Rocket Pool Community Call | 16 November 2023

Transcript

hey M can you hear me now sure can perfect hey no longer rug rugged by a all right good stuff let's um kick off the space then uh so obviously it's been a very big week in fact the three of us are typically some assemble but in different locations um if you don't know me I'm M and I do Marketing in community for rocket pool currently in between hotels my flight is tomorrow um Lang is already at the airport about to back to Australia we're about to you K yeah I'm sitting in my hotel room hopefully my sound is pretty good I kind

of hear a disco vibe in your background I don't know if that's where you're at but I'm sitting in my hotel room about ready to begin my day and uh head out and enjoy some of the sits of instable all right good stuff well I will keep my um talking to a minimum um we are here to talk about the previous few days events and there has been a lot going on um we've got of course langers here um so I'll pass over to yuken we have a agenda in Discord a lot of exciting items to run through so um let's help to give people who aren't in town for Dev connect and the associated events a taste of what's been going on over

here yeah perfect it's it's been just a I think an absolutely fabulous week I don't know um you know what the the team's thought is but um you know it's been at least now I think seven days for me here in Istanbul and just a tremendous shout out uh to just such a lovely city and uh Community that's here I didn't know quite what to expect uh I don't think I really had it on my bucket list to uh visit Istanbul and I think I made a big mistake in that because it's just been a a fabulous City a fabulous conference and just just a wonderful place to uh connect with friends on ethereum and get to see a little bit of the city and the culture here I don't know langers or M which your thoughts were on the host City

here yeah it's amazing um the the the the kind of the history um the the cats um and uh and probably the the thing that that stands out the most for me is the food food is absolutely amazing like and everywhere consistently good like conferences at the airport at the you know like the restaurants are awesome like it's the food is amazing yeah no no arguments on that one I got to say you know normally you attend some of these conferences and they do a little hotel food and it's kind of rubber chicken but no I mean I

think I've probably had some of the best meals of my life in uh in this city so definitely if you ever have the the opportunity to go visit iston bow I would certainly put it on the top of my uh my visit list or even come back to list I've already talking with my wife and we're we're going to have to plan another trip out here but let's uh let's let's start with it it's been a very very busy week for the team and for probably anybody attending Dev connect here but it all kind of started with a uh pre- meeting um this is the one called uh staking Summit sponsored by uh staking rewards um and this was uh this one kicked off on I think it was uh Friday of last week right before Dev connect um it certainly was an absolute

pleasure for me to uh uh to attend and um get to uh see the team again and especially just a a great opportunity to meet one of the new members of the team Grant um he's been very quiet on Discord I think kind of maybe lurking in the background uh kind of sensing the community a little bit but uh just what a what a great individual um really committed to rocket pool uh learning a lot about uh the protocol the interactions and he certainly was uh working the the connections I know it's called an ecosystem but in terms of Business Development but it was great to finally meet Grant um what were did you get a chance for ask him about any of his experiences because I think this was

uh one of his uh first um first meetups here I guess after East Singapore what was his experience like yeah I think so he he's kind of getting used to so he he has like a corporate background um and he's kind of getting used to um being in the crypto space and I think uh I think he just he's just blown away by how how big it is uh and uh and yeah he's learning a lot he's learning a lot um kind of on the ground uh he's talking to node operators um he's getting a good sense of you know how they feel and and and what their um again what the things that they they like about rocket pool the

things they dislike about Rocka pool um is is definitely meeting uh you know so many different protocols and and um or different protocols and and I guess competitors as well but you know there's there's a wide range of of people that we've been um kind of like chatting to over this the last week so um yeah he's he's kind of learning a lot he's he's really enjoyed it um he he's quite taken with the cats actually um we we' we had to stop about 15 times um just getting to the the the taxi to to take pictures of the cats but um yeah no it's it's it's it's really good um he's he's really enjoyed it and I think he's um he's definitely gotten a

lot out of him yeah and it was great to kind of talk to him and he expressed some interest and I highly encourag him to go on Launchpad with wack and you know kind of engage and join in on these Community calls I know he's uh probably in transit now and travel as you guys are all heading back but uh I think it would just be great to get him more engaged and involved with the community here as he's getting more acclimated in the space um but langers tell me yeah we definitely we'll definitely get the per on board here yeah yeah yeah perfect now tell me it was an interesting conference uh the staking rewards I didn't know what to expect um I'd interacted a little bit with the the two Co

