Vitaliks new article: Its time to align the entire Ethereum ecosystem

Original title: Making Ethereum alignment legible

Original author: Vitalik

Original translation: Scof, ChainCatcher

In the Ethereum ecosystem, the most important governance challenge is balance — or more precisely, integrating decentralization and cooperation. The strength of this ecosystem is that there are a wide range of individuals and organizations — client teams, researchers, layer-2 network teams, application developers, local community groups — all working towards their own visions of what Ethereum could be. The main challenge is to ensure that all projects work together to build one Ethereum ecosystem, rather than 138 incompatible fiefdoms.

To address this challenge, many in the Ethereum ecosystem have proposed the concept of Ethereum consistency. This may include value alignment (e.g., open source, minimal centralization, supporting public goods), technical alignment (e.g., working with ecosystem-wide standards), and economic alignment (e.g., using ETH as a token when possible). However, this concept has historically been poorly defined, which creates the risk of social control: if consistency means having the right friends, then consistency as a concept fails.

To address this, I think we should make the concept of consistency clearer by breaking it down into specific properties that can be represented by specific metrics. Everyones list will be different, and metrics will inevitably change over time. However, I think we have some solid starting points.

• Open Source – This is valuable for two reasons: (i) the code can be reviewed for security, and more importantly (ii) it reduces the risk of proprietary lock-in and allows third parties to make improvements without permission. Not every part of every application needs to be completely open source, but the core infrastructure components that the ecosystem depends on definitely should be. The gold standards here are the FSF Free Software Definition and the OSI Open Source Definition.

• Open Standards – Strive for interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem and build on open standards, both existing (e.g., ERC-20, ERC-1271…) and under desarrollo (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 existing standards, work with others to write a new ERC. Applications and wallets can be rated based on the number of ERCs they are compatible with.

• Decentralization and security – avoid trust points, minimize censorship vulnerabilities, and minimize reliance on centralized infrastructure. Natural metrics are (i) The walkaway test: if your team and servers disappeared tomorrow, would your application still work, and (ii) the insider attack test : if your team itself tried to attack the system, how much would it break, and how much damage would you cause? An important formalization is the L2 beat aggregation stage.

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

• Towards the wider world – Ethereum aims to make the world a freer, more open place, enabling new forms of ownership and cooperation, and contributing positively to the grand challenges facing humanity. Does your project do this? Examples include applications that bring sustainable value to a wider audience (e.g., financial inclusion), donating a percentage to public goods outside of Ethereum, and building technologies that have utility beyond cryptocurrency (e.g., financing mechanisms, general computer security) that are actually used in these environments.

Ethereum node map, source ethernodes.org

Obviously, the above criteria do not apply to every project. For second-layer networks (L2s), wallets, decentralized social media applications, etc., the applicable indicators will be very different. Different indicators may also change in priority: two years ago, it was acceptable for Rollup to use training wheels because it was still in the early stages; today, we need to reach at least the first stage as soon as possible. Today, the most obvious positive-sum indicator is a commitment to donate a certain percentage of tokens, and more and more projects are doing this; in the future, we can also find indicators that make other aspects of positivity clear.

My ideal goal would be to see more entities like L2 beats pop up to track how well individual projects are meeting the above criteria as well as other community-proposed criteria. Projects should not be competing to make the right friends, but rather to be as consistent as possible based on clear and understandable standards. The Ethereum Foundation should keep some distance in this regard: we fund L2 beats, but we should not be L2 beats. Creating the next L2 beat is itself a permissionless process.

This will also provide a clearer path for the Ethereum Foundation, as well as other organizations (and individuals) who wish to support and participate in the ecosystem while remaining neutral, to decide which projects to support and use. Each organization and individual can use their own judgment to determine which criteria they care most about, and select projects based in part on which projects best meet those criteria. This makes it easier for the Ethereum Foundation and everyone else to be part of the incentives that drive projects to be more aligned.

Meritocracy can only be achieved if the definition of “merit” is clear; otherwise, you have a (potentially exclusionary and zero-sum) social game. The best solution to the “who’s going to watch the watchers” concern is not to pin all hopes on attempts to ensure that all influential people are angels, but through tried-and-true techniques like decentralization. “Dashboard organizations” like L2 beat, block explorers, and other ecosystem monitors are excellent examples of this principle at work in the Ethereum ecosystem today. If we can do more to make the different aspects of consistency clearer while not concentrating on a single “watchdog,” we can make this concept more effective, as well as fair and inclusive, as the Ethereum ecosystem strives to be.

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