Fireside Chat with Ethereum Dreamers | ETHTaipei 2025

Uh I'm Joseph. I'll be uh your moderator for uh this panel. I do PR work with Ethereum Foundation and we're here to speak with Metallic Bddhen and Shia Wong who is the new uh ED uh co-ed of the Ethereum Foundation. But today is a very special day. Uh, as you've all likely heard this morning, uh, marks one of the larger deals in the history of our industry.

Uh, Blockstream [snorts] announces that Bitcoin, soon Bitcoin 2.0, will solve its security and quantum risks by becoming the future settlement layer for roll-ups, now L3s, and Ethereum's native L2 stack. Uh, Vitalic, you announced a few minutes ago in a blog, uh, you'll be moving over to Blockstream for the next four years with Tim Beo, who will steward the Bitcoin core core dev meetings. M um what are you looking forward to working on most at Blockstream and what can the Ethereum ecosystem expect from Adamback's incoming leadership as part of this trade? M yeah know I mean I think it's uh going to be very exciting.

You know we're going to get Ethereum and Bitcoin to merge together as was of course the original Satoshi's vision as was proclaimed by Craig Wright. Um it's uh you know it it's going to be exciting to see you know Ethereum going back to proof of work and Bitcoin going to proof of stake. Um and uh you know we get to do both of those trans transitions at the same time. I mean I think um you know it's u it like the crypto space should just like do more fun things for the world, right? And it should just like scale and it should do technical things.

It's uh like uh you know it's kind of like just like how Elon just keeps on launching starships and like you know sometimes they blow up like you just do like fun technical stuff and like you uh you know you give people the the world something to watch and be excited about. So yeah I mean I'm I'm excited about this partnership with Blockstream. Have fun. All right. All right.

On a panel like this we would usually jump right into technology questions like that one but real uh uh happy April Fool's Day. Uh but Shawe uh I introed as the new coedf um and a co-organizer at ETH Taipei uh uh and Vitalik navigated an intense transition period with everything you guys have seen posted on uh uh Ethereum Foundation's blog and everything discussed over the last few months. So uh I have a lot of questions. I'll run through as many as I can, but uh feel free to timekeep. Give me a five minute uh sort of notice or uh uh uh and and we'll run through as many of these as we can, but let's start with EF.

Um Shaw, your role uh and Toms uh is a new chapter for EF management. Uh uh can you share more about your priorities uh what you plan to work on? Um so hello everyone. Uh yeah so before the co role I was a researcher at the EF and I am a community uh builder in East Taipei and other Taiwanese community. Um so I think this role changing to me like first I will have many new area that I will have to be familiar with more um like not just the uh political research.

So I think that then the the priority thing to me was like okay first we have to um we have to re um review like what we did is not good enough or what we did was good then we should keep going. Uh so like I think the first months like not first two weeks uh we did was like uh in this process and after that I think the most important thing is to incre increase the capacity of management team um like I I think the the new chapter of the EF is it's not about um so like now we have two coedes Um it doesn't mean that we will um like change largely about I mean we will shift our focus to somewhere largely. I think it more about like what we can do more in the new new area. Um because I think this management change uh in somewhat reflects like um 2025 could be a more crucial year and then we need some um some new inspiring to to to the EF inside and hope to fully like uh these uh vibes will also spread to the ecosystem. So also like say like like the team capacity increasement and then I think next things is like we will um like it's not rebuild but at least for me myself and Tomas like we will enhance our uh communication and connection with the community.

uh like we we we've been in this industry for for over years but um I think taking this position means like we will need to have a broader vision to the ecosystem. So I think that's two of our recent capacity and after that uh we will have a more um practical plan about what exactly things uh we would need to do as soon as possible. Got it. Thank you. Um and to Mueng's adoptive father um what uh you guys he gets it from you.

uh what does it mean to do uh as I is says what only the EF can and can you lend a little bit of insight into uh how the EF works uh the interplay between uh management for example and and research there was a lot of uh during the stress of the last months people thinking that they could bring in uh uh you know someone like Danny and they just sort of define a road map as ED and I think this was some uh uh you know some more insight might have been helpful there into what the what research does versus what management does versus what the board does and so on. Mhm. Yeah. And so the way that we think about the uh Ethereum Foundation's role is basically that it does the things for the ecosystem that are really valuable and important for the ecosystem to both uh like thrive and prosper in general and to continue to support Ethereum's underlying values. um but particularly those things that would not just happen automatically on their own in the EF's absence, right?

