Winning Adoption, but Losing Freedom? | ETHWarsaw [4]

So, we're going to be starting in a moment, but let's give it until my watch says 132. Okay, it's now 32. So, um right now we're going to have a panel uh about uh instit about institutions and adoption and uh are we losing freedom or is it really really good that institutions are uh joining the web3 communities and uh we have today we have with us crypto from uniquely we have sheovic from ramp network uh we have Evo Pak from developers we have MF a web privacy now uh activist I would today and uh your host will be Monica, our very own and very best uh mother of dragons. Give a big round of applause for the whole panel and have fun.

Yes, thank you for the introduction. You did a part of my job. Thank you. Uh so uh today I wanted to ask uh a few questions about uh you know uh institutions joining Ethereum ecosystem and uh if we are you know winning adoption but maybe losing freedom what are the uh tradeoffs of uh institutional adoption uh in the ecosystem. It's nice that uh we are being recognized and that uh our technology that we've been building for years is finally finding its uh use cases.

But uh yeah, what are the risks of of it uh happening and yeah uh I'm here today with some u amazing speakers and yeah please introduce yourselves. I have one now too. Thank you. Um, good afternoon everybody. My name is MF.

Um, my normal name is Mil. I'm not that anonymous anymore after some people took a lot of pictures of me. Kind of the doxing tends to happen in this industry quite often. Uh, I work with web privacy now and next to that I also work in postquantum encryption with XX network and do a lot of site things next to that. Um, yeah.

Um, uh, just to make sure, the MF, it does not stand for [ __ ] I know we all like to think so. It stands for Mikail Frankie, but yeah, thank you for having me.

Uh, hello. Test test test. Okay. Hello everyone. Uh, Jim, I'm Evo, uh, CEO and co-founder of developers or simply the V.

You could see our cool monitor there. Uh, so developers are the production grade software engineer team. Uh at this point we we work with uh a few leading blockchain foundations and we focus purely on web free engineering. Hey everyone, Sham Kavalek. Uh I co-ounded and I'm leading ramp network as CEO.

Uh at RAMP we are on boarding uh masses to the crypto. We are building on ramps and offramps that are embedded into crypto wallets like metam mask, trust wallet, exodus and others. uh and now we are still uh developing new things. So in over the short span of time maybe few months we're going to see hear more from us. Yeah.

And uh hi everyone I'm Crypto Paul. I'm a developer at Uniquely IO. I'm an Ethereum enthusiast, privacy enthusiast and I also run my Ethereum node at home as a hobby. So yeah.

Yes. Uh we had last minute change of a panelist at Chris asked me to apologize uh his fans. Uh but I think uh Paul will do a great job.

He will.

So the first first question, Ethereum grew out of the cypher punk vision. Uh and uh what do you think how much this ethos matters right now? Shank. Oh me uh interesting. So um I think first we need to understand where we are uh in time and uh I think it's very special moment like I feel like it's still we are not fully recognizing it in the ecosystem but crypto finally is getting adopted like the on on the market we have the crypto products that are serving normal people and businesses around the It's no longer just about the speculation.

It's not just about the investment. We are on the brink of the new era and we need to recognize it. Uh and uh this is a very special moment in time and uh the things are going to be different from now on. Uh this is finally the moment that we all hoped for to exist at some point. Um but you ask about the ethos and ask about the uh how this is important today.

And I feel like this is especially important today so we don't lose the um the ideas the values that are coming behind the crypto and about the blockchains today. uh because we are in this um times when uh we may actually you know want to go even faster and um go to the faster adoption and to spread it even even quicker and potentially um do some trade-offs and I think um remembering why we are doing it and why remembering why this is important in the just besides the I don't know speed of transaction on the global scale scale of money movement but actually thinking what are the values about the privacy about the uh uh trustlessness about the uh permissionless aspect of crypto uh about actually owning your money I think remembering today and making sure that when we build new products for this new group of users we need to remember what are those values and I think this is not just that those like if you're building with those values you are doing the tradeoff. So it's not like you're going to lose uh some users but actually if you do it right if you put those values and market those values right you can actually hope for more users in the long term.

Yeah. But uh does the ethos matter like um we are getting this adoption and we are really proud of it but maybe we don't need our ethos anymore like Evo maybe you would like to add something to this.

Yeah sure. Uh yeah I think uh let's uh maybe start with short question uh who uh is here from institutions. Okay. Yeah. Uh we are here still uh which makes me super proud.

