Yale ReiSoleil, Jr.

I get the overall vibe, but Ethereum isn't even friendly to developers as a protocol. We had an EIP-665 (eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-665), which was implemented in every client to add ed25519 precompiles. However instead of doing the simple thing, someone proposed to generalize it (ethereum-magicians.org/t/precompile-f…); make it work for all curves. So as a result the former was abandoned and closed and then the latter was also abandoned and closed. The net result is that 8 years later, we still only have secpk1 and bn128 precompiles instead of at least also having ed25519, which everyone agrees is just better. So I get why people complain that this looks not focused enough on actual users, sure. But god the problem is that this is also not focused on any protocol user. There are a bunch of super low hanging fruits (like freaking precompiles) that would make deploying privacy tech 10x easier, but we haven't managed to improve the core protocol a single bit on that front for the last 8 years.

I genuinely couldn’t give a shit what the Ethereum Foundation puts out or prioritises so long as the contract code size limit is raised in Glamsterdam I am an incredibly simple man

@z0r0zzz Who says minings dead

ethereum people should get paid in ether and create3 vanity bytecode

@rootslashbin Categorically incorrect. The thing with rollups is we haven't reached escape velocity. Once Stage 2 is achieved the system becomes uninfluenced by any "evil", because if it arises you can easily leave. No perfect world needed.

“communism works in a perfect world” vibes

when the L2 architecture was first launched for Ethereum we didn’t have the tech to hyper-scale L1 without sacrificing censorship-resistance, etc. now with the latest frontier zk technology, we do so we will hyper-scale L1, while also supporting a robust ecosystem of L2s around Ethereum, continuing to do things and make tradeoffs where L1 can’t win-win

@DCinvestor And we will kill every trustful L2 in the process inshallah.

@_Enoch Precisely, if all rollups followed faithfully in their philosophical footsteps we would be walking a different road right now. Funny to think the only Stage 2 rollups we got were from so many years ago. It will eventually still happen, just long overdue.

> Rollups were not a waste of time or useless, rather corporations took over in place of cypherpunks. When we become the very thing we despise, of course it won't work and that is precisely why this narrative shift makes sense. Very well said. When the rollup-centric roadmap was pursued I think we saw products like ZK Money v1 and dydx v3 faithfully deliver the trustlessness that ought to be. This trustlessness simply did not materialize in any timely fashion anywhere else.

I believe most people are grossly misinterpreting this either due to not having much reading comprehension, general ignorance, and/or cognitive dissonance. Firstly, paths change and this plasticity is imperative. Were it not for this there would be no innovations. Ethereum's combined dynamism and diversity of opinions are invaluable. ETH is anti-stubborn. I also believe there is confusion in the understanding of what "scaling" is actually defined as. In this context of ETH scaling, it can be broken down into TX cost, finality, and throughput. L2s were originally envisioned with the intent of drastically reducing the TX cost and throughput (the latency of txs is also "reduced" to the end-user, but the finality is extended as there is a larger window before the batch of txs is finalized on ETH, that is the whole concept of a "rollup") without sacrifices to decentralization or security. This they actually do (particularly ZK-Rollups using ETH blobs), at least in theory, however, they have not in practice. Instead, as @_Enoch (first vocal name that came to mind) and several others have been emphasizing for years, we have not seen an "actual" L2 with a proper exit window, no security council, and smooth interop. So since L2s have been failing to advance and properly serve their users and the Ethereum community, they do not fit the former "Sharded Ethereum" vision. We do not have any mature Stage 2 L2s, and that is a major executional blunder. Scaling ETH via L1 vs L2s isn't inherently flawed in theoretical differences, but rather executional differences. And since the L1 is scaling, that means that L2s will be mostly irrelevant for scaling (aside from hyper fast and scaled rollups and the tradeoffs that ensue), though rollups have more value than scale itself, so this is not the death of rollups themselves, but definitely many of the rollups today if they don't evolve. That is not to say the rollup-centric vision was all a waste of time and effort. There have been countless advances and developments around both ZKPs and rollup designs as a result of this former vision. Without diving too deep, Rollups and ZKPs are useful beyond scaling. We have seen alt-VMs (like @SwayLang FuelVM), privacy layers (like @aztecnetwork and @RAILGUN_Project), function specific appchains (@LC), and much more. The point being, rollups themselves are useful for purposes beyond scaling which would unlikely be explored were it not for having ventured down the rollup-centric roadmap. And when implemented properly, with the guarantees and inheritance of ETH, they will still play a vital role in the ETH ecosystem; a crucial part of The World Computer. More centralized and fallible systems will continue to exist on Ethereum, but only where they make sense, rather than blanketing the current L2s we have as the only way forward for ETH. And finally to dispel some naysayers: To the people which were blindly touting "scaling the L1 like Solana" several years ago, blind L1 "scaling" is just centralization. Solana is unreliable, it goes down, it is centralized, and does not have any of the strong guarantees that Ethereum has. If ETH sacrificed everything in favor of chasing "Solana-level scale", ETH would be valueless, and not The World Computer. Additionally, why do you think in face of this rollup centric vision was the L1 able to scale? This is because of the decentralization of the long-term Ethereum vision, roadmap, and workforce. There is no unified view held by everyone, development happens based on different opinionated directions simultaneously, and that is beautiful. Just have a look at ethresear.ch and you will be able to determine why ETH is different. I think people are so accustomed to the common practice that development only happens by a few individuals in a centralized corporate entity, that such a decentralized novel collaborative structure is entirely alien. Rollups were not a waste of time or useless, rather corporations took over in place of cypherpunks. When we become the very thing we despise, of course it won't work and that is precisely why this narrative shift makes sense. Death to centralization larping as decentralization, insecurity larping security, and corpos larping as cypherpunks.

