Fireside Chat With Hsiao Wei Wang And Kartik Talwar at Pragma Taipei 2025

[Music] Let's get started with our very first talk. And please give a massive shout out to Shawe from the Ethereum Foundation to come join me on stage. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Taipei and Karthik.

I am super excited to be in Taipei. This is uh my uh second time and uh the funny thing is that the first time was me coming to eat Taipei as an attendee two years ago and I was in this same room but sitting on that side which was awesome. So uh for us it's a it's a great opportunity to uh to host not just pragma but also a hackathon here. Uh this is something we've wanted to do for many years. In fact we announced e Taipei the hackathon in 2020.

Yes almost there two weeks before the world shut down and uh it took a lot of time but we're finally here and uh I'm super excited to welcoming you as the very first speaker to make this even more special. That's important for me. Thank you for having me here. Absolutely. So, I want to jump right in and uh my kind of first question to you is what are you excited about for the future of the Ethereum Foundation?

Right. So, I think uh not just EF but also the whole Ethereum community we all agree that 2025 will be a important year for us. So in this year uh for the EF side we have some new initiatives like for example like we have a um establishing a P2P networking team to for enhance the networking layer and also like we put more uh resource and study in the application layer. So I think uh these two um new engine initiative I'm excited about. Uh moreover for the um for the communication side uh we made the EFS we changing to the vibes that we become more um transparent and more um active proactive to talk to community and also like getting feedback from community.

uh including like oh we have our own uh social media and and after 10 years. Yay. And then and also like we had oh like last months we had a chance to meet in person uh the the EF to align our goal together. So I think because we we work remotely um the lifestyle and then finally there's a chance to to see people in person and um I think that was really great to so like both aligned um and improve the community between within the EF but also externally we trying to be more par um transparent and Uh I hope community u did feel that as well and if you're not welcome to tell me. Awesome.

Um, you obviously just uh were announced as the co-executive director of the Ethern Foundation along with Chamas. Um the thing I guess I'm curious about is um just overall um how long have you known Jimas and and also just in general how are you planning on working well just with each other and um kind of how do you think about what does it mean to be co-executive directors and responsibilities and sharing that and just overall like who owns what or how should people think about what it means to make decisions at at the EF with two people as executive directors. Yeah. So you know uh we knew each other for a long time uh when I think maybe right before co um like in the lay one um R&D collaboration like we knew each other and always very uh respect to him and it's really good. So uh I think the collaboration we we we are coed we have the same accountability and the responsibilities to the EF and also like so for how we manage our daily work I think um there are so many things we can do by divide and conquer um like there will be something like he will manage he will handle by himself and also for myself but for the most important things I we will um fully discuss and make decision together.

I know it's a bit early to uh for I guess both of you to also get a rhythm, but is it then fair to understand that there's like no set of things that each of you independently own? It'll still be collective. It is not that hey, if something is of this type, then you handle this. If something is this category, Jamas handles this. Like what does it look like when you have to care about very specific things?

Will there be ownership or is it still both of you get to look at everything together? um think I I mean at the very first maybe we will look we'll have the visibility to most of things together um but by the time we we started to define the domains for example like I now uh manage more about like our defy and treasury I pay more attention on that side and then form I think you know he it's very uh activity to talk to community and That's really good and I think um the yeah but I think it is important that um so so for some cases um we will we can say okay this case you will make the final decision or and or otherwise like I will make the I can make the final decision. So if things get uh clarified earlier then the the process will be easy. Have you uh both already kind of run into a situation where um you're either both trying to figure out something together that stuff or just saying hey you should handle this because you're we're more uh experienced or just knowledgeable about situations like what have the last couple weeks been like? So yeah, I think just it's not um it's not for all cases but generally because I was in EF for seven years.

So like I knew more about our internal stuff. So like I started to um handle things for the like operation more recently. Um then for him like um he may he's um so he he could identify the critical path that we should move faster. Um so I think this is what we generally have some such a um like separation but it's not um for all the cases. Yeah, that's good.

I mean that that's uh that's already on a good track. Um you you have been at the for for seven years and another thing I'm curious about is what does it mean for all the things that you were doing before this new role change? Do you still get to do all those things or they'll be handed off to somebody or you're going to still be involved in a little bit and you take on more responsibilities? Like what does kind of your day shift look like now? Right.