Uh yeah I think like the Ethereum soul is is what many people will say it's like programmable money. Some of them will say it's the the biggest um financial settlement layer right now in the world. Um I think what I like what Vitalik mentioned is this credible neutrality. So and we're get back to we get back to values here. So it means you can be and um use the network without um like that the network itself Ethereum doesn't matter who you are and that's the most important part of it.

So it doesn't matter whether you are from what country you are whether whether this country issue you passport whether there is some compliance in your region or whether you are poor or very rich it doesn't matter and what's the biggest value of Ethereum is that it's entirely like it runs all the time right so um and and there is this what we care mostly is the sovereignty uh where you actually um you can you can use the network in a way that you trust the algorithm you don't need to trust the institution the people so if that would changed uh that would change uh I I think we are done but there is nothing currently um that will give us the the reason to think of think like that

yeah so Evo mentioned uh Ethereum being a settlement layer and uh I'm wondering Do you think that Ethereum will be just a settlement layer or individuals will still be using uh Ethereum because it's uh secure and resilient? What do you think MF?

Um I think there's a very big difference looking at the purely techn technological approach of what we work with. Um we have a consensus layer, we have a settlement aspect of this. Um obviously we can move money from A to B and in one way uh a transaction base like Swift can also do that. But what really differentiates in my opinion there outside of just the peer-to-peer based settlement in this sense is that it's uncensor it's like um censorship resistant. um you cannot stop me necessarily from sending eat from to whoever I want.

We can we've built systems now that can limit this and for example if I use USDC people can freeze this. If I use tornado cache people can put me on a blacklist and restrict my behavior on chain. Nonetheless, that does not stop me from using tornado cache. That does not stop me from building my own mixet or my own tools that can implement this kind of a behavior. What does change is with who I can interact with.

And as long as you can interact with the people you choose to interact with and they are also willing to interact with you, the ethos and purpose still remains the same. It doesn't matter that much that I might not be able to use USDC because I use tornado cash and now suddenly I'm on a blacklist. A lot of people can tell me don't use my tool. What does matter a lot is that individuals can always make their own alternative and as long as there is no uh larger institution being or larger individual that can actually restrict this access level and restrict the usability of this settlement layer. In the end, people can keep using it the way they want it, no matter how these institutions define their freezing rules or the limitations.

Sheck, any additional thoughts? I think there is uh uh it's exactly as you said MF uh you have the um the layer of Ethereum that lets you to interact with it uh without with like that is censorship resistant but we need to remember about those user apps that still can censor your access and um I think when you thinking holistically about the ecosystem. It's not not just about the settlement layer but also it's about the those uh applications and if we are thinking about how to how to add the most goodness to the world um the uh we need to remember that people are not going to be always using the settlement layer but they're going to interacting first from the application layer and uh it's not just about having the ethos when how in how we building Ethereum and I think This is important for this for this layer to be censorship resistant and for the validators to not know what's happening for example in the blocks and just add them to the to the chain but um uh also this is important at the application layer because the to today users are interacting through the applications and uh many applications are going to still have network effects within those applications. So prohibiting access to some of those applications is going to meaningfully hurt their access to uh those applications.

Yes,

thank you. Um just to add to that, um I think it's also important to remember that this level of censorship resistance is not always applicable to the standard user. the average user does not involve themsel in the kind of a behavior that might get them censored on a general base. These applications, let's say for example, unis swap that allows people to swap and behave with each other. U most users will use the application front end and if people really need to use this liquidity pools, they can always interact with the network themselves.

Does it create an extra barrier for people to be able to interact with this network and creates that more friction for a general, you know, if everybody would do this? Definitely. But that does not necessarily decrease the resilience of the network because if people really need to, if they really want to, the way is still there. And as long that that way does not necessarily get censored, um the applications can create their own rules. And you know my house my rules is a very fair fair concept but it also does not mean because it's my house that there's no certain foundational laws that can restrict the behavior inside that house.

Um, and of course the application layer is now the the hot topic on how we behave with the settlement layer of this infrastructural behemoth because let's be honest, it's not always easy to just immediately deal with contracts and the average person doesn't even want to deal with a contract or they shouldn't even know they need to deal with a contract. Um, no less as long as we can promise and keep allowing the average person to have a path to utilize this infrastructural behemoth on which the application is built upon. In the end, the only thing we are restricting is the easiness and the UIX UI systems which is something that is quite surface level.