@ddimitrovv22 Each line and assumption must be accounted for and validated, lest someone else do the work for you. Most contracts are secure, their effects, however, aren't. The blind spot often occurs on a developer level, if the code wasn't written by them, then they don't think about it.

The third full week of January and we see another million-dollar hack. Makina was exploited and lost ~$5M on theid DUSD/USDC Curve pool. The project underwent 4 audits from different teams and some of them flagged only informational findings. tx: etherscan.io/tx/0x569733b80…

classic

On the less visible side we do have some cool additions like the secp256r1 precompile (which is the wallet UX mentioned here, but has uses beyond that), CLZ opcode (big for ZK and general efficiency), and obviously the blob upgrade and major gas limit increase. Very nice fork.

@tritlo Schrodinger's Inbox

has security gone too far?

It is categorically false and potentially malicious to imply that Hyperliquid represents the paragon of crypto. They are no different from Binance or FTX apart from the fact they don't directly deal with fiat and thus don't require KYC. An entirely centralized "alt-L1" where you wholeheartedly trust the Hyperliquid team with all your token deposits, directly to their private keys, just as you would a CEX. To call it decentralized or a DEX is an insult to the space. It is marginally more transparent, and has no reason to exist as an alt-L1 apart from ensuring the users have no control over their assets once they're in HL's control, because unlike a proper L2/L3 there is no exit window, escape hatch, or anything similar that would inspire confidence. There are far better ways to go about achieving the general functionality of HL that they intentionally did not utilize. So it would either be foolish or disingenuous to claim that they're the poster child of crypto, setting a standard for the entire space. I see HL as a nominally better Binance, and Aster as identical to HL in every discernable way. Both aren't in it for the long run. You should expect and demand better.

We have the tech for creating this as an L2/L3 on ETH due to ZK advancements, yet we are still to this day attempting to launch more alt L1s. And for what reason? It introduces significantly more centralization, decreases security, and has no reason to exist apart from greed.

My stance on this is I see both sides and I respect both people. However, I agree with Laurence here. I do agree, that in the ideal world everything would be done selflessly and freely available to everyone. Though, that is not the real world, you need to secure your business and make money in order to provide your app in the first place. And when you have a protocol like Wildcat, that when forked would have the same functionality as it doesn't rest on any other components backing it, then yes, you can at least in the early stages, opt for a source-available license. You still have transparency and still technically allow for some "inspiration" though you won't be outright replaced by someone forking you with some VC money. You need money to build and grow apps, people can't all just do FOSS. And when people do end up doing FOSS you can end up in Wordpress scenario if you aren't careful. Look forward to when Wildcat is fully open source however, as with any other protocol that is currently "locked". In general, if as a builder you can do FOSS and sustain business simultaneously, I will cheer you on every step of the way, however if you have to opt for source-available I can also see why. Though, even as source-available unethical actors can still exploit the system. Also as @z0r0zzz says, there are bigger problems in our ecosystem, and pointing fingers at one of its builders, is probably not very productive.

I will speak freely here, because Tim - who is both someone with standing within the Ethereum Foundation and someone I consider a good friend - is doing so too. It is puritanism taken too far to call me a coward on main for leading a team that built and coordinated the deployment of code on Ethereum mainnet that is under a license rather than being FOSS (even though the spark of initial wave of complaint was that Wildcat has agreed to deploy on a chain that will not inherit all of Ethereum's security). It is, unironically, just business. The reason that Wildcat code is source-available is as the mildest preventative bulwark against a rogue entity spinning up a copy and facilitating hypercrime given the unsecured nature of contracts produced by the Wildcat market factory. Its codebase is something that I would like to ultimately see converted into FOSS once the appropriate network effects are in place: I am aligned with the Ethereum Foundation's mission of supporting defipunk, but bluntly find it gross that I must smile through attacks on this front from on high, despite being told that the EF wishes to support the app layer. I will not apologise for making such decisions in the early development of a protocol that the financial markets surrounding Ethereum benefit from. I think most people interested in capital leverage effects and the mission of creating a parallel financial system would agree that it is better that Wildcat exists than it doesn't, whatever form the underlying code takes or where it is deployed. I have spent eight years working on both open-source libraries and protocols for Ethereum, and I will not sit here and smile through strays on my character by leading figures in the ecosystem - who people respect and listen to - for design choices made on code for the would-be World Computer. I am tired, boss.

@_Enoch @Mopar Proof of Inclusion during tallies would be monumental. Would be very fair, and for that reason would probably not be implemented... We have seen proper ZK ID implementations, but here we would need to take it a step further and run it against a registry of the deceased.

It actually would be pretty awesome to do online/phone voting. Estonia does it. It works because it could be coupled with a strong cryptographic proof of one's ID; this is how a lot of the ZK passport stuff in Ethereumland works. You can do anonymous voting but more important prove that your vote was counted and counted correctly. I'd certainly trust that a lot more than the random ballot drop-offs.

Speedrun losing >$200k by trusting central custody. 🚫🔑=🚫💰