How Nick Johnson Became Crypto's Latest Villain: Uneasy Money

Transcript

Hey everyone, I'm Kane Work and welcome to Uneas Money because what happens onchain never stays on chain. I'm here with my co-host Taylor Monahan, security expert and we have two very special guests today. Nick Johnson, the founder of ENS Labs and the current villain on crypto Twitter timeline. Um, we'll get to the bottom of that. Um, and Alex Vandes, another Ethereum super OOG. Um, I've been out ethogged by like a fair margin. Uh today I'm I'm like the uh larie new guy in this room right now. Um who built ENS back in 2017 but now does other things. Uh so first before we begin, here's a word from the sponsors

that make the show possible. >> This episode is brought to you by Cape, America's privacy first mobile carrier. Same premium service you'd expect from any other carrier, but designed so your number, your location, and your data actually stay yours. Get 33% off 6 months at cape.co/chained. >> That's one. >> I shouldn't trust that. >> Oh, you're back. >> All right. Um, our first segment is ENS's Security Council war. Um well let's uh let's dig into this um because it has been probably the last two or

three days now um backto-back Twitter coverage. Um so the ENSO security council the body that can count cancel a proposal after it's been passed and entered the time lock an emergency backs stop against governance attacks was up for a two-year renewal. The current date expires July 24th year. Um the onchain renewal failed. Nick, that is this gentleman who's with us here, the glasses, um ENS labs founder, uh voted against with 3.26 million ENS, roughly 50% of the active voting supply. Now, I just want to stop there because I've seen on Twitter, uh many many uh kind of hyperbolic statements about you voted

with half of the tokens. Everyone seems to be very confused about this. So, can we just at least address do you currently control 50% of the ENS tokens? >> Yeah, that is that okay. All right. Um, so what what is the voting proportion at the moment in in ES typically? >> So, uh there's 100 million ENS tokens. Um at launch uh 50% of those went to the DAO, 25% went to an airdrop and 25% went to core contributors. Um as of today of course everything is mixed about the Dow still mostly has its 50%. Um I have about you know 3.2%

um of the total and uh you know the remainder is distributed amongst a great deal great number of holders. The actual amount that are delegated is about 7 million. >> And so just to be clear, you've delegated all of your tokens to yourself, >> almost all of them. >> That's quite a quite a draconian move for you to give yourself the voting power there um of your own tokens. Um but uh no, I'm I'm kidding. Um so so you have 3% of the token supply right that um is voting which was roughly 50 so about 6% let's call it 67% of the the tokens are being actively used for

voting um which is like broadly in line with other uh Dows maybe even high potentially um so you know the fundamental issue here obviously being that there is very little participation by token holders in in Dow governance here like there there are more than enough tokens to outvote you clearly like in the world right >> theoretically >> theoretically >> and and I think the what emphasizes that is that at launch of course I had you know my launch allocation which was you know just shy of 7%. And my influence had I ever delegated that would actually

been less than it was today because you know delegated voting power and participation has diminished more quickly than than my own token supply. You know, because >> everybody is is selling tokens and and is moving away because mostly because there's strong financial incentive to sell something you got, especially if you got it for free, and none to participate in decentralized governance. >> And and so remind me what was the percentage that was air dropped? Um, you know, which I got by the way. Um, I think I still hold those tokens. Um, no.

>> But yeah, what was what was the percentage of tokens that were air dropped? 25% to ENS users. Um, and then some of the some of the contributor allocation was to ecosystem integrations and so forth as well. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, full disclosure, I think I have I have like personal because I was I have ENS, but then I think we also got a builder community allocation as well because we integrated ENS. >> And Tay, did you did you vote on this recent proposal to try and overthrow >> our benevolent dictator Nick here? No, I I assume not, right? I think I voted on some stuff very early on. But >> hey, you're letting us down.

>> You're letting us down. The resistance. >> Okay, here's here's the issue with with this right that as I see it. >> I understand the community is very upset because Nick is the evil dictator who's going to take this over and do evil things and this is a money grab whatever, right? I understand that perspective. I'm not standing up here and voting. I'm not doing anything. I'm not trying to build a better ENS, >> but all the people complaining on Twitter definitely >> would be. You have to imagine >> and and Alex, I know, I know, I know, Alex, you're you got to unmute yourself,

my friend. This is this is the this talk showed you, right? Yeah. Okay. So I I don't want to overstate my own credentials, right? So I founded ENS with Nick back then, but then I stepped out of the project. I was focusing on other Ethereum Foundation projects. Nick took ENS, made ENS labs, launched the DAO and is I would say the person most responsible for making ENS what it is today. After the after the ENS launch was that was launched, I came back and started working. I I became a meta uh meta governance steward, a public good steward. I participated in the vote. So

I can say that I saw all like all those things were happening live, right? We we're seeing delegations are coming down and it was becoming harder and harder to participate on on to to pass the quarum and to get the votes. This has been going as a low drain for a while, right? And we've like I've tried solving that, giving out more tokens. We gave out I think a 100,000 tokens to more builders that I I don't think that made much of a difference because people still didn't participate a lot and and and until recently Nick was the number one uh

token holder. He had I think 300,000 or something like that. He was by far the the orig that that much. He then decided to become a more active delegate self-delegated tokens to himself and now he is he can over he can over like he can outvote the 50 largest other delegates right so and I think interesting point is that it's not that it's a problem that Nick can outvote the 50 like the top 50 delegates because Nick shouldn't be able to vote with his own tokens. I think the problem is okay how did you get in a situation where

there are so very few people voting on things right and I think that was happening before and the fact that people are talking about this now it's because those votes were activated very recently right Nick was just voting a few things with tokens that other people had delegated to him and now when once he delegated his own tokens. It's just made it very very clear to the DAO that what seemed to be a problem in governance is now clearly >> a crisis or something.

>> It is. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And again, like I want to be very clear here that the community and the conversation on Twitter and the forums and elsewhere like people are very upset and they're very outraged and there's there is I think a number of reasons underlying that. Uh and I think it's all probably pretty valid. I think that >> they're not upset with the last vote though. They're upset with the other thing that were happening before that >> led to the vote.