Can I add to that? Yeah, the the one thing uh because we we always look at okay how how much uh ETFs are um are coming in etc. But we are for example forgetting that I think something like 35% of validators are now uh OA compliant relays which actually means that 35% of the network uh can remove your transactions if they want. I mean thanks god it's 45% right but it means that um relays what are relays it's like a server that software that that validators uses uh it can just blacklist you maybe not forever because good validators will at some point uh add your add your transactions to the network but that's a huge problem and I think Vitalik is very concerned about that there was like a mess discussion on X I think year ago or something Uh so it looks like application level is one part actually entire crypto is now running on preview. Um so pray for for preview database.

Uh but on the infrastructure level uh then the problem is that maybe validators validators are the the back door.

Yes. And I'm wondering how does this um change the the culture of the Ethereum because if uh we had users that were very technical, very very you know crypto savvy and uh they were knowledgeable enough to interact with blockchain itself and now we will have many users that are interacting with apps only. How does uh this change uh the culture of Ethereum Paul?

Um yeah, so uh how does it change the culture of Ethereum? Well, we got I think we got two types of people in the current Ethereum community. Uh the first one is the old class from maybe 2017, maybe earlier. uh those people entered crypto maybe more for uh ideological reasons like initially the community was like cipher punks there it was like privacy enthusiasts it was more about uh you know like showing a middle finger to the corporations to the government uh like you know the initial uh message behind bitcoins uh and if you compare the current community now it's more of people from startups from corporations from other like uh other institutions which are more like which don't really value the original uh ethos before of Ethereum. They just came here because they see an opportunity to maybe monetize stuff maybe extract some value.

Uh yeah so we got those two types there. Uh could you remind me what was the question again? Uh yeah. How does it impact the culture? Like is something changing or are we staying you know unicorns and kitties still?

Oh yeah. So I think there's there is technically space for both of those groups there. Uh well if you look at the early apps which we which were uh more part of the earlier part of Ethereum you got uh uh maybe let's say tornado cashache you got unis swap the og unis swap not the current one okay maybe maybe the unis swap is a good example uh or maybe not wait let me think about it uh we got two types of apps okay let let me start again so currently many apps on the front end they got so much rules about who can interact with those apps, who cannot interact with them. Uh I know one person who's a normal user of Ethereum, but one day he just received a payment for someone who was more like linked to someone more dodgy on chain and now he just cannot use unis swap. He just cannot use matcha.

The front end just doesn't let him because his wallet is flagged. Uh and I I don't really like this s sort of thing. Uh I think if you host a DAP it should be more unhinged more like sensor strip resistant. Uh maybe it should be hosted on something like IPFS where uh you just can connect to it trustlessly. Um yeah like I think that's the direction which in which uh developers should be building.

should be more unhinged uh more central strip resistant less caring about uh regulations less caring about compliance because that thing is I think it's killing our industry killing the original idea behind it because look let's say you go somewhere I you sell your old old console for cash right you don't know where you receive where you receive this cash from uh but it it doesn't prevent you from spending it anywhere right but currently on on Ethereum you can link all the traceability of the E you receive the cryptos you receive all the tokens you receive and if some app believes you're linked uh to some dodgy wallet you're just like banned from using it and that's not how it's supposed to work uh so I think we need like you know more privacy more I hinged stuff more sorry I saying unhinged too much but I really mean it you know

yeah and you say there should be more unhinged uh stuff but uh is there like uh are those uh things still happening or are we seeing you know inflow of more serious um projects? Okay. So if you're a corporation of a new startup which entered the space recently, obviously you will have to do you will probably do it the traditional way. Ask for some legal opinion. Uh think of some regulations, maybe cut some features.

Uh but also if you're an anonymous developer, those maybe don't really apply to you. You can do more uh more stuff that's that's more fun. For example, nothing technically nothing nothing is preventing you from creating your own stable coin like backed by E for example, you know, like like liquidity maybe. It's purely smart contract based. There's not much uh influence of the governments that can impact it and you could you could probably do it as well as a normal developer.

But if you're a corporation or a startup then obviously you have to uh maybe consider the regulations and maybe avoid certain stuff that you can do. So yeah uh if you're I believe that if you're an anonymous in this space it's more beneficial because you can do more stuff you can do more fun stuff maybe have some privacy which you otherwise wouldn't be able to do if you're a normie. Is that's what you were looking for?

Can I Yeah. So um I I mean I wanted to ask you so um you say to be more unhinged more um careless in the terms of the abiding to the regulations and I'm I'm curious about what's the real world solution for this because the actions that you're taking as a business uh and as an individual within this business have consequences real world consequences you can if you are not uh abiding to the laws then you can be jailed you're going to be jailed at some point if you get to some particular scale and uh you're going to get fined. So um the question is like uh like what's the how how you view this like how would you do this

actually? Okay. So I mean uh yes maybe you can get jailed for it. Uh we've seen instances of that with uh tornado cashache where I believe it's totally unfair but who said that the ethereum has to like live in peace with the government and the corporation. It was supposed to be an altern alternative.

