Justin Bons

@TheDesertLynx Very much so, especially when such misleading statements have been made ETH is very much in on the "affinity scam," such as when they said that "L2's are ETH", which was incredibly misleading! The "L2 scaling" roadmap was an objective failure; there is no other way to cut it

@Justin_Bons I don't think the whole space knows this trade off is being made. It's an ETH affinity scam.

Base, Arbitrum & Optimism can steal all user funds without delay now! ⚠️ Admin keys can change rules instantly. So, even if you "trust" your overlords; Hackers can still exploit it! Draining an entire L2 of all user funds: $11B TVL in BASE alone! Betraying crypto's promise: 🧵 The admin key (multi-sig/security council) can change the L2s rules on the level of the smart contracts that are on Ethereum (which is what enforces the rules) Including changing the code so that all of the L2's user funds are send to any other arbitrary address... This is how a hacker could entirely drain any major L2 right now! Admin Keys: L2's do not inherent L1 security, as the admin key entirely invalids that claim in these cases. As it bypasses all other security measures that might otherwise be in place Almost all of the major crypto exploits we have seen over the last year. Are due to exploiting points of centralization in what are supposed to be decentralized crypto projects. These admin keys now represent the most vunrable point of attack in crypto, the empirical evidence clearly backs that up Despite it giving these organization a false sense security. As they tell themselves these admin keys are there to protect people in case something goes wrong. Ironically in 2026, the admin keys themselves have become the greatest possible risk In other words, admin keys are not the solution, they have in fact become the biggest problem! The L2 Lie: Ethereum sold us "L2 scaling" in the name of decentralization. In reality they pushed their users into centralized, private & rent seeking L2s While also losing its lead in usage to chains like SOL & HYPE which did scale their L1 instead That is one of the biggest failures & betrayels we have ever witness in crypto after Bitcoin itself went through an earily similiar failure mode A Failed Experiment: The top 17 L2's can all instantly steal all user funds using this same method! This acccounts for over 99.9% of all L2 TVL Credit were credit is due, there are now 3 L2s that cannot steal user funds. Out of these Aztec has a decentralized validator set (great job!) & its TVL is below $1k today... "L2 scaling" is clearly a failed experiment at this point. Centralized L2s are objectively inferior to scalable L1's. As scalable L1's can offer speed & low cost without sacrificing decentralization, security & selling your soul to the devil Complacency Bias: Most will tell you L2's are perfectly safe to use untill the next big hack happens We have been here before in crypto's history countless time before. Everything is fine untill all of a sudden it is not fine at all. That is the thing about security & governance, it is easy to ignore untill it all goes horrible wrong Base, Arbitrum & Optimism are not safe to use, they are dangerous. It is only a matter of time before a major L2 gets exploited in the way I described here Conclusion L2's are a dystopian nightmare of centralization. Sold to us as crypto, & in ETH's case even as the "cypherpunk" dream Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything it is one of the biggest threats to crypto & cypherpunk principles, as we pervert & corrupt our own movement from within Stop supporting fake crypto! Too many do so because their favorite cult leader told them too. Think for yourself! Such faustian bargains are entirely unnessarry. Which is also what makes this failure mode so tragic. That is why ETH has lost so much ground, while SOL & HYPE far overtook it in usage over the past few years The future of crypto is so much brighter then what they are selling us, as we can scale the L1 while preserving decentralization! As users we do not have to accept admin keys, stop using BASE & stop using L2's! The risk is far too great & crypto can do so much better then that right now Without scalability, crypto is useless & without decentralization it is pointless We can now finally achieve both within a single L1. The blockchain trillema has been solved. So, come with us & join the real crypto revolution now! 🔥

@0XCyborg_Web3 It is such a blatant & obvious example, too The excuse that these are only "training wheels" has fallen flat on its face. Too much time has passed The incentives for that change are clearly perverse Unfortunately, it might take major exploits before people learn their lesson

@Justin_Bons Completely agree Justin💯 Admin keys are a single point of failure that defeats the whole purpose of crypto

@GokuYoppy The power of the cult is incredible It is so deeply ingrained in human nature that most people do not notice it Psychologically, most will go to great lengths not to get ostracized from their community Combine that with financialization, & crypto's groupthink overpowers most!

@Justin_Bons kinda wild that we just accept this as a tradeoff now

@Zeras_24 Haha, totally! The cognitive dissonance is particularly great with the ETH crowd today LARPing as cypherpunk revolutionaries, holier-than-thou. With absolute moral superiority over the rest of crypto All while they promote centralized L2's that can steal user funds & censor!?!