>> Right. Exactly. And that's the that's how these things work, right? Is that it's not the one little thing. It's like 8,000 things. I've seen conversations about how like, for example, we have the this idea that it's like a money grab is one conversation. Another conversation that's happening is um that it's like rugging recontrolling the whole ENS and now Nick's going to steal all of our names which for the record is not what's happening. Um, and then another one is I think just like a general, and I didn't really get to the bottom of

the drama, but it's like a general unhappiness with the state of like Dows and allocations and expectations. >> That that is the crux of this. The people that I'm seeing that are um frustrated, outraged, whatever whatever you want, you know, people like Leerus, right? This is like a proxy war arguably right in this like longunning DAO you know collapse where all of these D a you know we talked about Ave for months because you had you know Mark Zeller who was like I am a good representative of this DAO mechanism and I've done everything right

and then you've got Stany who can just come in and do whatever he wants and that's not how it was supposed to be and and you know this again um you know >> very similar >> it's very similar right like there there's obviously there's nuances there's nuances of course >> but then but Kane I don't think it is um like um it is there is like the monthsl long debate there is the yearslong issue with governance there is the immediate issue with the security council and we are talking about the security council I would say because the security council vote made it created an image that is very matic and easy to see. It's an image where people can just see, hey,

there's a huge red bubble of Nick saying no and a sea of green bubbles of Nick saying yes, right? But >> should Nick, >> why didn't you just [laughter] guys on Twitter and >> but the vote wasn't about the security council. I think what people started talking about was about a new proposal of redefining what is the ENS DAO and what is the the ENS foundation and I think that's an interesting topic in which we >> I think I think like you know there's the DAO uh there's this DAO kind of existential crisis right of like what is the purpose of Dows do they work all of

these things that you know um the Dows that we have kind of held up as the best examples are they right then you know uh turn into you know a pitch battle and and so I think there is like this open question of do Dows work and every time a DAO appears to fail or there's something that you know goes against what people want the DAO to do or expect Dows to do um it brings up this this you know existential angst right about like everything that we've done over the last 10 years in building Dows has failed um and and you know people start getting frustrated about that.

>> Yeah. >> I I think there's another angle to that too which is that all of us that have been in crypto for a while have sort of institutionalized trauma around uh rugs. >> And so the moment you see something rectangular and fluffy you assume it's a rug you know and so that very much applies to anything that touches on treasury governance or anything like that and is controversial. >> Yeah of course. >> Okay. I would love for for Nick to tell like to start telling that story, right? So Nick, what is in your vision like what should be the or what is the proposal that is should be the future of the DAO, the future of the NS foundation? What do you think like what do you defend that the path where we

should go which is the the reason in which most people were creating like this huge debate about? I would love for you to explain it to the viewers. um we can have a discussion on this. >> Yep. So, you know, we we've touched already on the fact that delegation rates have only been going downwards, that you know, despite me having fewer tokens than when ENS launched, it's still a proportionately larger uh impact on on voting. And you know, that's symptomatic of the the problems we're having with the ENS DAW and and really everyone's having with Dows in general.

You know, that the participation gets harder. Um but at the same time we have this massive honeypot of a treasury that is calling out for people to find ways to allocate it and reasons to justify it and and so forth. Um and so increasingly you know governance gets dominated by by people who uh have reasons to want to allocate the treasury though the way they want it to be allocated. And I think for the most part these people aren't malicious. you know, these are people who have pet projects that they think will be useful or or valuable or just fun to build and they want to see them funded and they're sort of prepared to put their votes, you know, where their where their mouth is, so to speak, and and you know, make sure it happens.

Um, and it's kind of endemic to, you know, any sort of money buys influence uh voting that, you know, as as time goes on, the votes concentrate in the hands of the people who can make money off owning them. And usually that's by, you know, getting something in that they want. Um, >> and sorry, just Nick, just to to pause there for a second, right? Like one of the things that I would say I was naive about when when starting a DAO and when, you know, I got involved in Dows in the first place was this idea that it would become a debate over capital allocation, right? That like which is a bit ironic because the first DAO, you know, of hack fame was about capital allocation. But outside of outside of that, right, like

the ENS DAO was not supposed to be an investment vehicle investing in projects and and you know, it was supposed to be kind of stewarding the ENS ecosystem. So the idea that a DAO is going to be a good way of allocating capital. It feels strange that that is kind of how it but of course it's a giant pot of money >> and so it has to allocate it and so therefore it does devolve into that like you know is that kind of some of the crux of this issue for you that like the Dow shouldn't be targeted by people who are looking for it to turn into essentially a a investment vehicle.

>> I think it's a big chunk of it. You know when we launched the DAO we had two problems we needed solving. One is that we wanted to decentralize governance over the protocol levers. So upgrading smart contracts you know coming up with uh you know pricing models and changes to those uh dealing with upgrades to other components and so forth. Um you know any vulnerabilities changes in price oracles all >> I think I think >> okay.

>> Oh there we go. Oh, he's back. >> Yeah. Did I cut out for a second? >> Yeah. All good. >> Yeah. So, >> price articles. You cut out of price articles. >> Yeah. So, protocol governance in in a nutshell. All the stuff we would love to decentralize and and like remove control of entirely, but for one reason or another is it's impractical to do so. And the second issue we had was that we' amassed this treasury through, you know, registration fees on ENS names. And we wanted a a good decentralized way to allocate that specifically to ENS development and to public goods. You know, ENS has always from day one being conceived as a public good in itself and as a nonprofit. And you know, the intention of this was not, you know,

this is an investment account. We didn't want to invest in other projects and see returns. We wanted to sort of pay back the the debt we felt we owed from from ENS being launched by a grant. and we wanted to continue to build the web 3 commons um and with a specific focus of course on naming and identity and the things that ENS was was focused on and over time that allocation of funds has become you know more or less all consuming um with the the protocol side taking a back seat in many ways but the the larger issue I think even is isn't even just the the way interests affect all of this um and the tendency for budgets only you go upwards. Of course, um it's also the fact that Dows just

aren't very good at doing this in real time because, you know, every conversation has to be a committee. You know, everything has to be a working group and so on. Um the the people who are hired are often individually competent, but there's no over overall sort of organization that that knits this into a coherent hole. And if we look at organizations that have succeeded in allocating this funding, then it's things like uh foundations and so forth which have accountability to their constituents but they act as a you know a coherent organization that has you know internal processes that does that operates independently but accountably to to the rest of the the environment they're in.

>> Right. >> I would I would add sorry if I'm [snorts] allowed. So you mentioned that a lot of allocation is investment. I don't think ENS has a problem with discussion investment or anyone wants to want to have a return. Most of the discussions involve allocation of funds towards other things towards public goods towards hackathons and toward other teams. >> Sorry. So, just to be clear, like when I say capital allocation, right? Like capital allocation doesn't it could be to nonprofits, but you still need to do it well, right? Like there's still a problem whether you're trying to get a return or >> Yeah.

