Vitalik: What are the values that the Ethereum ecosystem needs to clearly align with?

Compiled by: Wu Talks about Blockchain

One of the most important social challenges in the Ethereum ecosystem is balance — more precisely, integrating decentralization and cooperation. The strength of the ecosystem is that there are so many different individuals and organizations — client teams, researchers, Layer 2 teams, application developers, local community organizations — all working on their own visions of Ethereum’s future. The main challenge is to ensure that all of these projects can work together to build what looks like a unified Ethereum ecosystem, rather than 138 incompatible little kingdoms.

To address this challenge, many in the Ethereum ecosystem have proposed the concept of "Ethereum alignment". This can include alignment of values (e.g., keeping open source, minimizing centralization, supporting public goods), alignment of technology (e.g., following ecosystem-wide standards), and alignment of economy (e.g., using ETH as a token whenever possible). However, this concept has historically been vaguely defined, which can bring social control risks: if alignment simply means "being with the right people", then the concept of "alignment" has already failed.

To address this, I think we should make the concept of coordination clearer, break it down into specific properties, and represent it with specific metrics. Everyone’s list of metrics may be different, and metrics may change over time. However, I think we have some solid starting points.

Open Source — This has two important values: (i) the code is auditable to ensure security and, more importantly, (ii) it reduces the risk of proprietary lock-in and allows permissionless third-party improvements. Not every part of every application needs to be completely open source, but the core infrastructure components that the ecosystem depends on should definitely be open source. The gold standards here are the FSF's Free Software Definition and the OSI's Open Source Definition.

Open Standards — Strive for interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem and build on existing open standards (e.g. ERC-20, ERC-1271, etc.) as well as standards in development (e.g. account abstraction, cross-L2 transfers, L1 and L2 light client proofs, upcoming address format standards). If you want to introduce a new feature that is not well served by an existing standard, work with others to write a new ERC. Applications and wallets can be evaluated based on the ERC standards they are compatible with.

Decentralization and security — Avoid trust points, minimize censorship vulnerabilities, and reduce reliance on centralized infrastructure. Metrics can be (i) “fallback testing”: if your team and servers disappear tomorrow, is the application still available? (ii) “insider attack testing”: if your team tries to attack the system, how much damage will it cause? An important formal test is the rollup phase of L2beat.

Positive-sum

Contribution to Ethereum — The success of a project should benefit the entire Ethereum community (e.g. ETH holders, Ethereum users), even if they are not part of the project’s own ecosystem. Specific examples include using ETH as a token (thereby enhancing its network effect), contributing to open source technology, and pledging to donate part of the tokens or revenue to public goods in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Contribution to the wider world — Ethereum’s goal is to make the world a freer and more open place, enable new forms of ownership and collaboration, and contribute positively to important challenges facing humanity. Does your project make a difference in this regard? Examples include applications that bring sustainable value to a wider audience (e.g., financial inclusion), donations to public goods that go beyond Ethereum, and building technology that has real-world applications outside of crypto (e.g., grant mechanisms, general computer security).

 Ethereum node map, source ethernodes.org

Obviously, not all of the above applies to every project. The metrics for Layer 2, wallets, decentralized social media applications, etc. will be very different. Different metrics may also change priorities: two years ago, it was acceptable for Rollup to still have "training wheels" because it was still in the "early stages"; today, we need to get to at least Phase 1 as soon as possible. Currently, the clearest indicator of positivity is the commitment to donate part of the tokens, which is being practiced by more and more projects; in the future, we may also find indicators for measuring other aspects of positivity.

My ideal goal here is to see more entities like L2beat emerge, tracking how well individual projects meet the above criteria, as well as other criteria proposed by the community. The competition between projects will no longer be about being friends with the "right friends", but about striving to be as consistent as possible under clear and understandable standards. The Ethereum Foundation should keep some distance from these activities: we can provide funding for L2beat, but we should not become L2beat. Creating the next L2beat is itself a permissionless process.

This will also provide a clearer path for the Ethereum Foundation and other organizations (and individuals) interested in supporting and participating in the ecosystem to decide which projects to support while remaining neutral. Each organization and individual can make judgments based on the criteria they value most and choose projects that meet those criteria. This will allow not only the Ethereum Foundation, but everyone else to be part of the incentive force that keeps projects consistent.

Only when the definition of "ability" is clear can it truly become a meritocracy, otherwise it is likely to become an exclusive and zero-sum social game. The best way to solve the concern about "who will supervise the supervisors" is not to expect all influential people to be "angels", but through time-tested techniques such as separation of powers. "Dashboard-type organizations" like L2beat, blockchain browsers, and other ecosystem monitors are an excellent example of this principle at work in the Ethereum ecosystem today. If we can further clarify the coordination of different aspects without concentrating all power in the hands of a single "supervisor", we can make this concept more effective and reflect it in a fair and inclusive way that the Ethereum ecosystem pursues.