co-founders of staking rewards and um was interested in it because I heard a lot about their first conference this was their second one uh the first one they did and I believe it was Lisbon uh a year ago and so this was kind of on my radar because it coincided with Dev connect it definitely made it a a must attend conference but what was uh it it was a different vibe I mean different but good uh but what was your sense like uh can you maybe explain it and kind of what the uh the attendance was and the topics of the presentations and what was what was kind of your thoughts of the staking Summit yeah it was it was a very well organized um event um yeah extremely well organized event the the the talks

were the talks were good they they had a they had a bit of a different kind of like theme to them um a bit more uh yeah because I'm staking Wards is is not specific to ethereum necessarily um and so it kind of it opens that up a little bit more and to to kind of like see other other things that are going on I mean there was a lot of there was a lot of ethereum stuff um um there but kind of opens it up a little bit more um if I'm completely honest I think I saw maybe two of the of the talks [Music] um that's the thing with these conferences you tend to spend a lot of time

uh kind of in the in the booth area and just just talking to people and um and meeting people or arranging to meet people uh so uh so I I didn't actually get to speak see many of the talks talks are s so were quite good um so that was good um yeah I I definitely yeah it was it was definitely an interesting conference and I I think it was it was it was very well done yeah and I'd say they'd probably had maybe 20 vendors there maybe I I don't know if I totally counted them all but uh somewhere somewhere near that number maybe 15 to 20 and it was mainly uh if I could if I could use the phrase I would

say infrastructure providers of staking there were a lot of staking protocols or yes Services yes I'd say like infrastructure a lot of infrastructure um uh kind of providers yeah yeah yeah and I think it I think it made it very interesting to just and kind of like you there was a big lobby area where um you know a portion of the vendors were but just a big uh convening area that was uh you know importantly next to the the food buffet and the um uh just the tables but just the number of conversations of people in the industries coming by I think it um you

know I think it worked really well to just be there and have conversations and ER with other protocols and about either common common things in interest there's a number of eips that I think benefits the entire staking Community as a whole and a number of the protocols um that are using the beacon chain um and so I think that was pretty good to share um thoughts and uh areas of um commonality and then I think it was also very interesting to discuss with some of the other protocols about their Direction and their growth and kind of where they're going um any any key takeaways from that that part of the conference uh probably to be honest that

one I was mainly catching up with them different different protocols and that sort of thing there was some there was definitely some interesting chats um I think staking rewards themselves are integrating like a liquid staking dashboard and that sort of thing they were they were showing us um what that was kind of look L like um so that was that was that was really interesting um so yeah know there there's definitely a lot going on uh I I was mainly catching up with other other the part of Co like yeah and it's always always a hard one because you know the first day of these things there's just so much conversation happening that uh you know it's almost like an information download that first day and I thought man if this

keeps up the entire conference it's going to be uh pretty tiring and I I think it almost did but um a pretty cool cool exciting thing happened after that is uh there were there were a few rocket pool note operators and attendance there and one of those was a a person from the Discord here soulwax who happens to be a native um from Istanbul here and uh did something I thought was absolutely amazing uh had uh kind of approached the team and asked if he could host the uh the rocket pool meet up and hang out um but not just in a restaurant but actually on a uh boat that uh he has access to and uh you know he described it as a boat I would describe it as a

very nice yacht and uh what a wonderful um wonderful gift to the community uh for it so Soul wax if you're listening to this um thank you again for hosting us and showing it uh Darren you want to kind of explain this in some of the conversations and activities of the rocket pool um Meetup yeah so it was it was it was it was amazingly um kind of like generous generous of SB so um and the hospitality is off the scale so um I think so we we we plan to do some sort of community gathering at like a bar and so wax um kind of came up and said well

