Understanding the importance of visibility and clarity on Ethereum's scaling solutions, driven by data and visualization.

Transcript

[Music] okay all right so what is [Music] it of visibility and Clarity on ethereum scaling Solutions driven by data and visualization that's not the catchiest title I okay that's okay people don't leave no one's allowed to leave okay there we go hello good morning and I appreciate that you all out here after you know maybe some check beers last night um so one second there ah it's going through wait one second we don't want

that so um yeah welcome and I'm Tobias from grow thexyz and where I data analytics platform more details on that later on and uh yeah the title understanding the importance of visibility and Clarity on ethereum scaling Solutions uh driven by data and visualization so what does it essentially mean we have a lot of layer twos and layer 3es and other stuff coming up and I think we all a bit confused okay look what's coming up next and why are there so many layer tws and we're trying to bring Clarity into into that field and that's why we build a platform for that and of course that's why we pull data and we show um yeah

different uh charts and we produce kind of knowledge pieces around that so that you actually understand okay what's going on in the ethereum ecosystem so a couple of words um from my side I'm a product designer by background been Innovation Consulting trainer Motorsport lover and like to travel so I'm kind of traveling all these uh conferences uh usually and I'm one of the co-founders of grow the pi so doing design business development Communications and um so basically basically like we started last year actually with our platform and we got an ethereum Foundation gram because ethereum said like look uh we have all these layer twos and we need more data

we need more clarity actually on exactly all these scaling Solutions so in the beginning it was a layer 2 analytics platform but then it was pretty quick uh that you know everyone said like okay now we're developing layer threes right arbitrum orbit for example and like others do like a different approach so we said like look okay let's say scaling Solutions in general and we just focus on that because there's a couple of other data platforms out there and we said look um but mostly we probably stay in one ecosystem and we need like a clear part uh towards um yeah this this whole ecosystem and and what's happening in there is there any um idea or do you have any idea how many layer twos are

out there right now so let's say 5 5 any others 200 okay no well we're right in between so last time I checked on L2 beat uh it was basically 124 and growing so there's many unknowns out there right because that's basically just what the L2 beat guys and they do an awesome job um are tracking are researching and so there's 55 active projects according to them there's 44 upcoming there's a couple that already kind of are being shut down so goodbye to public goods Network for example unfortunately um and we have on the right side uh many layer three projects already so that means of course

it's not getting easier for the users right that's why I want to do a bit of a time travel actually uh in this talk uh do a bit of an an interactive session and uh go back in time and actually look at some of the the things that uh were happening in the past around you know know data knowledge and also um how kind of end users have been adopted uh much more so actually this is like one of the topics of of this talk so um for that I actually want to go back to October 2022 who attended uh Defcon in poota one two um so basically you see a couple of quotes out there so one of the biggest

questions uh almost one and a half years ago was how do we onboard the next one billion people using ethereum that was one and a half years ago right so I'm not sure if we already have the next 1 billion uh people already uh using this ecosystem um and there's a couple of reasons for that right one of the talks that actually kind of got got stuck in my mind was about language uh so there was a linguist um in poota and he said like look we're using language that normal people don't understand right of course like it's it's a very Tech driven environment but you know we're talking about if you imagine you you ask your grandma right now is trust less a good thing is like permission less a good thing is you know everything that we're

actually talking about is not very normally used in our daily language right so if we look at it from an end end user point of view we actually need to improve there there was already the talk around that so then we have the next thing is like wallets you know we all know it's pretty difficult to navigate all the different wallets there's like hundreds out there as well so which one should you use and then of course now we got layer twos and now you got funds on arbitrum and you want to use them more optimism because there's a specific uppr running on that what do you do then and um so that's why in general needing to there's the need to improve ux um around the decentralized apps and then of course there was this big talk around onchain data why do we

actually need it and people say look we actually have no data on the actual end users because we're not in web 2 anymore right we're not Facebook that can track everything and all the users but actually now it's been improved and we actually can use data also in a very kind of privatized way let's say so that also helps us to make informed decisions of where we as developers as designers as end users should be and um basically so like after after one and a half years now we're pretty much in the same uh same area still so do we how do we get out of here how do we get out of this um basement in a way and for that we're actually going further back in time and let's ask

ourselves for what happened in the Middle Ages right any ideas like anything Happ what happened like one thing that comes to comes to your mind straight away in the Middle Ages what's that printing uhhuh yeah going very getting very close but what I wanted to get at is like the scholars that basically had the knowledge right there there was monasteries and all the books were in there and there was huge walls we all know the monasteries probably if you go around go around Europe and so knowledge was basically constrained in these walls right and also like the people outside that didn't have the education to