Uh so you know I mean don't have you that was the original ethos like staying away from the government the corporations and now it's it's something else. So yeah, maybe maybe you could get jailed if you build uh something like tornado cashache, but that you know that that's life. I'm I'm not I'm not saying I'm not saying is it is it working? Okay. I'm not saying that everyone should build unhinged stuff, but if you want to if you want to stay anonymous, then you know go ahead and do it because I believe that's Ethereum as ethos and not just staying aligned to what the governments say and the corporations.

I mean also not not every app has to Oh, thank you. Thank you. Uh, also not every app has to be a business. You can just do fun stuff.

Yeah. And they also first need to find you. If you're good enough with your privacy systems and your OBSC systems, um, who are you? You could be a random username on Ethereum. Uh, you use rail gun or any other mixet systems to hide your traces.

Um, I'm not even talking about necessarily the the very dark side of these kind of a tools, but just people who want to experiment with these kind of a technology and they want to build things, try out new things without being worried about these um potential consequences in one way or another. There's so many tools available to avoid those. Obviously, they'll restrict you as well. You might not get access to just as much liquidity. You might not be able to use your personal reputation.

you might not be able to use all these other benefits of not being anonymous gives you. But at the same time, um, who says the governance has the best interest in mind as well? Which government is another question when we're working with a global governance layer? Um, are we talking about the European government, American, Asian, Russian, Chinese? which one is going to tell us what you're allowed to do with your bits and bots and which ones will tell you which is right and not right.

In the end, what is correct is uh a subjective approach that we take as society and try to follow in a combination. But I'm also pretty sure if we would actually look through the big book of laws that on the daily we would probably be breaking some laws without even being aware of this. um the enforcement of this is obviously easier without these uh privacy tools in one way or another. But I would even add to that you know if you are arguing about the rules of business um you know corruption is also a rule of business in its own retrospect not that I support corruption but it's how many countries are doing business. Does that mean that is right or not?

Obviously, it's illegal in some countries, but that doesn't mean it does not happen. At least with these kind of tools we are currently having, there are some more transpirals available to avoid these kind of an issues. But you should feel free to try that. If you're trying to build a governmental legal stable coin that can be used to pay for your breakfast, you should also be allowed to do so. that does not necessarily mean these two worlds should be mixed or if they are that they necessarily need to be able to achieve the same goals.

So I think it's a very good point. I'm sorry Monica if you're you're breaking the flow. Um I you mentioned ethics and personal ethics and I think that's the uh a great uh great point because in the end if you are going against the um societal rules you kind of taking the you kind of you want to take the like I feel like you you should take like the responsibility for what you're allowing for to happen within your with your tools. Um because the if you're allowing some of the um uh for crime to happen through your applications or through your your tools that you're developing. I think the question is what where is the okay sorry to start let me start again.

So I think my question is like where's the resp where's the line of things that you're responsible when you're building a tool that is later used for a crime?

Um I'll counter that first with a crime to who? Um that's more like who's the judge of this line. Uh is it us putting down a boundary that says when you cross this boundary with your toes now you're a criminal? Are you

No, I'm not talking about the uh lines in the sand of the things like that that you know you should get jailed if you are making uh uh some kind of transfer between two different uh accounts. No, I'm thinking about the real world crime like the let's say that someone uses the tools to as North Korea for example to um uh uh to finance their own terrorism operations in the other countries. And definitely there, you know, there might be legal and international geopolitical consequences for that. But I'm also happy I'm not a politician, diplomat or judge or lawyer in that same sense. In the end, you know, you can use a hammer to build a house and you can use a hammer to crush somebody's skull in.

That does not mean the hammer should be illegal. Having tools where you can create a system especially with encryption systems and looking specifically at ZK. Um the plausible deniability fact makes it possible to create these kind of a systems where you can act as a neutral party the moment you implement the judgment of what is good or bad. You are starting to leave this layer of neutrality and take a certain agenda which you might be just as well free to do. So everybody has a right to follow their agenda and you know be open or not open about it but in the end um you can use a hammer in a lot of different ways and if we start restricting people to use a hammer and you can only use a hammer with this specific kind of a nail we are again following the same traps of previous systems where bureaucratic will overwin in the end rather than actually efficiency.

