How Ethereum Grows Without a Center

Transcript

[music] U my name is Ayami um from the Foundation. >> Okay. So yeah, we want to have a chat about a few things. Um so in March this year Ethereum Foundation board um published the EF mandate. So that was a document that guiding uh Ethereum Foundation members to act on the Ethereum values such as crops.

drops means censorship resistance, open source and privacy and security. So in the the technical and social pillars uh in our activities we follow those guidance. So why did you release the document at this timing? >> Yes. Um so I was actually the one who suggested creating the mandate. Um it was the end of last year uh to Vitalic first. Um and it it may look strange because normally a document like this is

created when an organization is about to start not uh 10 years later. But but there were a few reasons. First, as the ecosystem matures and grows, we see the growth in the number of people and in size. Um but there the important the most important part cannot stay implicit. Um especially when like we have more people than at the beginning more than the number that can fit into one room. Um so and and then you can see all the

technical details as open source like technical details of Ethereum as a platform it's open source and you can read every specification but it's harder to see the why like you can see the decisions that are made but it's harder to see why the decision is being made. Um for example, why can I can Ethereum U transaction be fastest you know the faster than other other things and uh it is not because we can't not really make it faster. It is because because every choice has to be

weighed against uh what it cost in in in things like crops like you said uh censorship resistance, security privacy openness and without explaining the why that choice can look like a weakness. So we thought that the there was need it's time for us to explain. Um second that looking around that what the environment the world we are in there are increasingly like there more systems that we cannot really we using every day but we cannot really inspect on our own

or we can't sometimes leave. Um and there also political conflict is intensifying and then a lot of like things are mediated by AI. So in the environment like this that promise of Ethereum that was made at the beginning uh when the white paper was released is is increasingly um becoming more important. And then the third part is culture. The culture is evolving and changing every day. It's some meant to change every day. But there are the parts of Ethereum culture I believe

um cannot really we cannot really lose if we lose that. So Ethereum cannot really remain as remain Ethereum and those the culture that that part of culture has been understood more like not more informally or like you know people just um talked about it but we didn't really make it very very explicit. So um I thought it was time to make it legible uh in text and yeah so those are some of the strong reasons and and then the timing we felt

was now. >> Okay. And then it has passed about six months after the release of the document. What are the impacts you see by that document itself? >> Yeah, impact it it's being great. Um not greater than that I had expected but it is actually happening quicker than I had expected. Um first of all this was this document was mainly for the internal people and then we also said this is also a manifesto to the world too so that people can understand where we stand who we are and then what we

don't change uh meaning like what we're not going to change forever as long as EF exists and so by making that explicit that uh internally every team is thinking harder about how to interpolate that into their um daily action. So now um people are using crops as that criteria to decide what kind of thing EF should support um and then what type of people we need.

So like that is becoming more clear and then um and then that is definitely changing the way we think and act and also um yeah and then that's this is not just internally but also um in the ecosystem people understand that's the focus and naturally um different groups and teams started to you know like actually find their own role in in the missing pieces uh in the ecosystem. That's was always um missing pieces but it became more clear. So some groups step up to organize their own

teams and organization. Uh, and also I I want to mention because we're in Tokyo here, um, uh, Ethereum Japan community, they translated the whole 38 pages into Japanese, which might sound not hard with the eye now with those people who don't really speak Japanese, but you we know like how English to Japanese translation is almost still not easy with AI. That's where I always actually compare that with uh how the computer was um uh like competing uh sorry humans were

competing against computers to play goal goal game right no the goal was the last thing the last game for a computer to be able to compete against humans right [clears throat] and I mentioned that the other day Um but anyway, so it's it's very hard and then so the community made this beautiful translation. Um and then it's out there now uh published on their website. It's etherm Japan's website now like if you want to check it out and that's actually inspiring others including uh the etherm.org or team inside EF to think about like oh see that see the impact

and then uh make this um document as everyone's is it's that's something beautiful we're seeing. Yeah, that's a really beautiful uh local activities and um we also see like new organizations and the players coming up to the to the to the scenes and how do you see those situation and is there any changes in the Ethereum Foundation role? Yeah. So I think people have heard a lot of newses and different organizations um started launched and then popped up um in the last few months. Um some of them

we had expected some of them were um you know um like a not expected but I think overall this is exactly what how um like we see this the vision of infinite god and so like how like we are not we are a steward and then other other people should see themselves. The Ethereum is everyone's. It's no one's that's and then that's why it's everyone's and so that's that's actually what needs to happen. um we when we look at the early re internet

history like that's actually how every older earlier organizations IETF or um it's everyone see themselves as a steward not really trying to be that dominant power that's very important um but with that I think it's um so it's something to survey At the same time we as a Ethereum foundation our goal is to we preserve that the core properties and what the culture of the important part of the c culture of Ethereum which means uh you know like it we are going to be vocal