actually understand okay what or they couldn't read they couldn't read all the knowledge that has been out there already and in China basically the same thing China has been like way ahead in back in the day all right like Europe just reinvented stuff that China already had but there that was also very constrained and I think a similar thing is happening um in the crypto world right now because I'm not saying that other developers can't read but I'm saying that uh you know also there we we don't onboard developers in the best way so this is a um this is a report by Electric Capital from like a couple of months ago and you see in all of crypto and when you actually go to the the page

developer report. you actually see that we only have around 7,000 active developers right now full-time developers right and if you compare that to the rest of you know the industry or like Bas the rest of the world basically the other Industries that's it's very minimal amount and you also saw uh right here on the right that the amount of active developers is actually going down which is a pretty bad sign let's say and um so that's why we need to do a lot as well to kind of onboard not just end users but also more developers right in in the right way um and then kind of let them make informed decisions to actually go further with their apps and with their their developments and now another thing like

like going forward from the Middle Ages to 2007 idea what happened in 2007 20067 pretty huge shift actually for like some adoption what's that that was a bit later but so basically there was uh the iPhone coming out right and the iPhone kind of started all that app development and that stuff but still you actually couldn't the first iPhone you couldn't install like third party apps so you couldn't actually you know just go on an app store and kind of download something and you know like uh really kind of I don't know use uh Facebook or whatever Apple basically constrained

that in a very very clear way um and people or let's say hackers then said look no actually this device is so powerful we can allow the users to actually install more apps right right before the actual App Store came out and um that was still pretty challenging because who actually so who like was jailbreaking their iPhone here just hands up quickly okay one two three including me so I I did as well four so there's a couple of people but of course you all knew that it's you know it's it's difficult right and it's you have to have some tech technical knowledge and then you kind of downloaded some uh some apps and your screen looked like

that and like Wi-Fi address data IP address and storage and so on like in a in a way that kind of looks similar to some of the decentralized apps we might have right now right so what I'm saying with this is we right now of course we have a good development and we're developing in a good way in terms of apps and but it's still very a wall around uh around this industry right we we're not letting other people in maybe in the best way in developer on the developer side and on the end user side and so basically how now do we get out from this basement and and discover the world and some of the things um that is it's just it's it's simple things that

might make your your project that you're developing uh more accessible so of course we need to use language and imetry that normal people really understand and value so there's a couple of developments I think like if you for example use the the clave wallet um and passcode right now that's actually pretty simple so you don't have to deal with private Keys anymore right so which is a pretty good um development already of course we have to be careful because we still have the challenge of now you need to trust developers right instead of kind of having like a centralized Bank let's say that normal people trust right now still let's say in the developed world and developing World it might be might look different um but now we actually we we shift the trust to the

developer side and how do we actually make sure as end users okay I can trust this developer and there's actually the things happening uh what they say that it's happening right if you think about for example worldcoin if you get your you know Iris scanned I mean what's happening between the camera and and and the rest so it's it's it's a huge Challenge and then of course you can use data to find your target audience in the place where you should kind of operate and and deploy right because we we saw there's a 124 plus layer juice and the number is growing out there so where should you as a developer be right like just considering the ethereum ecosystem I mean there's so many other ecosystems out there we all know Solana is pushing

a lot now you know to get more enduser adoption driven by VCS um so that's that's a it's it's a huge challenge but it's a doable one and of course designed for a real problem a real target audience that you can often found and not just ourselves yourself and so on I mean that's that's a pretty normal thing and of course uh pay attention to your ex youi differentiate yourself um so and not just a funny u meme picture because I mean we all like it and we know look we can use the latest uh defi app or yield farm that has a new animal in its name or like an icon or whatever a new meme coin but of course like thinking ahead and thinking okay well how do we

get other users on that really trust different different um imageries like when you think about fintech for example also fintech in the beginning had a pretty bad image or no one actually used them that much because like going from you know like the big Banks HSBC like a fintech revolute for example um was was pretty challenging so um but they still had a better user experience actually but it's also about the the image around the brand let's say to get the normal people on board and of course also ask yourself the questions have a thought about the whole user Journey user experience journey and um do I still keep walls around my own ecosystem right

so like what what is like which like who do I not yet address and um I think that's it's uh it's pretty important if for example like the whole user Journey experience us yeah user experience Journey so when you kind of imagine you develop a nice app um but you haven't thought about the whole process like you you think like okay look I have that next fintech maybe but how do people actually then onboard uh the funds right without maybe like a very complicated wallet without using metamask for example um so people like usually uh what what I'm what I'm seeing is that developers start later on right they say look we have this nice app that people can use it but then actually don't