I've got access to a boat and we can go out on that it was an amazing day um it really was so uh we kind of like chilled out for a little bit um on on the top deck uh cruising around um the BOS forus uh um um swax was was kind of like pointing out a lot of the sites and that sort of thing he's uh he kind of got round to everybody and was was having a good chat to everybody and uh making everyone and feel very very um at home um and so um yeah so we got to see um we actually were amazingly lucky with the weather the day before it was absolutely terrible and the day after it was terrible but but that Sunday it was perfect absolutely perfect weather and

so we were cruising um along on the boat and um yeah it was it was a fabulous day um we had there some awesome chats uh we had people from eaker people from dap node um people from a few few other bits and pieces um a few node operators um and so yeah it was it was a very very nice day um uh then yeah so that that that was good and kind of L in until the afternoon um and then yeah it was it was it was yeah overall just a fantastic day yeah and I really much enjoyed I think some of the you know I'll call them real time conversations you could have with the community about you know the future of Rocket pool choices that

we see coming up um growth opportunities and potentials and I think it was just a really fun conversation um that went well into the night um just talking everything about rocket pool I mean the best way I could describe it is it was sort of like trading in real life I don't know if that's a a way to describe it but that's what it seemed like to me yeah and then and then so went also had a an I forgive me because I don't remember the instrument but it was it was basically a guitar on steroids and um uh it was like amazing performance by this guy who was who's kind of like shredding up songs and and that sort of

thing um uh so that was really beautiful to see as well and there may have been some Dancing Yeah we we should look for a couple of those videos of the of the dancing in there that's a yeah but just what a what a great um rocket pool uh just Community Meetup and again soulx thank you very much for everything you did and in putting that together uh it made it a very special event that I'll I'll certainly remember okay so then um so that took us through um I think that was uh on Sunday right so then it took us to Monday and Monday was now the beginning of Dev connect and um you know Dev connect if you're not

familiar with it it's um I'll say quasi sponsored by the ethereum foundation um they basically pick a place they pick a venue they assemble what's called a co-working space and if you had a chance to get a ticket I think it was 10 bucks to get a ticket to it um it's just a great area they take a huge convention area they turn it into a co-working facility it looks uh really elaborate um lots of nice tables lots of plugins good Wi-Fi uh good um you know drinks and little desserts little appetizers some very nice Zen rums and exploration but just a chance for you to kind of interact with the ethereum community um

conversation rooms and and then in the um the convention center that's there they have multiple floors and each floor is um independent protocols can come in or protocols that are focusing on one area can reserve part of that conference facility and conduct their own conferences and you buy tickets for those but then all the surrounding hotels in the Istanbul area also have meeting spaces and so you have all these um concurrent meetings uh which um adds to a little bit of the excitement but it also adds a little bit to the uh you know the uh the confusion or I guess dispersion of the of the protocol it's sort of like a maybe it's an an ethereum

in real life there you kind of have to choose your own adventure for it but one of the adventures that we chose next was the East Staker Meetup which was nearly right next to the uh the Congress Center where they were holding the uh the co-working space it was in the Hilton right next to it uh literally maybe about a you know 200 feet away 300t away um and it was the East Staker Meetup um and it was sharing the conference area with trust x uh folks and uh the East Staker I think had a tremendous turnout um they sold I believe more than 450 tickets uh they um they uh had demands for much more more than that so I know there's talking about kind of scaling

the size of this maybe in the future years um but now uh Darren tell us a little bit about um uh this experience from your point of view you guys had a booth there and um what was this conference like for you guys yeah so the staken summit was was quite cruisy for us because we we um we were just free range uh going around the conference um EA was a little bit more like there's not much organizing because the the booth is is pretty much all set up for you but um we spent a lot of time on the booth uh talking to people um and yeah again a very yeah I I kind of say there was a lot of people at the E Gathering so um very wide ranging people

as well you know we met node operators um different protocols different service providers and all this sort of thing um so yeah so there there was a fair few people um going through there we had a good spot with the booth um and uh we were kind of like sharing the area with um I think there was Sigma Prime uh Lio Diva statewise um and a few other people as well so um we had we had a good kind of spot um yeah it was it was really good there was a there was a lot of a lot of chat I think

my voice is um uh is is going because of that but um it's a yeah it was a really really good event yeah just a tremendous shout out to the east Saker crew that put this together um I had dinner with them last night and uh you know just a tremendous amount of volunteers from the East ster community that uh put together this thing and assembled in and I thought I added the opportunity to uh MC one of the rooms and I just thought the speaker lineup was exceptional um you know I'm looking forward to uh you know it's a little hard as MC because you have to uh you know you've got a lot of Duties in the background so I didn't get a chance to fully maybe immerse myself and all

