Congress first literally in a session of Congress. So >> what are they saying? We want to regulate that. >> But it made my point is it it made it to there. So like like like if we go by mentions by Congress people, they're three. It's not two, it's three. >> Don't forget Ripple, by the way. Don't forget Ripple. >> There are basically two options in terms of public blockchains that you would want to go on that have existing activity and it's Ethereum and Salana.

And Ethereum doesn't have enough scale to accommodate the global financial system at this time. It may in 2031 or 2040 or whenever >> they figure it out. >> Yes. What? What's >> going on? We got some Canton bulls in this this chat now apparently. So yeah, I think one thing that's happened is basically throughout the history of crypto, we have had these tremendous network effects on one or two networks and then the technologists have come in and said we want to upgrade the network and then everybody's been like no this is our like we love our network slow and low throughput the way it is and Salana is the first network that has

actual tra traction on it where they didn't fall into the trap of saying we love our network the way it is. They said we're going to make it as good as possible. I think that combination of technologists building good technology and the sort of super vacuum of the network effects that we have in crypto will be very bullish for Salana. Okay, Max, I got to ask you about quantum because this feels to me like the big um kind of uh what's the term like the what's the opposite of a black swan? It's like a white bull or whatever. What? You know what I'm talking about? Whatever. There's some term for this of like a very obvious bad

thing that's coming. Um quantum feels like it's actually very very difficult for Salana given its architecture. Talk to me about what you see for the postquantum roadmap for Salana. How does it hold on to the properties that make it so special? >> Quantum is Justin Drake's last masterful gambit. He's like sacking the queen. He's trying to go in for the kill. It just doesn't make any sense what he's saying. Like first of all, I've looked at the actual implications of this on our architecture. We have way more bandwidth. So the fact that we're going to have larger transactions is much less impactful to us than for Ethereum. For Ethereum, they have a solstaker Raspberry Pi that can only do so many bits per second. Then they want to take a 4,000 byte signature

for every single transaction and for every single vote and they want that to be passed around in their network that has already no bandwidth. Meanwhile, we're going to use a smaller signature Falcon or even smaller one and which is eight times smaller than that and we have way more bandwidth. I I mean, I've just looked at it. This thing is basically a charade. Okay, it's true that quantum is coming. I think it will will be here sooner than a lot of the sort of 2040 predictions will will happen, but we know how to deal with it on Salana. And actually, I think we have a way better road map which took us maybe like a few days to come up with because it's not that hard to come up with. Meanwhile, they've been working on

it for like 5 years on Ethereum and you look at the thing, it's like did you like were you high when you came up with this thing? like this doesn't make any sense. >> Okay, so your claim is postquantum. What is Salana's performance throughput um transaction latency? What is that going to look like according to this design, the postquantum design that you guys have sketched out? >> I I think you'll see no impact on the performance whatsoever for the end user. I I still don't think we'll be able to get to a million TPS with uh with a 512 bit or 566 uh whatever it is like 600 bytes for a Falcon signature and we do 32 bytes right now and like ultimately this doesn't matter. We have 100 gigabit

nicks on our machines right now. P is running 100 gigabit nick. This doesn't matter at all. We can ingest all these transactions. It's very cheap to verify them. Actually, it's even faster to verify Falcon signature than the ones that we use now. And so, the bandwidth isn't a problem. The verification time isn't a problem. We're going to be fine on consensus. I I think we'll still be able to scale to >> So, your claim is there's no trade-off whatsoever. We get quantum for free. >> I mean, it's not that there's no trade-off. Like, I can I can write out the equation for you, but it's a factor of like two. It's like ultimately a constant factor and bandwidth is increasing by a factor of two every two years or something like that. So yeah, maybe it will it will change the

timeline by two years, but we were we were not even close to using the full available bandwidth that we have today. So we'll use a little more bandwidth. We have plenty to spare and we'll be fine. >> So when when do you expect the postquantum transition for Salana to be completed? I expect it will be considerably faster than Ethereum's postquantum transition. >> We're probably not going to do it together >> before uh we need to I mean we're we're putting all the pieces in place so we're doing larger transaction size for those larger signatures later this year. We're going to move to a hash so that you can sort of hash your larger public key to that thing. All this is super boring, but um we're putting all those building

blocks in place, so we'll be ready to flip the switch when it's time, but we don't feel the need to, you know, flip the switch before we have a real signal that this thing is coming. So, we'll do it when we need to do it. We'll put all the building blocks in place and then we'll flip over probably like in the next five years. My thing ignoring the space like the space aspects like the compute aspects honestly once a standard is chosen like every CPU provider is just going to make it a one click you know single instruction kind of thing and it'll be optimized away the way that like Shaw was optimized away and like I just think about like 2015 when everyone was like oh my god Shaw is the slowest [ __ ]

thing ever and then Intel added the SIMD op code and No one ever complained again. So like I I I believe in tech progress for this quantum stuff. Like it I there's no reason to to like I I do agree though that like whatever the future Raspberry Pi is might not might not make it. There is some truth to that. Like the quantum stuff actually kind of kills the Raspberry Pi. >> I was looking at it. So they have a million validators on ETH because they shot themselves in the foot with a very poor architecture decision like 10 years ago. And a MacBook can verify or can it can aggregate 800 signatures in 1 second. So what are you really talking about then? If you have a million signatures and you need to aggregate

a million signatures, you kind of need a big computer, right? Maybe you can sort of aggregate the proofs of of proofs and stuff, but still at the end of the day, you're you're not talking about a whole lot of performance for their specific chosen scheme that they said, "This is the one we're going to use." and it can only do 800 uh aggregations per second and they have a million validators. So, >> okay. All right. Uh Max, where can people find you? >> I'm on Twitter. I got the Max Resnick handle from the from the handle store.

>> No, you did. No. Good. You're the first person I've ever heard actually got successfully purchased something from. >> How much did you pay for that? >> Well done. >> It was free, actually. >> It was free. >> Let's see. Let's see if a seed is available. Uh, David, where can people find you? >> Uh, probably the current currently the most hated person on Twitter. Uh, trustless state. Uh, >> okay. Perfect. If you want to yell at somebody, you guys know where to go. Max and Max and David will put their handles up. Um, thank you both for coming on and sharing your Ethereum apostasy story. I'm sure it's giving people a lot of courage to go through their own their own journeys. Um, and uh, there there is a um, what's the term? There's like a what do they call it when like people

get together to share a traumatic experience. Whatever support group >> therapy >> there's there's a support group. There's a support group that uh we'll we'll leave a link for in the uh in the chat. >> That's it. Thank you everybody. We'll be back next week. See you all. >> Yeah.