>> You know, >> I I I think DNS sort of tries to think of the return as in the return for development, right? So I think one of the things I I helped on board when I was a steward of Metag was I I created a program to try to on board 10 new teams mostly because I was worried about the buzz factor of what happens if Nick is hit by a bus right what happens to NS we should be able to have like lots of other people lots of other teams that are competent that are able to do that and we had and we had enough capital to to do that and we we on boarded I think 10 12 new teams that and I would agree not all of them were great. Some of them

were fantastic and it is true that the DAO uh a lot of the politics comes in and start discussing on you start spending a lot of energy just discussing how to do the thing how to allocate the thing I don't think it means that the DAO wasted funds or that a lot of money were misappropriated. No, no, I I don't I'm not suggesting that I'm not suggesting that the Dow wasted funds. I'm I'm saying that like if you have a pot of half a billion dollars, give or take, right? Um that you know your job almost necessarily becomes how do you allocate those those funds right now?

You can also not allocate them, but then there's going to be a bunch of people that say you got half a billion dollars and you're in Ethereum. Why are you not making Ethereum better? why you're not, you know, funding public goods, et like you can't opt out of this, right? Like the >> and there's a problem that if you ask people to vote, they always vote to increase the budget. So the the budget is always increasing, but the revenue necessarily is. So the P is shrinking. At some point, people will start realizing that look, it doesn't fit everyone everyone at the same time anymore. And I want to push back a little bit on the you know DAO doesn't waste its funds because how many do you remember how many of the funded proposals in the first service provider program were subname registries?

M >> it was four or five and I think one has survived to the the modern day and the the reason for that was like because everybody voted for their favorite subname registry project and everyone had a different favorite and the the ranking mechanism was just that the top end got in up to the budget limit and you know this this kind of resulted in a lot of duplicate funding on something that honestly meet but quite low >> and it's true but it but it's also true that the DAO allocated almost half of its budget to NS Labs and ENS labs also had projects that tried to do things and then had to cancel right we we so it is I I think trying to do things and then having to walk back on it it's hard

right we had to walk back on name chain we had to walk back on name rapper like >> okay but here let me let me I guess zoom out a little bit because yeah this is I mean leers for example specifically calls out the the name chain stuff. And the name change stuff is basically you guys worked really hard to build this thing that seemed to be necessary at the time and at some point you're sitting I assume you're sitting there and you're like we don't >> like this was this is an extra >> Yeah. Okay. And like both, by the way, both me and Kane have been there before.

We've >> I building a chain like it like the whole Ethereum L2 scaling road map. Now we sit here in shambles going uh actually we should have just focused on L1. But at the time >> you didn't have the luxury because L1 it was a hundred bucks per transaction, right? So we had to do something. And let me, you know, let me sort of correct the record a bit there because about 80% of what we've been working on the last two years has been ENSV2 and about 20% was namechain because >> largely ENSV2 is chain independent and you know when we decided we weren't going to do namechain which was a fork of an existing chain with you know deployment of our an existing chain

architecture with our own needs catered to um we had to rip out probably about 20% of the NSV V2 code that was concerned with crosschain transactions and synchronization and so forth. But the the very much the bulk of it was, you know, work on version two of ENS. Um okay. >> And I think, you know, people criticizing the decision are, you know, are looking back with with, you know, the benefit of hindsight because when we announced we were going to be pursuing an L2, everyone went, "Oh, thank God. Finally, you know, transaction fees are so high. This is unsustainable."

>> Of course. And when we announced we were canceling it, everybody went, "Yep, that makes sense." >> Exactly. And and by the way, the Dows >> Dows in general. >> Yeah. >> It was like when ENS launched, like you had to do a Dow. Of course, you had to do a Dow. You had to one just like the regulatory environment and the uncertainty and the fact that Yeah. But then also, you know, I think that it's important to to call out that Dows in general were not just this like shallow regulatory thing to absolve yourself of responsibility. No, no, we all drank the Kool-Aid.

>> We believed it. >> We believed it. That's why >> it worked. It worked as regulatory protection because we actually were naive enough to believe it. However, >> I think over time, and this is like cynical now. We're a bit more cynical now. >> We're just a bit more realistic. Like we just >> Yeah. >> Sorry. Can we just talk about the the because I think >> you know a is one thing, right? Like we talked a lot about Ave. Um Ave in another reality could just be a company, right? people are paying for services and you know they they pay the company to operate the thing and it could be smart contract based and it could be decentralized but you know you just pay

a fee to labs labs you know keeps building the software the software is you know semi-immutable or whatever but like it it didn't need token governance to decide how to build the thing right like a a group of 50 people could get together in a room or a couple of rooms and say okay we're going to build this this feature that feature whatever um ENS doesn't feel like that at least to me right and and you know it isn't a company it shouldn't be a company and we have like a real world proxy for this right in in like domain TLD governance in the world right like that's you know a lot of the prior art I think you guys you know pulled from comes from that and like a naming registry shouldn't be a

for-profit entity for a bunch of reasons right Um, so I think like it made a lot of sense for it to be a DAO. The question that I that I guess I have that maybe you guys can can clarify especially ENS is also a bit unusual because it had revenue like people were paying for its services in a way that like other other Dows did not have revenue, right? Their only revenue was issuing a token. So you guys issued a token for the purposes of governing the thing which made sense. it was supposed to be public good and you needed to govern it. Um, like in hindsight, if you if you look back on that and knowing what you know now that the treasury would be far larger in ETH than it is in

its own token, could you have avoided all of this by just using ETH as the governance mechanism? Or was it genuinely that like if you didn't have a a dedicated voting mechanism that you would have all of these perverse effects and ETH holders would vote for weird things that were not good for ENSO etc. Like what like what drove that? Was it genuinely that you thought you would need funding and then the price of ETH went up so much that it didn't actually become a problem? How do you unpick all of that? Um so yeah so it was never about funding you know and in fact in a way it was the reverse you know the the when the DAO launched the treasury was already fairly substantial and we could have funded labs from that directly you know without

a DAO but we wanted to have that decentralization layer you know we effectively handed over the treasury to the DAO and said hey can we have a bit of it back so that we can keep building ENS you know um so it definitely wasn't the funding question I think that you know the reason we we did it the way we did it is because we're our primary concern was always um well put it this way our secondary concern was someone coming in and stealing all the money because our primary concern was somebody coming in and messing with the protocol levers you know and we've designed it as much as possible to lock in immutably the things that really really matter you know so

you the DAO me the security council none of us can affect somebody's existing name. You know, change how it resolves, make it expire early asterisk here because there's a vulnerability that we still have to patch due to the difficulty of patching it. Um, all of these things were designed to be as immutable as possible, but there are things we just can't make immutable. And if we had had, you know, ETH vote, weighted voting on it, there are plenty of rich people out there who could buy enough ETH and and, you know, take control and basically run a griefing attack on ENS. And if ENS was as popular and as widely used as we wanted it to be.