the talks there's a few of them I want to go back and replay but I understood it was live streamed um so if you were viewing at home or if you view it online I'm sure it's recorded um You probably have a really good view of the presentations there and uh they had two concurrent rooms going so even if you attended you you you know you only saw half of it so I think a lot of people are going to watch the presentations on replay but um Darren you you did a presentation that I thought was just exceptional on 4788 you want to give just a a short gist of of that yeah so uh EIP 4788 existing um that puts the beacon state route or it

provides access to the the beacon State Route um by smart contracts and it's actually it's actually a funny one because it's a it's a really small EIP but uh it has the potential to to um some massive massively positive um impacts on the staking space so um essentially you know this this iip makes staking protocols um so much more efficient um so much more um so much more decentralized uh so there's um there's some issues with the with how it works with how kind of ethereum works at the moment where smart contracts can't actually see any information on the

consensus side of things and uh you know for most for most applications that's not really an issue but for staking applications it does pose um a big challenge so this actually fixes that and uh it means that you know um staking Protocols are going to become you a lot more decentralized a lot more trustless um a lot um a lot more efficient so yeah so and and also it opens up a massive design space for or kind of like new protocols or even like new staking related applications and and and that sort of thing so in my talk I kind of give a couple like a trivial example but

just to kind of like show how the EIP works but um but it's yeah it's a very exciting EIP it opens up a lot of um doors and we're certainly going to you know take full advantage of that um in ideally in satin um so uh so that we can kind of um yeah translate those um back into efficiency and and trustless improvements for rocket for itself yeah excellent and I I do encourage anyone it was I thought a great presentation and uh Darren you just have a natural ability to take complex items and make them uh very clear and simple and so I do encourage anyone listening to this call because of the importance of um this EIP that is

coming in Dan here at least it appears to be on the list I think they've kind of finalized the IPS and uh danab Cancun coming up here that uh you know I it's definitely worth listening to your talk I think so we can we can better understand it as a rocket pulled Community um I believe I believe you did it I believe you did a talk as well yeah yeah I did I did um I'm I'm I'm I I'm reciprocating but uh please please please give us please give us an idea about your talk yeah so so I had one that um uh that I've been wanting to do there's a research paper that I have overdue for um the pedal

here which was uh talking about kind of Mev theft and forced exits and what my presentation did and hopefully it's a Prelude paper I can get out here before the end of the year here which is on kind of the risks of stealing Mev it certainly has been if you've been following a lot of the conversations and the research channel it's really maybe the risk that is of greatest concern I think to lowering the bond for a mini pool and um you know it's uh there's a number of maybe there's maybe two strategies for stealing MAV and there's a number of what I would call countermeasures some that are much better than others but it basically

ended with um support for an EIP that's under consideration it's as I understand uh from from conversations with some of the um the coord Dev folks that I was able to meet here um not in consideration for denb but is uh maybe highly probable or um maybe hopeful I don't know the the the correct word or maybe it's just probable um for inclusion in Electra which is the next uh release afterwards I understand there's a lot of um lot of growing support for dealing with the Verge which is the veral tree conversion um but uh I do think that a number of the core

devs understand the importance of uh this this EIP that would allow execution layer triggerable um exits so from with the withdraw withdrawal credential and it's really maybe the biggest um solution to counteract uh Mev theft or at least uh limit the uh long-term impact of Mev theft um so this was this was I thought one great thing of uh the dev connect is there was this intermingling between protocols and the core devs where you could raise these questions you could share it and I'm optimistic because I did learn from a lot of the protocols that um that everybody has a need for this one Lio has a need and their road map uh igen

layer has a need for this rocket full certainly could benefit greatly from it so um you know my presentation was just these are the options and uh this last one EIP 7002 uh that's the executional layer um initiated withdrawals um or exits I should say excuse me um is really maybe the the best and most elegant solution all the other ones are really workarounds or or Band-Aids um on there I I think it went well uh it's always hard to put a lot in 20 minutes uh I haven't looked at it on video but um hopefully the paper that follows does a little better job in the presentation yeah that's awesome and and

the other two ones that I managed to catch were Justin Drake's and Denny Ryan's um talks and they were um they they were very good um so i' definitely recommend um people watching those yeah uh uh I got to say both of those were good um any any large takeaways from those two like uh like aha moments or things that were like oh that's interesting uh yeah I mean it's always good to see kind of um what's going on in in the researchers heads uh and that kind of that those those talks do give a bit of an insight into into kind of what they're thinking um it doesn't at the