And so if you think about like say building DeFi applications for example, right? I mean like DeFi is great, right? But also like there [snorts] are plenty of other people who are willing to create DeFi applications and so like the EF itself does not need to have a team doing that. But on the other hand, if you think of uh something like uh paying like security people to constantly look over like the clients and different parts of the protocol like that's easily something that the ecosystem would underinvest in on its own and so it's the EF's job [snorts] to participate in that. Or another um aspect of this might be that there's some layers of infrastructure where if they were left up to independent actors, they might be designed in a way that's like more proprietary than it should be, that's like more dependent on either like extra tokens or centralized actors than it needs to be.

And so you really need like [snorts] or something like the EF can be really valuable and like actually putting putting the effort into creating a version of some part of the stack that's really built on open standards that supports uh um you know permissionlessness and [snorts] censorship resistance and decentralization as much as possible because like building something like that by default does not have any economic interest, right? And so those are some of the EF's goals. And in terms of the EF's operation, like it's this very uh like loose collection of a lot of different teams, right? Like the research team has been actually quite autonomous for a long time. You know, the GE team has been quite autonomous.

Uh you know, PSSE has uh all kinds of different components to it, right? And so the job of uh leadership I think is to make sure that all of these different pieces have the resources that they need to make actually do their job also to keep an eye and make sure like are there things that need to be expanded on. Are there things that were necessary before but are not necessary anymore or that the e ecosystem can do on its own? are there new areas where the foundation needs to step in and become more involved and create more teams and uh like basically have this kind of coordinating function. Um so like to me that's uh that's what leadership is about.

And then aside from that like we generally yeah try to be hands off and like we try to like focus on nurturing and focus on like being supportive to the different teams inside and outside the foundation and like do what we can to maximize the extent to which everyone can productively collaborate. Got it. And and as a sort of followup, uh although this can go to either or both of you, um while the EF isn't Ethereum's government, uh some view, uh some believe that forholding Genesis Ether, uh it gives the org some public accountability. Um what do you think about that dynamic of uh uh sort of how that role changes over time? [snorts] Um so what role do you mean?

EF's role in it sort of responsibility as either uh uh you know responding to or representing public wants versus uh uh having fulfilled the launch of the network role and and sort of now existing to do what it you know do what it sees as being in the network's benefit right I mean I think uh like in general we should uh avoid being sort of too stuck in the past right and I think we should always kind of revisit at Ethereum from the perspective of the present situation and basically ask the question like okay the Ethere here is where Ethereum is at now here is its current level of technical capability here are its technical concerns here are some of the social concerns in terms of uh whether it's like alignment of incentives or centralization risk or something else and then here are the unique properties that the EF has as an organization And how can we best try to improve things and also to try to maximally move the ecosystem to a place where like ideally like if the EF has some function for some amount of time like maybe at some point it can figure out some way to arrange the ecosystem so that the EF doesn't need to do that function at some point in the future right um so yeah and I think in general like we need to keep an open mind um sort of not be overly influenced by the conception of uh you know how we thought of the EF in 2014 or uh 20 2019 but you know keep in mind Ethereium's values keep in mind the philosophy's position and basically ask like what is the the right thing for the network at the current time. Got it. Um and uh also just to add that uh it's can be both true that okay the the EF uh treasury was back backed up by um the the genesis crowd and then by by the ICO but also that the EF was established by and other people like it was like at the beginning that they were they set the the firm like goal and the philosophy and core values for what the EF should be what the EF should do. So um I think um just we should we have to balance between like what the what the the the the you know by the time like since the the EF is not the central not the main player in the the ecosystem and at the same time I mean this dynamic change uh It must happen and it happened because we the EF is doing good job right to distribute the the to empower the the powers and then at the same time that um uh we still have to remember like what the EF's core role is and what can EF do and other um entity couldn't do. I think that's important.

Okay. It's it's a tough balance. There's I think it's definitely uh easy to see how a lot of foundations are look a lot more like companies that aren't going anywhere and you know then in in Bitcoin there used to be a foundation and I think I gave them $20 once. Yeah. Well, there there's two kinds of failure modes, right?