Yes. And I think that's the like like but I think this is not a black and white. Uh you cannot just say that oh I just built a tool. I just built uh this nuclear bomb that is very cheap to build and I put an instruction on this and everyone can just use it. Um and then uh everyone can just you know take it and use this as well.

But this they are they are guilty of building it. And I know this is extreme example. I am just like the I I feel like there is this is a spectrum like this is not a black and white discussion of hey I just built a tool that is completely neutral and this is going to be neutral in all the cases and every tool is going to be neutral. I'm just I I want to make a point that I feel like there is some kind of personal responsibility that you need to think about when you're building a tool and putting this into human's hands.

Yeah. And I would like to shift the perspective a bit because uh we are building things the way we think it's right and uh yes we are thinking about resilience privacy and so on but uh we see that adoption comes with institutions actually and uh people before were scared of crypto and the reasons you are talking about like yeah I can build my own tornado cashache uh is the reason why people were scared of crypto before like there were many scams nothing to protect them from from the scams they weren't able to identify you know the risks the or you know the leg legitimacy of smart contract and so on. So do you think um like the ethos matters to people like uh in general like to is it important for mass adoption or maybe ethos is something that is holding us from uh holding us back from mass adoption?

Um yeah so I mean for sure smart contract hacks uh were super loud. So um almost everyone everyone was scared of them and with all the new uh like for now for example for now you have open- source formal verification you even without spending a lot of money on audits of course still you should but uh but there is this um additional level right now of the protection because a lot of uh hacks were done already so there is uh less of attack uh vectors uh the problem with I mean not with your question but uh with who we talk about right now because the new people that are coming are coming through the ETFs mostly right now so what I'm afraid is like they hear Ethereum but what they understand it's like a price exposure so they don't care about this ethos I I don't believe they do the research they are like interested how the wallets works they don't care and what what I feel right now is that if the price drops And of course it will at some point up and down we we all all know it somehow is that they will hate Ethereum and hate this ethos. So when the institutions will start trying to to to block us as the web free society no one will be trying even to defend us because in their memory Ethereum is bad web free is bad because they just saw just saw the numbers. So what I was thinking is like the big companies web free companies we are all customers of should less spend time on a budget on marketing new features new products but rather try to reach the people that are joining the next wave of people through the ETFs or through the Bloomberg posts and educate about this ethos and without this I think in three four years we will have way bigger problem right than right now because someone will destroy it somehow.

Yeah. So maybe there's also a question if we as uh you know the community behind Ethereum uh can we protect uh like the future of Ethereum like how can we impact the products uh that are built by institutions right now can still be like built within the Ethereum ethos maybe Paul.

Okay. Yeah. So there are quite a few things you can do uh to protect the ethos. Uh well the general idea that I have is to just where wherever you can you should promote the idea of censorship resistance because that's the most base part without which like nothing works. Uh now you can go to Ethereum research forums, Ethereum magicians, uh look at the fossil debate, the forc inclusion lists.

Uh well that that's some there's like some discussion about uh if we should make validators force to if you can force validators to include certain transactions even if someone doesn't feel like it. I well personally I think we should do something like this uh because otherwise we see a growing trend of validators uh censoring uh we see of a compliant validators which is not good. Also, you got some mining pools which are based in the US and they're kind of forced by governments uh to sensor stuff. And while I'm at it, you should also consider running your own validators. Uh you can do it with eight I think I think now you can do it even with four if via rocket pool.

Uh you could uh run a full node the gold standard 32 E. Uh and if you're doing this, you're adding one brick to this ecosystem. You process all the transactions. you can help the censorship resistance to Ethereum and give less of the space to it to you know centralized mining pools. So I I really encou encourage you to do that to either uh stay active maybe in the research community to promote uh censorship resistance and to stake if at home not not through exchanges not through not through centralized pools but if you can just do it do it yourself via your own hardware that's that's the most probably cypher punk you could cipher punk way you can use Ethereum

yeah I I definitely completely agree with that run your own node modes, run your own hardware. It's um it's not as easy necessarily to start with, but there's so many tutorials and guides online that you can get started with it. Um find four friends who are willing to trust you with 3,000 4,000 now and you have one going on and you you get a return on your investment as well. So even though it might just be more inflation resistant, it definitely adds to it as well. Um, I would also want to add next to that that it's incredibly important to not forget that um, it's not always about fancy cocktails on fancy rooftop bars in this world.

It's not always about going to the beaches and the yak to talk about our protocol and sharing what we're doing. There's a lot of people who are curious and want to learn about this, but they might not be able to get to these places. Um, I like to sometimes make a point like look at the fancy conference halls we are in right now. We're getting nice coffee, nice lights, nice environments, and it's very professional and very nice. But don't let this stop you from getting a bar to consent, to talk about why you care about these systems.