moment everything's still a little bit open so we not you know we we don't know which way that it's going to go but um uh but it's it always is good to see that um Justin Drake also gave us a shout out so or in a way gave us a shout out so and uh so that was that was always nice to see yeah yeah I like I like that too and uh un Justin's talk the thing that really just I I don't know why maybe it was always there but it was really a realization for me was you know I kind of thought the merge was done right but I did not realize maybe all the technical debt or maybe all the parts of the merge that we don't use now as we've matured the protocol or thinking

different ways um and there's all these components that you know we don't need or we should maybe do a slightly different way and to me it kind of told me there's still a lot to do with the growth of ethereum and the maturity of the beacon chain and so I think that you know things are not going to solidify for for quite a while or aify for quite a while um and Rocket pull will really need to pay attention to where the core protocol is going and how this Evolution or development um may affect positively or negatively rocket pool but it really told me that we really should be paying close attention to this in our research side and um really understanding how these um

how these future thoughts of eum um interact with rocket pool yeah it's interesting some of the times they've they they've kind of like tried to look ahead and so they built things of like ahead of time and then and then end up not using them um which is you that that does happen in software development quite a bit um you kind of you you have to kind of like there's a there's a phrase which is you're not going to need it um uh in in software development where you it's is good to look ahead but you also at the same time you know things move so quickly um in particular the ethereum space where you know the research is changing all the

time um that you know things can change uh in the meantime so yeah know it's interesting interesting to see that yeah yeah it was definitely um de definitely one that I've got to go back it was very fast-paced I've got to go back and maybe understand it but it was um I was very glad to see the amount of thought that uh that Justin had put in kind of the future you know of it and I thought wow okay we've got some I mean I know he was smart but we've got some really smart people thinking thinking through these problems so that was good um and so that oh actually the same time as the

East ster Gathering um I went to the reaking summit as well um so uh and and did a panel with I think it was with figma figma and mantle and Lio [Music] and uh I will remember in Nate who the other person was uh but yes um that that was that was that was good that was kind of on like the connection between reaking and uh and and and staking protocols and or liquid staking protocols in particular um I think the everyone echoed pretty much the same thing on the panel our coinbase sorry coinbase was the other party um so I

think everyone um echoed the same sort of things you know we're cautiously optimistic uh on on reaing uh we kind of want to see how things work under the hood and all this sort of thing so yeah I think there's there's there's definitely a lot kind of happening in that space and I seems to be pushing forward with a lot of things and um yeah so it was was quite an interesting panel yeah thank you for bringing that up I totally had forgotten about that that heo with this Choose Your Own Adventure Mode that um you know you there there's so many options to choose from um what what does it look like in terms of it it seems

like there were maybe two big themes to this reaking was one of them and the other one might have been DVT technology as it is starting to mature here um in terms of reaking um what's kind of your forward-looking perspective uh do you ever see an opportunity for reaking from rocket pool either I guess we could already re stake or our eth holders could already restake their uh liquid Stak eth but uh what about node operator integration for rest staking um what's your um what's your foreshadowing look like on that uh yes so I mean it it is possible um I think actually Houston makes it

more possible um because Houston adds the the RPL drawer address so you can actually separate your e uh kind of principle and rewards from your RPL so that actually so it would be awkward to do it um today but after Houston it actually becomes very possible um we haven't started moving in that direction yet in terms of like really engaging um I lay on on it um there's probably two reasons for that the first reason is because when we did the the pedal prioritization uh reaking wasn't highest thing on the list um there's a lot of other things that were were kind of higher priority um the other the other

reason is if if we're honest you know there that cautiousness of we want to see it we want to see what what it how it works uh and that sort of thing first before we before we provide support um yeah and and like they're not they're not really they are kind of on Main net but they're not you know f ful fully deployed yet so we still got kind of some time um but ultimately we we will kind of review those those priorities and and and look at whether to do some more work on that um as I said uh Houston makes it easier and so that's great um but we'll kind of see how that

plays out um there's some strong kind of like demand from the community at some point then we'll we can definitely work on it but um yeah that that's I think that at the moment we've got kind of other priorities that we we're trying to um get out the door so those are the things that we're we're going to kind of focus on now but um we are taking you know we are taking one step closer with with Houston yeah thank you for sharing that I I you know personally I think I I agree with that strategy my observation is they're still trying to define a lot in the reaking uh ecosystem uh you know it seems to mean different things to different people and it seems to be developing quite a bit I learned a new

new term AVS and I forget what it is but it's uh something validated Services uh uh um still has to develop quite a bit and the other thing that I know get too late operator uh collateral to restake uh which would be I think an ideal thing for Rocket bowling for

the Ken I think you're breaking up for me I'm not sure whe that's me or you though hello