forget about the steps before about how to actually get people like get their funds on like a certain layer too as well so if you're deciding to to deploy an arbitrum right now and but your actual other like actual target audience might be more let's say public goods driven for example they might be more on optimism might be more on the super chain and then of course it's a challenge to actually get into uh the arbitrum ecosystem for example and then of course also make data driven decisions so kind of really looking at the different layer twos looking at the data uh looking at the usage data of the layer twos and uh really deciding okay what's uh what can I do where can I position myself as a project as a developer much better and um so and that

just has benefits for you as a developer so the likelihood that you actually fail in one ecosystem is reduced because you decided early on to go with a specific layer to that also kind of um is is actually the case for other um other let's say blockchains that might be changing to become a layer to like cell is the best uh example they've been a layer one for a long time and they evaluated it for for quite some time around the values that they want to drive with their users and which like stack should they now actually join so they they thought about of course optimism they thought about arbitrum they thought about the polycon cdk but in the end after kind of I think evaluating for it for like four months

five months also from many different sides they decided to go with the the op Stacks or the super chain because it just fits much better with their you know sustainable image and and the public goods image and um if you have these um like the data points around you know I decided on my target group because of some some some data because of some charts you have a better um like better just better data to kind of also uh convince your investors um that you made this data these data driven um decisions and um yeah and of course kind of you can differ yourself differentiate yourself without the technical Jon and so basically what we

are trying to do with with grow to high is really that we we provide some of this data as well for you and that's why I prepared some you know I want to show you some metrics that really could help you as developers to really make this these data driven uh decisions so on the platform just is a quick introduction um of course you can see the let's say the health or the growth of the overall um ethereum scaling ecosystem um but we have some fundamental metrics we have blog space usage where you know we label smart contracts also with the the lab open labels initiative that we kind of co-founded and by doing that we can categorize smart contracts we can categorize projects and you actually see

look what can you as a user or as a as a builder um decide on where to build and really where to uh deploy your smart contracts on where to find uh your actual usage and then we have a single chain analysis because you'll see that only one metric will not help you right like many people look at you know daily active addresses but we'll see maybe in a bit that that might be a skewed um yeah might be a skewed metric actually and can easily be uh yeah be be gained let's say and so how do certain metrics actually help you and that's why I want to just show you like a couple of brief uh um brief things where look that's the

overall um user base right now for uh for the layer 2 ecosystem so we don't have all the layer TOS that L2 beat has but have we have a selection like the biggest tvl basically there's only met missing right now and basically you see like around these 17 uh layer twos like the growth is actually quite substantial since like 2022 so since basically um like Defcon um and kind of we hit last week we actually hit a hit a milestone but then went down quickly right and one of the reasons was that when we look at um arbitrum for example arbitrum had all of a sudden like a spike in uh active

addresses so you see that when you when you kind of uh zoom in and then uh that's why the whole layer to user base of course all all of a sudden went up for example um but actually going back you see that the the overall usage is quite is quite uh like Diversified which is a nice sign right because a lot of people always think in like in a in a way that it's competition um but actually that's why that's that's kind of our story as well growing the pie that's how it started in a way that all the different Latos right now can actually kind of position

themselves in a different way I mean V also just talked about it um in his latest blog post about the different subcultures um so that's why it's actually it's a nice thing to see that there's different uh layer twos focusing on different things and when you actually go then to the blog space usage so as I said like we also one [Music] thing so when you go to the chain overview um so there's a couple of different layer toos and then you clearly see look what's going on on these different um different layer to so if you for example talking a lot about nfts um then you will clearly see look Sora is actually now the chain to go

right we all know like ethereum itself main net has been the the go-to chain for nfts but now since the scaling like road map is playing out it's actually now showing luxora is one of the key chains to be on as an as an nft artist for example so with your project so you can make that informed informed decision um for example or of course as an end user um to go and see okay what's happening and of course when you like speaking about defi then you can go down and see uh different um like projects that are actually running on um the different the different chains like in this case arbitrum and that as a you

know as a developer if you look at this data and say look there's already an audience and I might want to tap into that audience or actually there's there's too much competition I might want to avoid it through different metrics you can actually make these more informed decisions especially if you're also looking for outside capital for example and then you have uh then you have the the actual data um a nice thing about and like coming to an end here um soon was also so the the recent metric that we introduced was um so-called throughput um so because like a lot of uh different uh data platforms they said look we're looking at the transactions per second but it's hard to compare with different Tech behind it it's hard to