>> You're talking about Tom Lee, right? That's the guy you were worried about. >> I mean, no, it's Vitalic, to be honest. >> Fair enough. Yeah, we're all [laughter] >> if were as widespread as we wanted it to be and as we hoped it would be, it could very well be profitable to do that, you know, to come in and and basically hijack the name registration process or, you know, affect one of the levers they could affect in order to to mess with the NS. Um, or it could just be, you know, that they they had the money that you don't have to spend it to vote. You know, you could just go in there and and grief the whole thing. So, you know, we felt we needed its own voting token and we tried to design the allocation so that it would go to the people who

actually showed commitment to ENS. You know, I probably here isn't the time to go into like all the details of how the the airdrop was allocated. But we tried to do it in a way that that made sense, you know, that that meant that the people who we thought had showed they were truly interested in ENS could could have a vote in it. >> I mean, Alex, yeah, what's you were you were around for for a lot of this stuff, right? like what's your take on on kind of the incentives at play and the origin of of token voting? >> I think I am an optimist and I am a a reformist. So I I think that there are a lot of things that went down went wrong with the centralized governance and there are a lot of things that went

wrong with with the way ENS was governed to like we are talking about being OG. I was a creator of the original DAO that broke down and everything was >> went went to ruins. I was I was part of the of the group the tried to save it and then I'm still part of the of the new group of guy of like the grift try to resurrect the DAO right and I still think that there is always a way out for decentralized governance and for Dows and I still hope have have hopes for NS in that that we can just take the DAO and do like a few things that are better to make it more auditable to make it

more responsible to make the the foundation better. And I think the elephant in the room and the reason that we are here and the reason there was drama is that a lot of people read into the last proposal by NS Labs as as them saying the Dow had failed. We would like to shut it down, take back control of the treasury and the tokens. Nick, do you think that it was that was a fair assessment of what was the proposal or do you think there was a lot of misunderstanding in that? I I think there's a lot of misunderstanding and and misinformation. Um and you know me culpa part of that is the proposal is really damn long. Um you know you have to read the whole thing to get a a clear picture and you know part of that is

just it's trying to do a lot but I think a lot of people came along came away with the wrong impression because of that. Um you know the idea is basically to to take the part of the DAO that committees are bad at running you know and and that's you know fund allocation and day-to-day op >> the capital allocation right like >> yeah but you know not not just that there's also things that historically labs has been doing because labs was the only one who you know seemed to be in the right position to do it like interfacing with IAN and really that is something that should be done by an organization that represents all of the NS not just the people building the protocol Um and so that's something the foundation would do as well. You know it would become it's already extant. It's

already the rapper the legal rapper for the DAO. You know it is the DAO as far as the outside you know ecosystem is concerned. It would become responsible for leading and representing ENS to the rest of the world. Um and you know that's the intention and then you know similar sort of intention around the treasury that it's been managed. I I would say, you know, and and full disclosure, I'm a Capeki investor and Capeki are the the ones who manage the Treasury, but I I would say it's been managed well competently, but but disappointingly in terms of, you know, it has it's given returns that are uh a good percentage point below just putting it in a savings account or government bonds. Um, and you know, a good

>> I mean, if these were at 10K, then we wouldn't be saying that [laughter] >> very happy. So, Well, we know who to blame for that. >> That's me that's measured against ETH because part of it's in ETH and part of it's in US dollars and each of them has been independently appreciating against its benchmark but very slowly. But the simple truth is that if we put it taken it all out and put it in like a Vanguard index fund, we'd be doing much better now. And even if we put it in a savings account, we'd probably be doing better, you know. And that's um part of that's a reflection of uh the conservative investment mandate they've had um and and the fees that you know that occur on top of that. Um and part of that is a result of the fact that their

counterparty is the DAO who is you know 300 people who you know don't agree on anything. Um, and anytime they want to change the investment mandate, they basically have to invent it themselves and then try and convince all of these people this incredibly complicated proposal is safe and reasonable and a good idea, you know, and they, to their credit, have done a very good job of of [laughter] working through all of this, but it doesn't make for for sound fiscal management or or, you know, good returns. I >> mean, this is this is this is the heart of problems with building, right? Like this is not I think that like what you've just discussed is like definitely real, but I think it's much bigger. It's much bigger

and much more common like when you have a group of people trying to accomplish something, especially in a DAO format where I I mean, we have to be real like the expectations of what the NS Dow is and was are not exactly agreed upon fundamentally. And like as someone who has run small teams and big teams, right? It's hard enough without a doubt. It's hard enough when you do have like actual goals, actual management, actual accountability, actually hiring and firing and shaping teams, right? It is hard to ship stuff. It is hard to accomplish stuff. It is hard to do things well. Um, and I think that in my opinion, one of the most

interesting things about the NS DO or the NS in general, the org structure of the DAO and the labs and everything, right, is the fact that nobody nobody disagrees that Nick has been doing the lion share of the work since day one, right? And I think that that's quite interesting, right? Like Alex, earlier in this episode, you you you comment on like the bus factor of Nick is like a is like a problem. And it is, but at the same time, I think that we have to like address the the elephant in the room, which is Nick is uh I think Nick is probably most accountable for the success and the failure of ENS regardless of what actually happens or how things play out.

If for example the ENS fails, if it gets hacked, that is mostly going to fall on Nick's shoulders, not the Dow, not I mean to a certain extent labs, but like it's Nick right now with that as like a >> make me feel because it's not working. [laughter] >> I'm just saying okay in my opinion right that's a real thing. >> She's just saying don't make a mistake. No, I'm just saying like and then the fact that but then the fact that the surface the like the the appearance of it though, right, is that everyone that's not Nick is somehow accountable for this, right? That's what the DAO is.

The DAO is supposed to be doing this. The DAO is responsible for this. But if something goes wrong and if something failure fails, the Dow is actually not accountable whatsoever. Period. End a conversation. Like we can pretend that it is. We can talk about incentives. We can talk about money all we want. At the end of the day, if the NS fails, it's Nick's faults. And it's always been that way, even when the Dow was in more control. And so I And that's at the end of the day, that's why I have a hard time getting very invested in hating Nick because like [laughter] >> but so I think I think this is like it's a critical point though, right? like um you know Nick you said you didn't trust

ETH was the only alternative asset right if we're going to do token voting if we're going to have some kind of decentralized voting mechanism and governance mechanism ignore the money for a second let's talk about the protocol um ETH was not a viable alternative right for reasons um and and so therefore you needed an independent uh token that could represent governance of the thing um and we've seen that a lot of our assumptions around voting were very naive. Like, you know, we had a bunch of idealists and we thought, you know, we'll have 80% of the tokens voting or or whatever it was, right? And it's seven.