Share a pizza with a bunch of friends and try to teach them about the principles of the network itself. obviously if they're willing. Let's not try to just shill everything we do to everybody. That uh we've tried that doesn't work. Um but in the end the educational aspect of what we do and why we do it.

Um especially if people you know people are investing in Ethereum through ETFs because in the end liquidity does not necessarily mean users. Um, if people start entering and being more and more curious on how this system works and why this became so big, it's a perfect opportunity to also share these initial cyberpunk values. Now, these cyberpunk values might not necessarily be coherent to what they think this is about. Having a financial system that you have programmable money does not sound necessarily very cippher punk to certain people but in the root causes the ability to create whatever you want without necessarily needing permission from somebody that should never go away and I don't think that will ever go away. It's a very big pull for people to just do things, just want to learn on themsel if needed, not needing to ask for a license permission, not needing to ask for, oh, can I use this server?

They're there. Find a way to use the gas, find a way to apply your knowledge, and nobody will try to stop you. Now, the market might not necessarily agree with what you're doing. That doesn't necessarily mean that uh you should not be able to do it. Uh may I have a question to what you said?

Uh so first of all uh small applause for what you what you mentioned because it's I think it's super important. We we are forgetting why we are here. Sometimes because of greedness sometimes maybe we're exhausted. Uh but wanted to ask you how to win then um with the human attention with the spots trying to all the time invite us for for a new token sales and now you have like a tiny space to communicate to people your values and it's super hard because I would say 99% of the feed especially for the people that are just joining crypto because they are targeted immediately are are the ones that won't give you the will give you the first action maybe the Second,

I think it it doesn't start on Twitter. We're already entering an echo chamber. The moment we're thinking about people who are already on Twitter um if they already are engaging with uh let's say blockchain or crypto media on Twitter, they already are somehow interested, involved, and let's say curious enough to interact. Most people are passive. Most people don't interact with things.

They lurk, they read, they try to understand. Um, I'm more aiming at, you know, what about these people right here outside that are on the street? Do they even know about Ethereum? Do they even know what we mean with censorship resistance?

For sure not.

And I think that's a way bigger opportunity for reach than trying to convert the people on Twitter and trying to get them specifically caring about what you do. For me, the efforts that we're at least with the collectives I'm involved with are trying to perceive is less about trying to change people their opinion about crypto or you know all of this world we move in more to get them to at least be curious about it and make their own opinion if they want to get involved or not.

So, so okay. Okay. So, it means that it's way better to uh put your energy and go to the meetups, the the ones you can you can see in your city and invite the friends versus trying to to manage the narrative on on the web, right?

Yeah. And in the end, the web is also incredibly important. Uh I might be a little bit biased because I'm slowly getting very annoyed with social media in general. Um, but it's real interactions with people over a coffee, over a drink, uh, over whatever you're doing that will actually make them think about things. There's so much noise in this digital environment we try to convince people of.

People will just filter it out like another advertisement. People will start looking at crypto Twitter, see all the the memes, the jokes, the money, the parties, the pictures, the happy people, and we're just turning into another influencer world. The real world where people are actually being able to use these tools is just happening right here, right now. Or where you live or where you're traveling to or you meet a nice person on the train and they're curious what you're doing. They don't necessarily need to buy your token.

um they might want to if they are curious. I'm not denying that you can't try to work your business. But in the end, it's all about getting people to get curious, getting people to understand that it's more than just another money machine. You know, I I see myself more as a, you know, conscious capitalism. I'm not against money in general or people to earn money, but if it's just about purely another money machine, we're doing way worse than a lot of other systems.

And

agree. Yeah. less Lambo, more asserture assert knowledge.

Yeah. And if you can earn your Lambo through, let's say, your own values and you respect all these cyber bank values, I don't care you get your Lambo, get it. You know, it's fine, too. And why should somebody stop you working really hard to get what you want? So, um, to present a bit of maybe different or different lens on this, um, I think buying crypto via ETFs, it's still the same use case that we've been for the last seven years or 10 years.