@Justin_Bons people still in denial too

@dlancashi @jwrKAS My perspective is more that it has "practically" solved the dilemma Along with many other chains, it is no longer a real concern when it comes to blockchain design You correctly point out that the important trade-off relates more to execution (variance) & speed today, in 2026

This is disinformation, @Justin_Bons. KAS absolutely does not solve the trilemma, which is interesting partly because the trilemma doesn't technically exist, so the community is claiming to solve a trade-off that nonetheless characterizes their mechanism. To see the problem simply put the design at full capacity and try to increase throughput without sacrificing security or decentralization. You cannot do it. They cannot do it either. The alleged gains all come from trade-offs the design makes involving multiple concurrent proposers. Whether these increases throughput or not depends on to what extent proposers include and share blocks with the same set of underlying transactions. And the incentives push nodes to do this. The trade-off is essentially reducing variance in the speed of block production at the cost of higher content-duplication within blocks. The factors that affect that trade-off are primarily economic and affect the degree of centralization in the network itself.

Identifying a maximalist is easy: They will claim their chain is the ONLY one that can solve some problem, which is categorically always false When confronted by this counterfactual, they will attack the person or the chain they are compared to... Maximalism is dysfunctional!

@dlancashi Haha, you are correct, Saito has a very unique consensus mechanism for that reason! The challenge now is to build up a vibrant DeFi ecosystem To clearly signal to the market: Saito has massive capacity & speed That is how we win, being the "best" in any one area is not enough!

I would challenge @Justin_Bons to find: * a 51% attack on Saito, or * a theoretical proof it must exist, or * another chain without that problem It should be utterly trivial for any cryptocurrency researcher who believes what Justin does to provide at minimum #2.

@ALGO_BRO Saying "SOL is the best shot we have" is not maximalist I would have said the same about BTC in 2013, BCH in 2017, ETH by 2018 & SOL by 2023 Maximalist sticks with one project, no matter what I keep an open mind by not assigning any crypto "special status": Measured the same!

@Justin_Bons I posted a receipt and deleted as that post was strictly $SOL vs $BTC. 👇 is a “Solana is the BEST shot we have” post, Exhibit A. It’s OK to be a Maximalist, as long as you DYOR and have a clear understanding of the pro’s and con’s.

@jwrKAS You are providing a perfect example of what I am talking about Will agree with you that KAS's "peer-reviewed proven math" solves the trilemma It does not "prove" that KAS is the only one, as there are countless others that did the same That is when it becomes a maximalist view

@Justin_Bons $KAS is the only one that solves the trilemma. You’ll have to argue with peer reviewed proven math is you don’t agree.

@ALGO_BRO A ridiculous claim that I suspect has far more to do with your biases Go ahead, I will bite. When did I ever claim SOL was the ONLY one that could solve any problem? Or made statements that even remotely resemble maximalism? Bring receipts, as I know what maximalism looks like

@Justin_Bons One could argue that you have exhibited Maximalist behavior on Solana $SOL. 🤔

@Krawlarr @SuiNetwork True, SUI is far from the worst when it comes to maximalism Would even put most of them in the more reasonable camp, though their marketing has made that mistake before Whenever anyone says that their chain is the ONLY one: Run, it is one of the clearest red flags in crypto!

@Justin_Bons I agree. As much as I like @SuiNetwork , they tend to do this a lot.

@BitcoinGambit Well, at least more than half of the "leadership" do not believe in their own arguments The majority of people who buy into BTC actually believe in it, as otherwise they would not buy into it They are the victims here, as they are getting lied to & mislead by the "leadership"

They don't really believe their own argument, everything they say is designed to promote the investment scheme that most are over-exposed to. Lies and propaganda to promote an investment scheme. While regulators do nothing because there is a bigger plan for BTC which I expose in forthcoming book.

@0XCyborg_Web3 Agreed, it is a form of delusional extremist ideology Not that different psychologically from religion or politics. The "scammers" are exploiting this quirk in human nature To get people to support their project irrationally. based on cult-like indoctrination Sadly, it works!

@Justin_Bons completely agree bro maximalism is like saying there's only one color to paint with

Just the EU getting creepier

@CypherStefan Validator set is not permissioned, a very important distinction A small validator set that is mostly co-located due to latency requirements, but it is permissionless! USDC on HYPE is vulnerable to Arbitrum/bridge However, that is getting phased out with native implementation

@Justin_Bons Validator set is permissioned though. Hype Bridge is multisig or not?

Crypto is at war with itself A battleground between new & old ideas, whoever wins gets to build the future That is why opposing centralization matters: From Ripple, Canton & Hedera To admin keys on all major L2's & countless smart contracts. As many are corrupted along the way

@CypherStefan The critique is fair HYPE is nowhere near as centralized as straight-up permissioned systems (XRP, CC & HBAR) Also not as centralized as L2's & SC with admin keys However, it is way more centralized than ETH & SOL. My hope is that HYPE will decentralize even more over time!

@Justin_Bons HYPE => centralized

@milly_rock7 That is true, all major L2's have admin keys that can steal all user funds without delay! The same is true for many major DeFi projects, too. There it is, at least a mixed bag Some have them & others do not. Though for L2s, it is all of them! As the incentives are so perverse

@Justin_Bons the admin key problem is the one nobody wants to talk about

@clix81ne Exactly, without decentralization, crypto is pointless! We can even beat centralized competitors at their own game by offering better products There are ways, such as multi-leader architectures, to compete directly A bit how torrents can be faster than centralized downloads!

@Justin_Bons decentralization is the whole point man