Ken can you hear me now oh perfect I I see a thumbs up there yeah sorry about that but was uh just simply agreeing that uh I do think that is the direction uh to go is to observe the space uh and that my hope is that uh rocket pool moves to ultra low E bonded mini pools and so therefore um you know they they you know it's a good thing there isn't much node operator eth to restake Beyond its a minimal commitment to the uh the beacon chain um okay so then uh then there was one final conference uh that you had an

opportunity to attend as well as myself which was the nether mine Summit um Darren you want to talk us a little bit about the nether mine Summit and um uh your experience on there yeah I mean that was a slightly smaller event but still very well attended um some uh some very interesting talks actually um um I think uh I watched one with ocean on DVT um I I think the the one the one that um uh was the standout for me um was was one moderated by a guy called Ken Smith um it was on execution layer client

diversity uh that that was probably the standout one for me well well thank you for saying that I actually really enjoyed moderating that one because I got to meet a couple of the um uh the devs on the execution layer side and uh couple of interesting things there it was um it was interesting to see Lighthouse there that is uh hoping uh with a partnership to uh produce a uh execution layer client so that would uh increase the diversity I think that would bring it to five execution layer clients or four if I'm losing losing track we had uh we had four members on the panel and I think we were missing uh the Aragon team so that would bring us to five um but the but the thing is that I learned is that it's

actually very important that we have diversity on the execution layer I I did not realize the importance of it I learned a little bit on the sideline that um you know there was a big push for consensus layer diversity uh pre merge because um they knew they had a stable client in G um they knew that the merge was very complex they knew that there would be security or safety if we had diverse CL cents and that did prove to be true I I chose one of the um uh one of the clients that was having difficulty around the merge um and but because we had good client diversity uh the merge was a success but one of the things that I learned is that if there

is a very severe fault on the execution layer and one of the execution layers um somehow incorporates an invalid block into the blockchain and it's by a super majority client uh that that's uh that's pretty much a death blow for ethereum we would have to do like some of these other protocols do and kind of roll back the chain or restart it from a from a you know quasi Genesis block or something like that and you know that would just be um you know very uh Devastation to ethereum uh so really I left that panel thinking that all you know everyone within the ethereum community should really um try to run minority um execution layer client so

anybody in the rocket pool community that listens to this if you're running uh the guest majority client uh please do consider changing uh with the um with the smart node stack with the fallback node if you have one or if you don't with the rescue node it is incredibly easy in rocket pull to switch your client still continue to make your add a stations allow it to resync and you can be running uh any one of the other minority clients so just a a point of advocacy here to um to to run a uh minority client both on the consensus layer but even more importantly on the execution

layer yeah that's right and um I think also I think Marius from from gu was was also kind of echoing some of the those points around you know they they don't necessarily um it's not it's not good from a core dev's perspective to to be in that position of uh of having such a because that that would didn't sound like a very nice scenario um to me so it be it' be good to completely avoid that if we can if we can from an ethereum perspective uh that would be extremely painful I think one somebody said that it would be far far worse than like the Dow or anything else um and so yeah so it's definitely worth um kind of looking

at that um and as Ken said you theck smart stack makes that super easy then the smart stack with the rescue node makes that super easy so um there there's kind of like no risk there to to like do that yeah and I will um I learned from the nethermind team that had sponsored this U this Meetup this conference that they did record these talks and it will take them about a week or two weeks they said to get them up on the web and as soon they are I'll make certain that the community uh knows where they are so they can watch them and then langers you were on a panel which is kind of interesting because I want to spend a little bit of