It's still, um, about being making being rich very quickly. Uh, and I'm more more interested into the actual usage. Um for example um using stable coins in the developing country u that are USD based based to avoid the local inflation and the local pure monetary and financial policies uh and avoid those kind of governments uh behaviors that um make everyday's people uh poorer uh on daily basis. Uh because if we still discussing the ETFs, you know, like the about the how how it's about how how to make money like when you have money then you can make more money but for me the the the question is how to actually put uh crypto to use in actual um uh human uh interactions on daily basis. uh and I think there are places on earth that this can be possible and I think that majority of people they don't have comfort of being able to have um philosophical debates about what's good for the society they think about what's the good for them in the current moment um and uh I believe that if you we actually want to see crypto adopted uh we need to build tools products that actually uh uphold those crypto values but also deliver values value to the to the end user and uh just to give an example like if uh if you believe that the self custody is important build a wallet that is useful for the uh everyday user and that lets them hold hold their crypto on their own wallet.

uh and that would for me is the solution for the mass uh adoption and the mass um recognition of the values like you need to make those values to actually work for people.

Yes. So we'll be slowly wrapping up but I wanted to ask ex exactly this question uh as the last question like what do you see we could do to win people buying at ETFs to to come to Ethereum? How can we win adoption without losing freedom? And so yeah,

um I still have a hard time personally to see people who are buying ETFs as direct people who want to behave with the network. You cannot spend an ETF on your gas fees as a very plain result of the having the ETF. Uh but let's assume that these people get more interested outside of purely the financial incentive of the ETF or being involved with the network. I'm not even sure the right answer is exactly to make them aware of these values. A lot of people here and myself included, we have a lot of values we follow in our daily life that we might not consciously be aware of.

Uh don't hurt animals. Uh respect people around you. Uh don't, you know, throw your trash on the floor. These are all values in one way or another that we grew up and accepted as a real thing simply because we live in a society. I think the cue is for more people to actually follow the values we are trying to preach is by getting them unconsciously to follow them which also follows the same logic of applications or um they don't necessarily need to be aware that they are following these values.

Um just a small example uh who of the group in of everybody here uses WhatsApp you know I use WhatsApp who else uses WhatsApp um it's one of the biggest and first and convenient end to end encrypted messengers that is out there um outside of meta with the meta data but still it's an end toend encrypted messenger and I can use it with my grandmother she doesn't care about end to end encryption but in the end we have billions of people using an end to end decrypted system which then raises the bar for institutions and politicians to ban to avoid banning these end to end encrypted systems. I think um people if they're curious we should definitely educate them. If they are keen to learn, we should definitely provide them the time, space and opportunity to share what where these values originated from and showcase the beautiful history where we came from. But I think the largest adoption is going to happen through unconscious adoption of these values of people where they fall into them and fall into the habit of following them not because somebody tells them why more because it's just makes sense to do so. Yeah, I think I I I hardly agree with what Schumank said.

It's like when you want to build something. Um let's make this first uh thought about why you are building this. So let your ethos be represented in your product, service, uh whatever you you want to do. Don't think immediately how to earn money, how to conquer others, how to um how to dominate. No, think what I have, what what values I have, how I want uh to move them and then when you think like that, then you can connect the dots like okay uh people are are are joining through the ETFs uh so how to invite them to my product because if they will interact with them somehow they will get this value through it.

Yeah. And I would also like to hear an answer from Paul.

Um okay. Um, how could you like say the question again because I

Yes. Uh, how can we invite people uh buying to to you know join our unhinged product?

Oh yeah. Okay. Got it. Got it. Uh I think it's maybe we don't I don't think we really have to do that.

I think it's a completely different target. It's uh boomers who maybe want to take advantage of their uh tax efficient accounts like you know uh the ISA in the UK or like Roth IRA in the US. I believe that's what it's called. Um and they just want some exposure to crypto and they don't necessarily care about the values and if if they were presented with what that means etc they wouldn't really care. they just want exposure to crypto maybe as some like you know smaller part of their portfolio.

Uh for example, if you invest in, let's say you invest in some stock tech, maybe Apple, Tesla, you just you know Apple does some tech, Tesla makes cars, uh you know, rocket space, you know, masking, all that stuff, but you don't really study those companies really beliefy. Those are just part of your general stock portfolio. Uh so I I I believe those the people that buy ETFs are not really the same target as uh cipher packs. So I don't really see a lot of sense of convincing them about our values because they wouldn't really care anyway. I believe

any last.

Yeah, I'm I'm aligned with that. You know, it's not because somebody uh buys it, they like it, and especially with an ETF where they're buying not even the thing itself, but even just getting exposure to whatever that thing is. Um, yeah, people care where they care. If they care about investments and monies, this might be a very good introduction of what crypto is. It's regulated, it's accessible, there's a whole KYC process very likely to get access to these.