>> Um, most people do not care about governance. If we had looked at Tradfire, we could have probably figured that out pretty quickly. Um, you know, they only want to hold a token because they hope it'll go up, right? Um, they don't care about governance. they don't which is not everyone but it's enough people who are holding a token that um it becomes problematic right um and even if you did have a 100% token uh you know governance participation it would still be really hard because people would not necessarily agree on on you know and as this has kind of shown right we can't even agree on Twitter whether you're a good guy or a bad guy right so um how are we supposed to agree on you know what what we should do from a protocol

perspective. So if we just isolate this to >> like how you know how should this >> public good ignore the money like how should the protocol be governed? Do you still believe that like token governance is the right mechanism for governing the protocol? >> Yeah. Sorry. Also to add on this is like this is the question that I'm I need to ask, right? Because a lot of people are asking it and there's not a clear answer and it builds on what Kate just said, right? like it seems like there's a choice on the table like go this way and sort of get back on a more let's call it a traditional or structure path and there's like different ways you can go about it but that's you know the DAO's

influence is going to go down or you can we can keep doing what's been happening and like fix the DAO structure and I think a lot of people are asking that question it's like hint is it possible to fix is it possible to fix it out, right? Is there is there an alternate universe where that's something that you can do or that anyone can do theoretically or in real life? >> So, let me answer them in in reverse order because I think, you know, fixing the DAO versus empowering the foundation is a bit of a false dichotomy because I think that, you know, what we've learned here is that um the DAO should not have been trying to run these things directly. you know it should have been

doing it through an organization like the foundation that that is accountable to it and you know in the case of the NSA and the foundation the foundation's articles of corporation actually specify you know that that the the directors of fiduciaries they have a responsibility to the DAO you know the DAO can appoint and remove them that it is the organization that is beholden to the DAO and so I think you know what we've learned is that we should have been doing something like this all along and the DAO should have been focused focusing on the overall protocol governance and to a degree the sort of strategy of you know where we want to send this thing you know in in the broadest possible way um and and >> sorry just just on that point where we

want to send this thing right let's talk about just from a ignore the money from a technical perspective you talked about uh in SV2 right >> the decisions and and structure uh like the product level um the you decisions around NSV2. There is no way in hell that a DAO is doing that. >> No. And thank to do it that way. Yeah. >> Um absolutely. No, I I I I'm thinking >> I I don't know. I don't know what I'm how I how I um how I say it. It's it's you know we need people you know at labs and at the

foundation who have this vision for what ENS should be but we if we hadn't had the DAO then there are a lot of contributors who have come along and have you know have pointed out some really novel ways for ENS to either build its um you know its uh penetration of of the market of I hate the word market of you know of crypto and improve the UX of people um and who have you know have really helped with that sort of stuff. And if we just said, "No, this this, you know, organization is just here to pull the upgrade lever when it's time for an upgrade," we would have missed out on that, you know, and and people who have who had the vision to say, "Look, I have a way for ENS to address uh you know, um anonymous

payments and stuff like that, you know, here is a thing that ENS could be uniquely good at." Um meanwhile, yeah, we definitely don't want to hand off, you know, protocol level decisions and which integrations to approach and so on to to committee control through a working group. You know, it wouldn't work any any better than fund allocation has. Um but you asked, do I still believe token weighted voting can work for for protocol decisions? And I guess my answer is I still really hope so. you know, I I'm I haven't given up on this, you know, you know, like like Alex who has been at ths for for even longer than me, you know, I I want to believe that we can still it can still act as a

safeguard for the protocol. It can still make the right decisions, you know, without the the noise of of constantly trying to, you know, allocate individual pools of money and run working groups and and so on, you know, focused on the right things. I want to believe it can still work. I my conviction is weaker than it was and I you know I want to make a a real effort to turn this round and to focus on the things that matter and to redecentralize it. Um if it doesn't work then we need to find another path forward that still is meaningfully decentralized you know and and maybe that I don't know what that looks looks like to be honest you know and maybe that it's going to be a conversation going forward trying to figure out you know can we make this

work in this way still with token weighted governance if we can't how can we make it work in a really meaningfully decentralized fashion you know I don't want to become I can not because I can is evil or anything but because I I got into crypto the whole, you know, for the whole reason that we should be able to build better decentralized governance structures and I don't want to give up on that just yet. >> And and maybe Alex, you can uh you can address. >> I want to add what I like about Dows in general because I think that helps tell what I think is the path for ENS, right?

Because look, I the deal usually have is that you own a house, you pay taxes and that money goes somewhere and you expect the like there will be some infrastructure built. You have like you have police, you have things built in your in your porch, right? And like you don't see where the the money goes. You you vote, you don't see how the vote is is tied. And I think that changes with NSD. in as though you have a property and you pay a property tax on it and then you get to vote and you see where the money is going and Karpatki is the one who is handling the treasury and I think a lot of the things that they do it it is true as Nick said that they

they are tied by a bunch of strings but I think those strings are beautiful because what is happening is that they all the money that the DAO has is on chain it's transparent and every fund is on chain and Karpatki has a bunch of of very subtle controls in which what they can allow they can do and they they cannot do and I think it may maybe it's harder for them to get a a good return or maybe we can just tell them look just be more conservative but be still be on chain but what I do hope is that we can still have that right we can still have a treasury that is onchain that is auditable that is ultimately controlled

by a DAO, right? We can have a foundation that is something that is is is more active, is someone that is controlling it's proposing budgets, but ultimately the budgets are voted by the DAO and the Treasury is still under the control of the DAO. And that's what I'm trying to understand from Nick because do you still think that that's the way that we should be moving forward or would you like to have a new structure where the actual treasury is moved somewhere else? [snorts] >> So the the proposal is that the foundation manages the treasury. Whether it gets managed in the existing structure through Kapaki um or or

whether some of it gets invested elsewhere is an open question for the foundation directors and but I I think the the thing is I I would also like that and that's this the reason we went with that structure you know it is uh a very system technically um and it it allows for that transparency but it you know it's been several years and the returns have been so poor that they're barely keeping up with inflation. And the reason the endowment was created was because the goal was that it would serve as a um a way to fund ENS and that's you know the development and the the proliferation of ENS and so on and

preferably also for public goods funding even in the absence of ongoing ENS revenues for for an extended period you know both because of downturns but also because we wanted the freedom to make the choice about you know what ENS names should cost how they should be structure structured how they should be built completely independently of you know financial day-to-day concerns you know because the goal was that that fees are regulating not you know for for sustainability and it increasingly looks like we can't have both these things we can't have an endowment that is 100% onchain um and has a very conservative mandate that has to be neutral to both ETH and USD in in the right proportions and an endowment

that will actually sustain ENS indefinitely. And if we have to choose between the two and you know at least in the current climate with crypto you know and the climate for the last few years then I'll choose the one that lets ENS continue operating. >> I mean I think part of the problem with Dowment is that half of it is Ether and I think half of it is Ether because a lot of it was voted by people of the in the DAO that really believe in Ether or are or bears like I love Ether. I am a big ether fan. I think it is undervalued right now. But I admit that if you want to build a huge amount of money that is very conservative, putting it half on ether is not as