time talking about this and it was about solo staking uh and you know I I pretty much view anybody in rocket pool as being a solo Staker I mean some may say well wait a minute they're not entirely 32 e of their own but you know to me solo St a is you know you're the one with the keys you're the one making the decisions about the execution client and um you know what relays to subscribe to and you're responsible for running the node I mean to me that's that's really no different I suppose um you know there might be some um some organization right uh in that we're part of the rocket pool community and uh you know and so there

is a little bit of allegiance to that right so there could be some arguments maybe we're not entirely uh solo nodes but I was quite surprised uh maybe I had a little bit of foreshadowing it this week but uh one of the other uh guests up there on the panel with you was Dimitri from Lio and you want to talk a little bit about this panel and then maybe we could talk a little bit about uh uh some of the competition coming forward uh yeah so I mean it was interesting there was there was uh rocket pool lier and IG so kind of like an interesting um sort of panel but there was some some good good kind of like um I guess conversation and and

that's sort thing out of it so Lio and and Dimitri is kind of like part of that team um Lio are doing like a um a community staking module um where they're kind of hoping to do permissionless staking um uh kind of built into Lio so so that's that's very interesting um uh I mean we're already kind of like contributing a lot to the like s take effort in terms of lowering barriers to entry um but it is interesting with Lio kind of like entering the scene um I mean we already have kind of like a you know quite a solid um road map but I

think it it is definitely worth um discussing within the community um over the next few weeks and what what we kind of like do um with the a lot of that so um I think there's some good we like certainly you you and I have had some some some good chats and uh with I've been kind of like chatting with the team a little bit as well so I think I think we should definitely open up um some some uh conversation amongst the the community about um uh you what we do with some of that but uh I I think it's I think it's good like well I don't want Li to get more steak um uh that that would that would not be the best thing

um so I think we need to be we're we're already kind of like working on being as competitive as possible um but yeah we it' be good to kind of like um have those conversations and and make sure that we are the we're most competitive um uh to to line up yeah I think I think that was um my general take I mean uh you know I mean I guess um a couple of General takes maybe there's there's two of them I have from this entire cont conference and it's still not over for those that are still here in uh in Istanbul it still continues throughout today tomorrow and I believe even Saturday I had back for the states on Saturday but um you know um some general observations I have and I'd be curious uh Darren on on some of

yours uh here but uh the first one is attendance um you know it's a little hard to gauge the attendance when it's so distributed here but there were uh tremendous amounts of people that I would see just walk in town here um at the events uh I know that the East Staker one sold out uh really quickly um you know the the room space was such they probably could have accepted more because of kind of the in andout attendance of these uh these things but it was packed the co-working space was always packed um the nether mine Summit was packed um and there was just tremendous uh positive vibe and energy here I mean just uh contrasting for a

moment the permission list conference I went to seemed very I think they overbooked the facility and it was a little lower attendance so it seemed very sparse uh which kind of gave it a little bit of less excitement uh energy if I can I speak very highly of the bank list crew and the blockworks crew that put it on but maybe it was just bad timing or bad venue but uh Istanbul here seemed incredibly uh active positive I don't know uh Darren what's what's your thoughts on it yeah I'd agree I mean it is very difficult to see how many people are attending as you said I think it's very difficult to see how many people attend the conference because they spread over

so many different like uh you know little um kind of events micro events um but uh you know each each one that I went to had some some really good turnout for each of them so you know with with so much going on I mean there was there was like I I didn't get to go to any of like the L2 days or the um e so the economics one looked quite good I didn't get to go to that one um you there's so so many going on that you know if there's that much attendance that those those ones just that I I went to yeah there was a it was a very big a very big kind of attendance yeah no I've heard I heard

both things I heard they had more than 12200 attendees at the L2 days or some very large number like that and I caught the last to on economics and uh the room was packed I couldn't tell you how many people in there but more than a couple of hundred I'm sure it was one of the larger venue rooms there and um when I exited it um he somehow exited through another conference uh that had a lot of uh gaming you know blockchain based gaming and that was I took a second just looking at all the um the you know the consoles they had set up and number of people playing the games and so forth and I just thought well that's another use case that I had never really thought about or spent much time we're kind of

down on the lower infrastructure side of ethereum but it was neat to see a very Vibrant Community that had a tremendous amount of attendees in there as I was making making my way through their uh through their lobby area to get to the exits but uh yeah no it looked looked really great um the other observation I have and perhaps uh you know um you know it's maybe the thing that I'm most leaving with and most grateful to come here is I is I'm kind of leaving with a sense of urgency um you know I definitely saw in the staking rewards conference and seeing more in the East Staker uh Meetup that there are a number of uh what I would call new competitors in uh the uh