about what is not just about the quantity it it is the quality and um of different organizations s do they we understand um that the important part of the culture like I said we see ourselves as steward and then we hope others also believe that too so we stated in the mandate that we would like to work with groups that you know like as allies that who share the foundational u principles together with us so it may not be just uh Ethereum like the teams in Ethereum

ecosystem, but it could be uh other open source uh communities or those uh groups that care about privacy. And so that's by by us looking at those different organizations uh beyond the boundaries of the Ethereum community then this would strengthen that um the resilience of Ethereum is what we believe. >> Okay. So now it's uh let's shift the gear a little bit to uh for the building because we are in a global hackathon. Um what kind of opportunities do you see

for uh builders and institutions? Um yeah I think there are a lot of opportunities actually and then there's often we hear all the developers are moving to AI now and then uh it's it's harder for developers to stay in this spaces sometimes we secure this but um I think now it's it's actually there are a lot of growing opportunities uh what we care maybe I should first mention is There are a lot of ways to make these crops more like basically like the we we used to feel like crops there are strong

tradeoff like to to protect crops we have to uh compromise like give up on something and so that's where the opportunities are. um can we we we preserve privacy uh without giving up on um that compliance or without gripping up on UX? Um and and then also for institutions stable coin is a huge thing but then um this can we we we think about privacy and stable coins. um what is the concentration uh of that I mean challenges coming from concentration is is out there right

there um stable coin is the biggest suffrications on in Ethereum now which is great but also um like USD is stable coins are dominant and um that's not just by cannot be only by fixed uh by technology But also uh so we think about that how do we diversify that too but also who runs stable coins too like we do need to answer respond to those the questions that um for by the challenges and so there are a lot of opportunities

with that obviously uh with uh in the previous discussion they were talking about AI too And um so that's not just how AI can help uh how to build Ethereum but also Ethereum can help AI and that's where probably yes one of the biggest opportunities lies too. >> How do you think the Ethereum can help AI like what is the you know kind of vision do you have? I mean like I said there are a lot of things that we can't really right now um AI are still growing and growing very

very quickly but without asking uh a lot of hard questions and the people started to ask hard questions but there we don't really see the answers and I think Ethereum has is is in the like I think the one of the best alter oh sorry one one of the best tools to provide alternatives to the options that we have now. Yeah, we we feel like we have to surrender now to use AI now. Like basically we surrender our freedom, surrender our our control. Um that's that's not going to be sustainable. And then people seem to be already scared.

Um yeah, then I don't see anything around this space that um better than Ethereum that can actually help with that. >> How do you share Ethereum's values to the people who don't know about the Ethereum at all? >> Um yeah, so when we say values like people just tend to think that's actually very fluffy. um philosophical thing but it's actually it is the properties that uh we just mentioned today like such as clubs um that is that is hugely related to connected to our lives. So if we talk

about like maybe first not about Ethereum but it's actually what what kind of thing Ethereum can provide the properties Ethereum can provide what how how does your life change if we have better security if we have better privacy and if you talk about that more people can uh connect that um technology and their their thinking better but also So um sometimes um without me controlling trying to really u you know control my own message that I think it's sometimes people just receive it very

very well. For example, the other day, actually a few days ago, I saw um someone in in the Ethereum community, he came to me and he said he listened to my talk in 2022 and and then he was high schooler back then and um and then he was fascinated with the this infinite garden idea like and then he started to explore uh like what Ethereum can do and and then he managed to support himself and then also actually now I heard that he's supporting financially this this group called

Nick's Foundation there that I think that the uh the most talent one of the most talented groups in the Ethereum Japan ecosystem who is uh doing great work. Um so anyway he he heard about this uh at the 15 years old and then um now in the space and now even like understand being a steward like being collaborate and also supporting each other's spirit. Um and then he's not the only person I also recently met another teenager in the Ethereum ecosystem that who read uh the white paper. He actually didn't connect

with anyone online for a long time but he just we we loved what the vision of the original vision of Ethereum and then he read he came online someone connected to people and then he read the Ethereum foundation mandate for him he said he thought this was very obvious he didn't really understand why you have need to release this now So that's the so if you look at the the the the core and even the original promise that's actually you can even uh even teenagers can understand. Yeah. So there's a lot of

like hope there I felt and um yeah that's something I often get very excited thanks to those people that I met. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. It looks like a time is up. So, thank you for having us to have a conversation like >> Thank you. Oh, do you want to mention Devcon? >> Oh, [laughter] yes. Oh, we are great. >> So, we are having the Devcon um in Mumbai in November 3 to 6. So, um this that's the largest Ethereum gathering.

So, please come um to see the what the Ethereum ecosystem look like. and what we talked about today will be you will be able to feel that u there. Thank you everyone. >> Okay. Thank you so much. [applause] [music]