There's like the foundation that looks like a company and then there's also the foundation that looks like a retirement fund. And like we see plenty of both in the crypto space. So I think uh you know we should not be either of those two. Do you see any others that are trying to play the the same sort of long-term game as the F is application layer layer two layer H I mean I think there's like a lot of different like projects and teams that aspire to this uh ideal of like trying to think about having a long view. Um but uh at the same time you know the question is uh like is the u like which approaches are actually going to work?

Um but in the like to me the EF is there to exist in in combination with all of these other like projects like applications layer 2 zeroxark type entities other people within the Ethereum ecosystem. Okay, so we're going to skip ahead and talk about Ethereum now, but thanks for the EF commentary. Uh, on the network, Metallic recently said that we're now at a pivot point where Ethereum moves from a more experimental technology in its early days into a global incredibly neutral uh, settlement layer for the world. Uh, to either of you, we can start with Shaw. Um, but what is a uh tangible example whether it's securities markets, identity, real world assets, um, anything that might look like wider success to you in the future?

Uh, um, and and what does it look like in practice? Like can you give a a dream scenario of a way that real people are using the network 10, 20, or 50 years down the road? Good question. I think for for Okay. So it will based on like we will have a very uh scaled network in layer one and hopefully also layer two will be have a more healthier uh ecosystem to and applications will be built on more on layer two than they want for the spatial uh use cases.

And uh if we think about the long-term um long-term vision then the application there will be much much more um like visible important and closer to people's uh real life in in the the long term. So I think um this is for example like like um transactions should be for the basic payments uh it should be like seamlessly and they should be embedded to uh our current payment use uh use cases. Um then also like okay you should be able to for the user you should be able to feel like there's no blockchain uh when you use it. It's just a normal payment solution and then identity and this identity will also like combine to the privacy solutions like you should be able to choose like what kind of data you want to ch to share with in all the use cases. Um yeah and zero knowledge will be largely uh like well in including at least uh embedded into our our life like but also like you don't need to learn about like what zero knowledge cryptography is that you can just use it I think so largely it's that uh uh owning your own keys and and and and sort of managing your own security exists for those that need it, but for a lot of people when they tap in pay, they'll be using digitized versions of let's say nation state currencies that are institutionalized this kind of thing.

Yeah. also like I think largely will be depends on the wallet user experience like to make sure to make people don't feel any crypto uh any blockchain like inside this you need to have a really good wallet experience and it doesn't maybe it won't be called wallet in the future just like you're know like right now there's like we chart or like line in Taiwan then so in the future it'll be maybe you don't feel this is while is an integrated application then you have many small application inside it that's a call to the app developers out there's a lot of work to be done and abstract things abstract things uh to Vitalik you can answer on this one a little bit as well but um if not I have a a controversial layer one question for you okay uh there's a lot of debate out there about um uh uh uh the L1's value capture mechanisms. M um so on some researchers talk about blobs uh capturing value and this being sort of a main uh uh feature of future L1 revenue uh and and the other side says that DA will be um sort of negligible and that we need to look at other L1 scalability paths and other um L1 sort of uh fee capture mechanisms. Where do you fall on this today? And I don't want to make it so that you come down so strong that it sort of steers you know research in one way or the other but so I think um like there's a lot of uncertainty about where the value of cryptocurrency is comes from right and uh you know there is the school of thought that it's about like the fees there's a school of thought that like actually fees don't really matter and it's uh just about sort of the moneyiness of ETH or like sort of the centrality of ETH as this kind of big payment and collateral asset inside of the Ethereum ecosystem.

system. And I think in general, like I would prefer we be agnostic between those different options and we try strategies that can help if the asset prosper in all of those different scenarios. And I think the big commonality that um lets that lets us do that is basically that uh like I think for the asset to prosper, the Ethereum L1 does have to do things, right? Like I think if the L1 just becomes this kind of hyper minimal thing where like you just have a few hashes submitted into it. The problem is like even if you can theoretically make a story about how there's this ecosystem and ETH can have moneyess in that ecosystem like the problem is that all of the other actors in the ecosystem their interest is not to cement the presence of ETH.