permission list or near permission list um staking uh and I think that's uh it's both an opportunity and it's a threat for rocket um but I I am kind of leaving this with maybe a sense of urgency that we need to engage with the community and really start to to hone our our future goals and uh road map ahead um but Darren what are what are some of your thoughts on that uh yeah so I mean I'm sorry there's going to be a little bit more noise because I'm I'm literally walking to my gate um so uh so I think I definitely I definitely leave with a sense of urgency but it's it's

not quite as bad as I it's not quite as as urgent as we as we suspect so a lot of the a lot of the kind of like newcomers they have a long way to go they have a long way to go to kind of like get to be able to compete with us um and so I don't see I see them as a as a long-term threat but I don't see them as a as a short-term threat um Lio is is probably the only one that I do um and there but even though even though uh this this whole CSM module thing you know it's announced as if it's it's here already but it's really not they've got at least um they said 6 to n months

which really that means 12 months um until that's going to be on Main so there's definitely they are definitely the biggest thre um I would say but we we have some time to to prepare and to uh kind of you know roll out our own um kind of you know counter counter competitiveness I Cur thing um I think I think newcomers actually in general are are fine I think as Li is pretty much the only one I kind of feel strongly about in terms of the competitive set because they already have this massive dominance and uh and they can kind of they can kind of use that to to their

advantage so I they're the they're the only one I'm very uh kind of very mindful of the other ones the other ones I think the other ones I think competition is good uh in this space we do need more competitors they they need to develop they and as as I said they've have a they have come of a very long rout when we get there um so yeah so that that's that's kind of like my my initial my initial thoughts you it's not it's not certainly not panic mode uh we we we already have a lot of these things uh kind of worked out um we just need to kind of clarify them and lock them in and execute them and then we're going to be very very comp yeah I think that's a very good way

to say it you know my my hope I'm very very excited for Lio to do to see their Community staking module this is one that is H kind of a you know an approach very similar to Rocket pool where node operators will deposit some uh collateral as a deposit I'm very excited to see Lido's uh engagement in a DVT module this is one where perhaps note operators won't deposit a a no deposit you know it's still under development but um would would be in a DVT cluster uh perhaps a partially permissionless partially whitelisted um My Hope though for ethereum as a whole is that uh this

would just help diversify the amount of stake that Lio has uh by taking you know a substantial portion from their whitelisted uh what they call their curated um Mo module and moving it into these more um decentralized and permissionless modules uh but I certainly uh for the sake of ethereum don't want to see more centralization of adding more stake to a single operator right I I don't believe any operator including rocket P should have uh you know that significant level of dominance of the uh the state de uh under their um under their protocol and um and like you I'm I'm hopeful for some of these

promising new staking protocols that are coming forward so I do think it I do think it offers like I said both an opportunity and a threat and um you know I I'm leaving here with maybe a new sense for a for a renewed call to action among rocket pool to kind of the community to engage and really think about our next steps and uh you know the opportunities for for growing the rocket pool community and growing the uh growing the protocol um and the opportune time does seem to be uh seem to be at present here because it's a rapidly growing ecosystem uh with a lot of new players now coming on board um Darren how are you doing for

time uh I know you're headed towards your your flight here but um uh did we have time to just do some quick updates about uh Houston and Saturn and um or should we uh start to wrap the call up a little bit here unfortunately I think I'm out of time I've got a I've got I've got a board now unfortunately but um uh we we will uh give better kind of updates on Houston and and everything else I can give you a very very quick one so with Houston uh we start audits next week so that's kind of like the key takeaway for Houston uh it's kind of like feature complete uh we start aits next next week uh and then from there it'll kind of be

more testing Alpha Testing and beta testing and all this kind of thing um so yeah that that's kind of like uh where at with Houston well excellent well I won't uh keep you any longer um langers it has been an absolute pleasure to hang with you and the rest of the team here wish I could give you a big hug goodbye here but uh safe travels on your trip back uh to ailand here and we we'll catch up in training or at the next Community call thanks mate have a good one it's great to see you all right thank you all for joining us today