But at the same time, um, it's important that we have once somebody does want to learn more that we're there for them to showcase what's more behind that. And I think as a world and industry, we are pushing towards that. and allowing for that in all different kind of a ways from digital to physical. Um and as long as we keep doing that I don't think it's that easily over either. one sentence.

So, times up, but one sentence. Um, uh, for me, so I have no clue about ETFs, but um, for me, uh, we should use crypto and blockchains for what they were originally created. And the Bitcoin was designed as a money movement network, as a payments network. And now we have the opportunity of of making this reality with um this new wave of adoption around the stable coin crossber payments and money movements. And I think that's is one of those waves that uh really should pay attention to.

Yes. Thank you very much for an amazing discussion. Uh do we have time for the questions from the public or

Yeah. Yeah, we do. We do have time for questions. Any questions from the public? Oh, there.

Okay. Okay. Hello everyone. I don't know the name of the guy after I

no Je. Yes. The thing that you brought about like the money in North Korea is the bad money. It comes from a like a wrong definition of the good and bad that like the western money is the good money and the money that goes to the North Korea is the bad money. But nobody can like really control the money that passes through the USA which is a really like a what can I say the same terrorist machine as North Korea.

They killed more people in Middle East. So the idea is that like that we have a centralized uh governance like USA or western definition of the good but the whole ethos is about having a decentralized network that is mature enough that can decide which money should be filtered and which money not having uh a centralized way to filter the money. So it's a question.

It's not a question. I wanted to bring this that like that's a fallacy here in my opinion.

Okay. Thank you.

Should I answer?

I don't know if you can if you want.

I mean um Okay. I'm I'm going to um I'm going to try to maybe uh uh like put this into how how I feel about it. So um for me the in general the western democracy versus North Korea is not the same. Um uh the uh North Korea is directly against the uh libertarian spirit of giving people freedom. And if we imagine that the living under dictatorial regime um in the work work camp is the same I would like I'm not agreeing with it.

like for me this is different and uh uh that's why I think like on like on I making myself at uh a moral judgment and I think this is not the direction that we should go and I think you said so like I but I didn't completely understand that USA.

Oh, I I'm fully like I I think that um consensus layer should be um the validators shouldn't know what what they are.

Yeah, exactly. like network is not enough.

Okay. I I think what what we're saying is that the we shouldn't

the same way how we can censor money flows to North Korea is the same way we can sensor money flows to different countries and um I also agree that this is a um very risky exception because this opens the door to more exceptions. Okay. Uh we do have time for one more question maybe or Oh yeah.

Yeah. It's I think the same logic following here with implementing backd doors. Who do you trust to upkeep this logic? And I'm not in a space let's say to actually answer this question necessarily on a diplomatic level of who's good, who's bad. I obviously have personal opinions, right?

That's putting these aside now from this discussion. Our personal opinions on political good and bad should not affect the foundational level of a global settlement layer. If it does do that, it's time again for the politicians to play and I think we all want to avoid that. So, one last short question if anyone's in the audience wants to ask something. Hey, thank you.

Coming back to the original question, losing uh winning adoption and losing adoption, but losing freedom. Are you okay personally to lose freedom to freely buy drugs and participate in pump and dump schemes because it's part of freedom, right? And if this uh restriction will not be enforced, I personally will um uh not agree to deal with uh such people and to use uh reputation on a on a on a daily basis. Let's assume we are all free. But let's assume that we all have this responsibility.

And are you personally willing to not accept one, two, three millions or whatever millions you could be offered? And do you think uh that around you and around us enough of such people do you think it's important at all? Thank you.

To whom this question

to whom the question was show of hands we can have. Are you willing? I I'll kick it off with a short one. I think we can all of us give a sentence to this. Um I like to see it in a you know these kind of a questions in a more extreme environment.

Let's increase the risks on both sides and the benefits to um am I willing to accept 100 million users in exchange for giving up my personal freedom? Not really. Um, am I willing to reduce my personal freedom and time to try to facilitate these users in one way? Uh, potentially, you know, sitting here in one way is a sacrifice of my freedom because I choose to share my time with all of you. I could just as much be eating an ice cream, right?

And still I am also part of freedom is choosing how you sacrifice which freedoms in exchange for other freedoms in one way or another. Um I think it's more about what you specifically end up sacrificing in exchange for that adoption. And I think it's uh very much also important that if you choose to sacrifice this, it's your own freedom or people who consent to you to choose their freedom. Not enforce this sacrifice upon people who did not consent for you to choose on how to deal with their freedom.

Yeah, I I think we have to finish. We have one minute left and yeah, thank you very much and hopefully we'll have uh another chance to talk because uh I had many more questions to you. So maybe next time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much.