Um so I think in December um I started to move from research work to EF leadership work. Uh that's before the co uh assignments. So I think by that time I already like started to transfer my uh hand over my work to research um my fellows. Uh so previously I work on more about like um the lay one coordination and also the uh specification but uh the people who who handled my my my job was excellent. They are excellent.

So uh so it's the transfer was not was not was not difficult and now I'm only man fully focus on the manage side. Yeah. But I just also like I still like follow up with our R&D process closely. Of course, you want to still uh obviously keep up and try to see how things are moving. But uh I think it's one of those things where um everybody thinks that uh this type of role or if you're at the top, you're talking about you're just doing all these things, but it's just a lot more management and uh ends up just being more paperwork from from historical cases.

So um I'm glad to hear that you're still I mean But but still like I wanted to encourage people to join more R&D work uh L1 R&D work. This is uh no I I I will miss my old job a lot. I think the L1 R&D teams um they are really good and we have a very good community. So I also encourage the hackers to world um you can look into some one um like client devs or like research um yeah this is not I sorry about my shift actually um to to management team but I I think they're doing well but they also need more resources. No that makes a lot of sense.

Um and I guess maybe just one more question on this this theme. Um it has been now over 3 months since you've kind of transitioned to the leadership side and obviously you kind of were on on that track. Um were there any surprises as part of this transition or was it kind of just super smooth and everything kind of was expected like what did things look like before the co-director announcements? Yeah. So uh at the EF we Um so I think it's even for me when I was on boarded I have to uh download many things to my mind like what EF used to handle um the thing externally or internally.

So like I think the the upload was like oh okay now I have a I I have to um I had to enhance my vision my visibilities to um not just the research team not just R&D but um the border uh ecosystem and I started to okay not started to but I have to think about uh Ethereum's long-term survival not and there are more actors that I have to care about. Yeah. So I think this is about internally only or or all together. When you say more actors, just as in other employees or Oh, no. Just like um I mean for the whole ecosystems like builders um like um new projects or like the people are not in the ecosystem yet and where how can we bring them to European?

Yeah. Amazing. Um kind of switching gears a bit. Um I'm kind of curious to understand from your perspective uh where do you think there is room for improvement on uh just the Ethereum layer 1 mainet? So there's always room to improve.

Absolutely. It's software. You can never stop building software. Yes. So um I think for a um um so there are like obvious part and also the under valued part so I will the obvious part is like scaling that's one of our top priority um in 2025 uh we hope that we will make that u the scalings uh work for I think for uh like for example like a pear in hopefully in the by the end of this month four weeks.

Yes. And also and after that the the core devs will focus on the podas um devel um developments and testing and then uh that's for the um blob isolation like we want to to improve the lay one drops um so and then second for the undervalued part I think is about like um censorship resilience and like privacy improve improvements. So like um inclusion list research I mean I think this is the under value part that um people probably won't I mean it won't be or obvious uh threaten you if you didn't notice it. Um but if you figure out like well how important it is um please um like privacy should be no more and censorship resilience should be normal as well. for I guess those of you who don't know in the audience, could you uh give us a bit more context into what's kind of an inclusion list here and and how does it actually help with censorship resistance and what's not true right now that becomes true if we make the inclusion part and just okay so um for the for the block proposing process they are the base layer let let Not bas component is the validator like um the stakers should run their valator but they could choose to connect it to the relay and the relays is like the middle layer and then there were also the the builders that will um like actually collect the transactions and then put it to relays to and the relay they will um send the the the collation of transaction for the black proposal um of the valator.

So like there will be three layers for you to try to for for the no three layers that will be operate by different actors and they have the chance to censor it. So um that means if we can solve the problem from layer one then there will be um and make sure like um include the translations of in of uh the transitions are defined in the inclusion list they must be include class that's why it called inclusion list and if if the protocol layer can guarantee that then it won't your transaction won't be able to be censored from other layers as well. And that actually is super helpful. And and does this mean that you can only do this by also adding privacy or can this be done without privacy primitives in in the protocol. So privacy will be like other research uh like um for example like uh encrypted me pool.

So it's not in protocol but this is like we can do in day one. Awesome. Um, and then maybe just one clarifying question. When you say the goal is to the 2025 party is to increase the the throughput of the the R1, are we measuring just transactions per second or how do you actually say that throughput was increased? Like what's the the right metric to understand that things are are better?