>> it's not a rational choice. Yeah. Like that's [laughter] I mean >> for the record for the record everyone listening I think everyone in this room right now is wholly irrational. Like [laughter] we all >> I know we're sitting here being like let's rationally discuss not 50% ether. Let's say 25%. >> Dude, I'm like 90 still. What are you talking about? >> Oh man, >> completely insane. >> Let's go to add. >> But the point is that the problem is not instant chain. The problem is that the or >> the allocation. And of course that that came from governance. Of course that's a problem of governance. But but it's not it's not the split really because the

the USD denominated part of the treasury has also performed very poorly compared to to USD you know it it's gained you know an average of sort of 2 to 3% a year um and and honestly you know in most countries the savings account >> usually we lose like 30% a year so >> yeah that's true none of it has been hacked which puts it >> that's what I was about to say how much how many miles lost >> like I think it's yeah it's a it's a I think a very high bar that you guys are holding yourselves to like capital allocation but um we need to go to ads quickly and then we're going to come back because there's still more to talk about here so uh let's let's jump to ads quickly

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number to every app that asks. Go to cape.co/chained and use code unchained for 33% off your first 6 months. >> Right. Uh we are back. Um we got a few other stories to talk about, but this is definitely a luxury to have uh you two gentlemen with us. Um, so I do think that it would be it would be useful to try to like wrap this up and and kind of get to the crux of the matter, right? Um, you know, uh, Nick, you pointed out that, uh, like we've ended up talking about the money and capital allocation, etc. And and I think, you know, ultimately this is one of the challenges with governance, right? Is like if the

ENS Dow's Treasury were $5,000, we wouldn't be having this conversation. like genuinely we wouldn't be it wouldn't be interesting to people. It's interesting to people because it is a it's a giant pile of money, right? And so, you know, there is like a little bit of a false signal from the market that like people really care about governing the ENS. They actually care about governing money and the ENS just happens to have a lot of it, right? Um and therefore people are really excited about it because what you know uh having $500 million or $300 or whatever um you know is is a significant amount of money that there is some uh you know tension and drama around how will it be

allocated how you know what will happen so um so I think you know the the split of maybe a three-way split and and you forgive me if this is is uh too um cynical, but like the three-way split as I see it is you have to build a product like ENS is still a product that um you know you want to build ENSV2 which hopefully will be better than ENSV1 presumably there's a bunch of issues you're trying to solve right um you want this to be credibly neutral in a way that you know it can be governed [clears throat] and not hacked or taken over or whatever so there needs to be some mechanism for parameterizing the thing right and then you need to make

sure that it's funded and it happens to have a giant pile of money and you need to work out how to allocate it. Like those are the three challenges that we're dealing with here. Um and you know the first two not% of people don't care about genuinely, right? Um which is why you know we've the six seven% of ENS governance voting that's happening right the vast majority of that I have to imagine is mainly for item three the money right. Um now as you said Nick right you've had um some very smart very capable people who have been involved in ENS outside of the foundation outside of like direct you know just from being a representative or a delegate or or a

community member or whatever um that have contributed to the protocol uh in in ways that otherwise wouldn't have happened. And that honestly like I' I've seen that in synthetics I've seen that in a bunch of different protocols. that is a genuine uh value prop that having tokens and having people that hold tokens that feel alignment that want to contribute um you cannot replicate in other governance structures. So you know that I think is is very good. Um but it's a vanishingly small proportion of the people maybe you know a hundred people have have you know kind of participated in that way arguably right um so if you're redesigning governance let's imagine there's no Twitter there's no

public discourse about this right if you have a magic wand and you're you're redesigning this and I think Alex you kind of were sort of hinting at this question like what is for those three things that need to be managed what is your optimal structure how How would you do this? If you could kind of go back in time in a time machine and and redesign this, what would you do? What is the outcome you want? >> I mean, the the outcome I want that we've always wanted is is removing those threats to the name service through centralization. And that's, you know, a combination of, you know, not having to trust an individual that, you know, your name will continue resolving or that you'll be able to renew it next year or whatever. um or you know that they are not going to be hacked or suborned or

arrested by their government's you know recently passed laws or or whatever. Um and you know that has always been my primary concern to build a credibly neutral infrastructure that is governed in a way that is is independent and is actually sustainable for the very long run. um as to how to build that like you know from a clean slate. Um I as I say I I would put the funding question to the side and and make it you know part of a foundation that is accountable to the DAO but not you know directly voted on you know every individual budget and so forth. You know they can they can show whether they're doing a good job or not and the DAO can can agree or disagree.

Um but they're not having to you know pass every budget through them. They're not having to um you know justify every allocation. They're having to account for it all. You know, they're having to demonstrate it, but they have you know independence to actually do this. And I would still put the protocol levers in as decentralized hands as possible. And that would probably still look like some sort of token. Um but you know, ideally it would be structured in a way that that facilitates, you know, token voting for governance better and speculation less, you know, and and all the people who love who There are people out there who have been hating me for far longer than the people who hate me now. And that's mostly because I've always said I don't really like speculation on on

names. So, you know, welcome new crew. You know, here is the old crew. [laughter] >> Alex, wait. Alex, what do you what do what do you think of that? Like, are we really are we enemies or you know what I mean? >> Not at all. No, I I'm I'm still a big fan of Nick. I I do disagree with some some things that Labs has been doing recently and and Nick says about building >> I'm sorry when when you say you disagree is that on capital allocation is that on decentralized governance or is that on product development like which rail just to separate that out >> particularly on the future on how we can move how can we reform the DA right I