their instant their interest is estimate the presence of uh their own different their own assets right and so we're seeing you know USDC based economies on layer 2 we're seeing uh like there like layer 2 is [snorts] encouraging um issuance of assets um on directly on their own chains and like all these uh different things right and the challenge is like if layer 1 has a very low level of power then like the ecosystem has no choice but to do all of those things and the result of it will be that the layer one does not collect significant fees and you get all of these different actors whose incentive it is to keep on eroding the moneyiness of ETH and uh kind of like replace [snorts] that with other assets, right? And so I think uh the more that uh the like this is a big part of the reason why I do think that a good road map for Ethereum has to include a uh a strong role for a strengthened L1 which includes more blocks and it includes more L1 gas and it includes more of these L1 L2 interoperability features. uh because if you have that then like that creates more opportunities for the L1 and uh and for ETH to have more of a role in all of these dimensions. And brief followup uh on L2 interoperability, are you seeing progress? Uh we talked about things last year like um uh uh address format work.

Uh there's calls ongoing now, but I think uh how extensive of an effort that is is still something to be seen. Uh any early thoughts on this? Yeah, I mean it feels like it's making progress. Um it like it definitely feels like there's broad agreement among a lot of things. I mean the open intents framework exists.

Uh there's definitely wallets that are integrating it and that are integrating chain specific addresses already. There's uh there's definitely been a lot of uh kind of quiet progress in terms of rallying everyone around the common uh set of frameworks under [snorts] the hood. So I'm optimistic about how things will go forward from here. Got it. Okay.

Uh Toshaw uh I think we have time for maybe two more. Uh we'll see. Um but largely we talked first about you know EF's role in sort of pushing uh credit outward and and and sort of um outward the ability to act as an ecosystem. Um where do you see the Ethereum ecosystem today as most healthy or self- sustaining? uh where is it still overly dependent?

Um and where do you see uh our ability to to impact those things? Um so I think so is there an ecosystem um is getting I mean that the scale is much much more bigger and we have much much more leaders in the the ecosystem but I hope we will have more um decentralized leadership within the ecosystem um like we're doing good But uh it's for for for my perspective and also like inspired by this uh is infinite garden is like we should enable more players to join it and that's not just uh from the current ecosystem but also from the outside like how can we on board new leaders to join the ecosystem. So I think that's what um most no uh found generally we should do more. Okay. Uh since I got the three minute marker, I'm just going to see if we can do a lightning round with a few of these.

Uh uh uh. All right. Um in regions where stable coins are gaining traction, how do you see Ethereum or decentralized technology catching up with uh centralized chains that got early adoption? Yeah. And I think one uh just having better and and competitive UX and then also two I think uh exper like pushing forward on even new kinds of asset issuance like even alternatives to existing like USDC and USDT type things and better opportunities for people to do more things with to like save and uh and build their wealth.

Okay. uh to both and you can give as short of answers as you'd like. Um if somebody builds DeFi on or uh stable coin payments on a blockchain that is uh let's say 99% owned by a company, 1% given out to their favorite validators. Uh is it DeFi, but it supports the EVM? I think that's like CDI, right?

Stage zero defy. Ah, stage zero. Yeah. Uh, okay. One application type or specific app if you have any in mind with regional or global implications that deserves more focus.

This is give a shout out to somebody [snorts] with regional or global focus. So that means any focus at all. Yeah. Uh either or or just a type of application. Okay.

um the whole like space of things like ZK email and the nonadhar and TLS notary like basically kind of web like things that let us read web 2 inside of web 3 and thereby import web 2 trust anchors into web 3. I think that gives us a lot more options for how to create more security for regular users, but at the same time like like actually still have more self-s sovereignty because like you would be able to combine like different combinations of these things and not be controlled by one actor. I think decentralized social media like um I mean right now I think the the the conversation was pretty centralized in some basic community and also like it's for for Asia um community it's like would be somewhat barrier between these um no tribes and then I think it's better to have this like first like it's the decentralized platform but also like how we uh coordinate between this decentralized hub within the community like how can like East Taipei people be more connected to to the world and also like how not not just east Taipei but also like like I think Asia and West and Europe that's the the three um like region regions like I think there should be some more innovative way more creative way to community. Okay. Uh there's some work being done in the decentralized social media space.

We could probably see more. So everybody here uh uh run over to the ETH global event at the end of the week and and build another stack. Uh all right. Thank you very much. I think this ends our time, but thank you Vitalik.

Thank you, Shawe. And uh keep building. [applause] All right. Thank you guys.