So for 2025 or um for the prahood we expect it to increase the black post sorry black blob count to uh six and nine. So six is the target and n is the maxima and for the um pas I would say like we are still um adding um benchmarking the the the the bug count. So like uh I encourage people to follow up the PES weekly call and to catch up with the latest news from Pes. Awesome. I mean I I mean the upcoming Pactra upgrade is uh is going to unlock a lot of cool things and we also have another talk on this later today.

Um maybe similar question for for the layer 2 side. um where do you kind of think there's room for more improvements on on the L2 road map? So I think the most important thing right now that we could do is to improve the two interoperability. Um so I know like EF is trying to coordinate uh and make efforts on it. Um there are some like um no for example like this uh open intense um that's it the the the new open intense initiative that was just announced with uh foundation with a bunch of other projects.

Yes. Yes. So that's that's why for for example and also like we also uh in protocol uh research for to to improve that by the um by our um train abstraction team. So there are two two different um ways to try to make efforts. One is like can we do it in social layer and the second is like from protocol layer.

So but both way um are important because the first one will give give you the the chance to to make improvement in the short term but also the long-term version is critical for to I mean decentralized the to be able to um make sure that I mean it should be um there to interruption could should be permission list. Um maybe just a real quick uh question follow up there. Can you uh tell everybody what chain abstraction is? So um so I think in I forgot the EIP net members but uh for the EIP that will be included in the petra that we will in we will bring the the um the the base way to to open the the the pack the to make people be able to build their own version of AA and then after that uh there will be also some other EIPs and CIPs to define the actual comp abstractions um wallets for users. So I think there this is the forecra we will pass a pass to to it but um there also like um some discussion in this area is like okay should we have a a shared version then which is the um um audited version to to be safe for most users.

Um but also like we also wanted to encourage decentralized and diverse usages. So it's like uh both are important and hopefully like this will unlock more wallet um to it will increase our the wallet experience much better. Awesome. A couple more questions before uh before we kind of conclude. Um, is there something uh you and Vitalic don't agree on?

I don't agree that 99% chocolate is delicious. It's healthy, but I don't agree that it's delicious. Uh, but I know what you mean. like I I think for the high level version uh vision um I agree most of his ideas that's also why I on this chair but for like how to execute this and also like I don't I don't feel I should I don't I can always disagree with him. Um it's like he's he can accept the the disagreement really well.

Um that's also why he always think um try to find the best compromise from other people. Um so yeah that's that's great. You need that to uh to make uh a lot of big decisions that affect a lot of parties. Yeah. Um, how how do you think about measuring your success as the uh co-executive director of the Ether Foundation?

How would you say a few years from now that uh you you did a good job in uh in the decisions you made and do you kind of have any ways to think about how you would think about the impact? So I think for us we are I encourage to think longer um so maybe the success metric is not it's not will be reflect in one year uh it could be in 10 years so I think the matrix could be like how ecosystem will go and how many uh independent organizations ations will support the ecosystem. Um, not just the EF but also more actors, more [Music] um, yeah, more value aligned parties um, to support the the Ethereum ecosystem all together. Amazing. Yeah.

And uh I think it's one of those things I I'll keep asking you in the future too because every every year that passes, we we have information to to reflect on. Uh but the last question I want to ask you is um obviously the world's a lot different than it was seven years ago. There's a lot more blockchains. There's a lot more ways for developers to build on on web 3 and uh there are a lot more choices in general. So what message do you have for for developers who are kind of considering a a smart contract platform right now?

when looking at Ethereum and other things um as part of choosing where to to build uh their products on um what should kind of they they think about and and do you have something to say on on behalf of uh Ethereum protocol to them? Good question. Um I think for people um considering a Ethereum that well first like Ethereum has the largest comm ecosystem and if you I think for blockchain um projects you should target on global market global users adoption. So has the very good best base best base best base best layer to support that and then we have a very we have many friendly community to support that to on board you. And the second is um think you should think about like why human wants to have crypto or why human needs to use crypto.

Uh the the answer is simple like we wanted to have a real decentralized permissionless blockchain and this is a serum. Incredible. Thank you so much for for taking the time. Please give Shaw a massive round of applause. Thank you.

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