I'm still a very >> very strong on everything should remain on chain. Um I I think what I want forward is simply a new foundation is more empowered but is still has to run one once per year has to run a budget by the DAO and that endowment keeps on chain and we just change mandate but I want to go back to the credibly neutral infrastructure because that's interesting. I think the first thing that people says when they start look Nick is evil we should fork ENS right let's suppose Nick is actually evil and ENS labs is going to take over the the treasury right the interesting aspect of it is that we need to separate ENS from

the names right the so what labs could do they could take over they could take over the the treasury which is not 500 $100 million. By the way, that's we are way past like we are >> Wait, hold on. Hold on. I thought we were arguing over half a billion dollars. How are you talking about? >> We are in probably 100 130 million last time I checked. >> Crypto million in ETH and stables and about tokens, >> right? Ignoring Okay, ignoring the ENS tokens. It's 130 melon in >> but going back to that right there is like you Nick could in theory take over

the treasury of 130 million right he could he could have in theory take over the treasury of the tokens which would go to zero but there are but he could not if you own an if name he could not change take your if name from you and more importantly he does not controls in the sense that other people can create other names on it. If you have a top level domain for example like we have we have people who own that box you can create your own naming system that lives in ENS. So if you do believe that Niko and you want to fork ENS, you could in theory just build it still on top of ENS and be compatible with a VNS and just

not care about ETF ETH. Right. >> Yeah. And my my plea to anyone who is determined to fork ENS is the the thing we've we've been doing this whole time and the reason we we believe it's so important to play well with others in the domain ecosystem and and why we interact with I can is because the most damaging thing for users is if the same name can resolve to two different things depending on who you ask. So if you're going to fork ENS at least do what others have done and pick your own suffix and so on. All our code is open source. feel free to grab it and deploy it. Uh deploy v2 ahead of us if you want. Um I don't advise it because, you know, we're still working on it, but you

could. Um just please don't make it ETH because I really don't want to be, you know, even tangentially responsible for people losing their funds because it was like, oh no, this was the ENS, you know, RET, not the ENS. And and it went to the wrong wallet. It went to some scammer or something. But that does show I think the importance of having a DAO, right? Because there are a lot of other like naming systems out there that are just creating names that are clearly uncompatible with I can and they are just a private company just selling names and promising that they will be integrated something. And I think uh I think they are not much different than a company that's selling like land on the

moon or the naming rights for stars, right? And my fear is that we could just take ENS private and say look the DAO is over the DAO is dead and then how much is it different than any other of those competitors. I think what makes ENS ENS is that it has a credibly neutral platform that tries or tends to being open and working with all the other like already legacy systems. >> Yeah. But I mean, I think this gets to the heart of why I'm just not, again, I've said this before, but I'm not super invested in the the conversation on Twitter and like making people out to be evil is

because at the end of the day, I do not feel like myself or frankly anyone else is in a better position to ensure that the NS is uh doing what the NS should do. Like I can't even reason about what the ENS should do next because I'm not I don't I mean I have actually quite a stake in this game but not really right the protocol choices the governance choices the product choices the future choices the hard decisions right when you have sunk costs because you built something and then you have to you're like okay that was a bad idea right and you have to eat that. Those are things that require people to be truly deeply

like not just invested financially but having their uh let's say lives livelihoods personhood right tied to that. That's when you get people to um be like truly invested and making making those hard decisions and they have all the context necessary. And this was like one of the hardest things that I learned as a founder was I love to share with my team all the time all the gory details. I love to get their input. Um I I thought I do and I did have a number of people working for me that are so much smarter than me, right? But the thing that is important to remember is like no matter what, even if you give

them more context, they don't necessarily have the full stake in the game. And ultimately when it comes down to the hard decisions in the future, it really is going to come down on like one or maybe two people's heads and everything else around that is to try to get the best outcomes to hold the accountability to, you know, to to derisk some of the stuff. But ultimately, you know, it is there are some people's whose lives are severely upended if ENS dies. And for me personally, um it's not the people bitching on Twitter. And that's why I think that it's a bit unfair for those people to be like say they I mean anyone can talk

trash, right? But like it's just show me like what are you what are you going to do, right? Like put put I don't know put something behind it. Well, that's I think in fairness in fairness like this is part of why you know you've got people who are like legit people in space, you know, like Alex is is concerned about the direction this is going. I think that that's like bare and reasonable. Um and it's not just, you know, uh for like Elon Bucks, right, on the timeline, right? Like this is like a genuine ideological debate, right? Um and and you know it's a debate that I think that will continue to have um you know in terms of again like how

do you build products in an open fashion that are credibly neutral um you know because ENS is still a product right if no one wanted it if it wasn't useful then we wouldn't be having this debate um because it's useful because you guys have built a thing that is useful and people use and you know adds value to the world people are paid for it And therefore it has a bunch of money and now people care about what happens with the money, right? Uh you know and people also want it to get better. Someone's responsible for making it better and you need to make sure that those incentives are aligned, right? Like so these are these are all things that are like only problems because ENS has done a very good job historically, right? And you can you can you know slice it up and say

don't do this, don't do that or whatever, but you know 99% of things that people have tried to build in this space have failed. 99.9% right um and ENS hasn't failed and we're having this debate because it is valuable and people care about it um and and it is a bit of a proxy war for the governance debate of you know what should we govern etc um and I think that's why people care a lot I think you know same thing for a right I think I think that's why these things you know do blow up on the timeline it's not um it's not just people clout chasing or you know we we genuinely do care about these things and I think they're hard problems to solve. Um, and I think if we can have a debate like this that, you know, is is reasonable

and and, you know, um, kind of balances the the different trade-offs, then we can progress it and and we all want this to, you know, we all want to work. >> Yeah. >> I don't think there's anyone that's saying we want to fail. So >> yeah, I would say too a lot of the commentary on the timeline right now is criticizing without even um like compare contrasting just like saying like this was a bad decision, this name chain was a bad decision. I would definitely encourage people to like just stop doing that. We are like where we are. Um the the most important questions that need answers is like

where to go from here. Um and anyone can be criticized for anything. We've all made decisions that can be criticized. Um and there's always, especially with 2020 hindsight, a variety of paths that you can [laughter] be like, man, should have done that. That would have been better. Right? But you're not there. You can't go back in time. So we are where we are. I think it's much more productive to have conversation on where we can go from here that everyone can agree on. I think even leerus uh could is probably closer everyone's on >> even closer page even >> even even >> for what it's worth it's it's quite funny because Lus is also a super OG.