compare actually the different chains with um transactions per second and now um like we see there was a flat line for um for Bas for example and Bas just in um introduced like an upgrade to their chain and now they're allowing for more throughput so they always have to test because like otherwise that chain might fail and we know that from other chains I think that they that they quickly fail and uh so here we see that actually now base um has still a higher throughput but for example um the where is it um the active addresses are actually going down which first of all would you would think like doesn't make sense right

because like if you have a higher throughput actually there should be more active people but that just is an indication there might be more complex applic ations now running on base not just like simple swaps or like simple transfers so uh which is which is quite interesting and you see clearly that when we literally look at the throughput again so that's the the actual metric you see there's a lot of uh there's a lot of things um really flat so you see optimism is always at maximum capacity basically and that also means we had it in the in the talk uh before that also decides on how much you're actually paying on a different layer too so if you as a developer then are developing an let's say an application where you

need cheap fees um then you actually should look at kind of chains that really have the ability to have a higher throughput and which is interestingly also linear for example by by consensus by metamask so they they actually have a peak um throughput right now of 10 megag gas um which is like one of the highest right now that we have out there so and they as you see they're actually not at all at capacity at the moment but base is actually already again reaching capacity but they are on the way of like upgrading the chain along the way to one giga gas so we have mega right now and they actually want to reach one giga gas so that's just one example and then of course that all affects the fees and

which you as a as developer can also compare maybe as a as a last note this heat map for example might also be interesting to you we already always saw like an outlier with optim optimism and when you look at the heat map like when is it expensive to kind of do something on different on different chains um it's actually interesting because U most of the time during Asian trading hours for example optimism is at is very expensive because there's a lot of Perpetual um like apps like being used on optimism during these times so that's when you as a developer or as an end user also know look I should actually avoid um optimism at around that time because I unnecessarily pay pay more gas than needed right um so yeah I think that was

a a brief intro and different metrics that you could look at and I hope that makes sense to you and uh yeah thank you you can follow us that's it thank you so much uh I realized we met at the lineal AB boo takeover yeah yeah in in Denver yeah in Denver I'm a huge fan of gr theie by the way I think yeah anyway huge fun uh question one two uh yeah I just wanted to know whether uh you think I like the thing about how you said it's distributed the weekly like the transactions and other things but I was wondering if in the future you think the power law will kick in even for l2s or

will it continue to be distributed going ahead yeah I mean for sure I I think like there there's not going to be like endless amount of uh of different layer twos I think we're going to see individual Stacks I I think that's what we're already because that's why we're looking at um already having a new metric that says look the the actual stack accumulated um so when you we then look at arbitrum when we look at optimism when we look at polygon and so on and CK sync obviously and I think there it's going to be interesting of course how the distribution is is going to be but there's going to be a lot of purpose-built um layer to which is also like a challenge for us because right now we have 17 and uh of course we don't want to like swamp the platform with

like uh 100 different layer twos which is then very very complicated obviously um of course we we're we're kind of doing that in the end but it's probably going to be more app specific chains which also makes sense uh for for different um for different yeah use cases let's say um but of course I think it's going to be individual Stacks that are just you know um providing the tech and like the super chain when you then upgrade then every other layer to basically get this upgrade as well there was a question here yeah thanks thanks for the talk also a big fan of your site um when it comes to

the category comparison you see that base has actually the most uh the highest percentage of unlabeled contracts is that related to the fact that also the unique users are going down there's more unique contracts that aren't labeled yet or no actually not I it's actually a sign that the the the ecosystem is healthy because we are too slow to actually label okay all right yeah it seems like a good that's that's the actual reason that's why we actually also founded the open labels initiative because our long-term goal was to not label or do the labeling ourself but to kind of Outsource thats with the community and kind of have basically it could open up a retroactive funding for them as well so if you know individual users can then kind of label more in a in a trusted and verified way so that we always always kind of get down to almost

let's say 0% uh unlabeled yeah exactly okay cool and then one more question about the categories blast I don't see a breakdown of their categories am I missing something yeah yeah because like for some chains we don't have that yet because it's quite for for some ecosystem is more complicated to actually get the block space data um but yeah that will come over time okay thank you very much cheers thanks all right one last question I actually have one I I used to leave business M mask right like for an users they actually don't look at chains they only look at deps do you guys have planed to like officiate the chains and just highlight more of the depths I know you already do a little bit Yeah so

basically we already also got an optimism Grant to um say we look more at the applications um because we're totally public goods funded by the way so that's that's why it's free for for everyone always to use and so we're going to have a more application view so where like the layer twos are a bit kind of hidden behind behind the at the applications because that's what we need uh as well to kind of make it easier to understand right yeah cool and also um I'm launching a layer to as well so to make your life harder anyway thank you guys our next speaker reschedule so we'll have 30 minutes break thank you [Music]