We've all met in real life. Like we're all of us were together at Devcon. >> The very first DevCons, right? It's crazy. Um but yeah, so on that note though, what is like one sentence Nick and then one sentence Alex? The the the one sentence of what you want the ENS to be or to do or to overcome to, you know, in the sort of relatively short term, not super long term. I haven't given up on ENS or DAO governance and I don't intend to. I think we've learned what Dows can't do uh well and it's time to learn from that and fix

things and still work on a decentralized neutral future. I'm bad at oneliners. >> That's I think that was a good one. I think that was >> that was actually quite good. I'm terrible at that. That's why I love asking our guests this. I hate [laughter] when I get asked it. >> Really hard. >> So I think what we need is just separate and specialized concerns in the sense that ENS should focus on just governing it selects let's say the board of directors of the foundation. The foundation just just focus on budgeting and auditing and making sure the money is well spent and then it spends on teams like labs and labs do will do

product decisions and do timeline decisions and all of that and hiring decisions. So each part gets to do its own thing, right? We shouldn't have the DAO making product decisions. we shouldn't have labs doing like governance decent decisions and things like that. That's that is my opinion. >> Yeah. I mean I I think the final point that I'll say here is I do get a sense from a lot of people and this was with AB as well um that they there are there is an underlying um frustration that a lot of people in these debates tend to have which is that you know it's not fair that someone gets to allocate this

money right like there is like there is a a frustration that people like this is a lot of money and you know it's not fair that uh labs Let's talk about Stany for a second. Ignore ENS. Like, you know, there's people that are like, Stany shouldn't be able to decide how this money is allocated, right? This is, you know, labs should not have this power, this control, etc. Um, and and I think, you know, to go back to your point, Tay, like this, these are still startupesque things, even if they are supposed to be incredibly neutral or whatever, someone has to build them.

Someone has to like rally a team. The team has to care about the thing that they're building. Um and and I do think that like a lot of times those those debates and and frustration about like one person shouldn't have so much power if you want good things to happen unfortunately like sometimes one person or a few people need to have some power right like it can't be no one has any power and no one has any control um you know you just got to find the lines right like I don't want Nick to be able to take Kane from me right um or more importantly Izzy ETH, my daughter's ENS name. That would be even worse. Um, but uh but I do want Nick to be deciding again in collaboration with the

community, whatever, but deciding how to build ENSV2. I want a better ENS, right? Both of those things can be true, right? And and we have to find the right uh the right, you know, framework to govern those things. And um you know I think that the idea that there are bad actors here who are trying to steal all the money or whatever like Nick could have stolen the money a long time ago realistically now like you know if you if you don't if you don't like it fine um not everyone has to like everything um but you know the idea that uh that you don't have people who really care about the product that is ENS the the thing you know it's its core feature and functionality um and

want to make it better I think is wild. It's wild. And that on the timeline is just insane. Like you you know there's no uh there is really no justification for that. Like ENS has been a thing that's been built for almost a decade. You guys are still building it. You care a lot about it. You work with people like I can. You know Ian's not going to love a couple of ladies showing up on a Zoom call, right? Like someone needs to show up and talk to them. These are all hard things that you guys are doing every day and no one else is going to do it and it needs to happen. And so I think that there should be some, you know, reasonable kind of uh you know uh affordance for that, right? That that like you know there's no bad actors

involved in this, right? Like everyone everyone involved in this could easily have stolen a bunch of money in a bunch of ways and you know gone off into the sunset years ago and they haven't. Everyone's still turning up to a show like this to >> Why are you Why, Nick and Alex, why are you both still here? >> Yeah, [clears throat] >> I seem to be really bad at making myself uh inessential. I've been trying for years. >> Doesn't work. >> No one's going to care as much as you do. That's honestly that's the harsh reality. No one's going to care as much as you do.

>> Um and that we're humans. That's just how humans work. Alex, what's your what's your >> reason? Why are you still showing up fighting fighting this fight? >> Look, my I'm I'm a dad full-time. That is my job. Everything else I do, I do it for for the pleasure of it, right? I'm here I'm here because I find meaning. I love I I still think there is a meaning in the work that I've done over the last decade and trying to make sure that we have better ways of governing, of giving out decentralization. I think that that the world sort of moved on to AI and like we are the ones who are still look look there's still value to be had and the things we've built. We've built an

open ledger we build an organization that you can it's transparent it's uncorruptible. I still think that that's fair. I think that's still interesting and some ways I still like to come here and defend that and say look crypto like that's who crypto really is. All the scammers and the pumpers that that's not who we are, right? >> Yeah. >> Amazing. Thank you both. >> Yeah. >> Um wait, one last thing. So for the people who are right now viciously engaged on the timeline or perhaps are listening this and want to be viciously engaged, what in is there like a good a better way to engage? Is it the forum?

Nick, Alex, either of you, like if you know, so that we can we can pivot from yelling, screaming on crypto Twitter to like finding a a valid, valuable, legitimate path forward for, you know, where everyone mostly everyone is somewhat happy. >> Well, yeah. I mean, you know, I I'm hesitant because if I say the forum, then then I don't want the people who have been, you know, shouting slurs at me to suddenly show up and and so on. But I do want people >> There's no forum, guys. Don't even worry about it. forget we said anything. >> It's not about the name. It's about the [laughter] message, right? Just don't come with memes and just write longful tough responses and in any any video and it it will work. And but I mean, you

know, there's people like I think it was Kristoff Jentz who who said, you know, why don't you uh you know, decentralize by by removing control over the protocol and and giving the treasury away to the the new Ethereum um uh uh you know, uh protocol guilds. >> And I I don't think that's doable, but I think that's the sort of idea that I would like to see discussed rather than, you know, minutia or or or people shouting at me that they think I'm going to make off with the Treasury and and buy an island. I don't think you can buy an island with that. But anyway, um, you know, >> let's talk, Nick. There's in Canada.

>> You'd be surprised. There's some cheap island. >> There are some pretty crappy islands out there. Yeah, >> there's some pretty crappy islands. >> I've done this. I've done this research at the top every single time. And every single time [laughter] I failed to buy the island and move there, and I'm stuck with you guys. That's why I'm still here. By the way, [laughter] >> if you want to have a serious conversation, do come and have that serious conversation. >> Thank you both. Um, this has been an awesome show. I think this is an important uh topic and and you know, bare markets are where we actually get to focus on these things. There's still some angry people floating around fairly. Um but uh but I think you know most of the people who are still here are thoughtful and and believe in some

form of this and want to see a path forward. So I think that uh you know engaging engaging with those people unfortunately wherever they may be whether it's X or or on the forum um is just a necess necessary part of this process right so um thank you both for joining us it's been been an awesome show. >> Thank you guys very much. >> See you. >> Bye guys. Bye. >> Nothing you hear on Uneasy Money is financial advice. We're just three builders talking about what's happening on chain and we want you to always do your own research before aping in. You can find all our disclosures at unchaincrypto.com/unemoney.