Author: Christine Kim
Translation: Plain Language Blockchain
Ethereum is the world's most decentralized, valuable, and mature general-purpose blockchain. Although it is essentially a technology, this year's Ethereum developer conference Devcon focused on the philosophical implications of Ethereum and how the principles and values driving the development of the Ethereum protocol have changed over the years.
1. A challenging year for Ethereum
2024 is particularly challenging for Ethereum given the price of ETH and market sentiment.
Many critics believe that the Ethereum community's cyberpunk values concerning decentralization, trusted neutrality, and resistance to censorship have gradually weakened over time, or even been completely abandoned. Even within the Ethereum community, disagreements about these values sparked controversy during the decision-making process for the Pectra upgrade, leading to heated debates on topics such as blob fee markets and supply on the X platform.
Despite a plethora of technological innovations and announcements showcased at Devcon 7, none provided the community with clear answers regarding the long-term value and narrative of Ethereum. One of the most anticipated pieces of news this week was the Beam Chain released by Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake. This is a radical proposal for a complete overhaul of the existing Beacon Chain consensus protocol.
Title: Ethereum Foundation Justin Drake's keynote speech at Devcon 7
Source: YouTube (@EthereumFoundation)
Although Drake detailed a series of new technological features aimed at enhancing Ethereum and its Layer-2 capabilities, this proposal did not receive widespread support from the community and failed to provide an exciting 'North Star' vision, like Ethereum's transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) merger (The Merge), to inspire stakeholders.
For years, the merger has been Ethereum's 'North Star'. This technological upgrade not only embodies the values of environmental sustainability and decentralization but has also gained recognition from almost the entire community. Since the merger, no other technological upgrade has so clearly aligned with Ethereum's core values, leading to confusion and disagreements among stakeholders about the future direction of technology development.
2. What is the essence of Ethereum?
Compared to technical announcements, discussions at Devcon about how to build Ethereum and Ethereum-based projects were more thought-provoking, emphasizing the values of decentralization and trusted neutrality that deeply moved the attendees. Although all speakers had slightly different philosophical views on Ethereum, they unanimously agreed that what Ethereum strives for is to create systems that are permissionless, transparent, and trust-minimized for the benefit of humanity.
If there are any doubts about the cyberpunk values driving Ethereum innovation, the discussions at Devcon 7 indicate that these values remain at the core of Ethereum philosophy. When asked about the trade-offs between decentralization and performance, the four members of the 'Consistency of Ethereum's Values and Philosophy' panel unanimously reiterated that the importance of decentralization outweighs performance and scalability.
Title: Speakers of the Ethereum Values and Philosophy Panel Discussion at Devcon 7 from left to right: Ahmad Bitar, Mark Tyneway, Nixo, Peter Szilagyi, and Phil Ngo
Source: YouTube (@EthereumFoundation)
In his keynote speech, Flashbots co-founder Philip Daian presented four uncompromising characteristics of 'Ethereum 3.0', including: permissionless, distributed, geoeconomic decentralization, and the efficiency of neutral builders. Daian urged the entire community to refocus on promoting and strengthening geographic diversity and permissionless design across all layers of the Ethereum tech stack, rather than prioritizing mass adoption through improved user experience.
Title: Flashbots co-founder Philip Daian's keynote speech at Devcon 7
Source: YouTube (@EthereumFoundation)
"The problem is that combining 'careless research' with 'user experience drugs' creates a very bad situation. I believe this is the way ETH goes to zero. This combination of careless research and user experience drugs will erode our carefully constructed decentralized foundation, exposing us to risks of being controlled and manipulated, ultimately rebuilding those systems we tried to escape from." Daian stated in his keynote speech.
Gnosis co-founder Martin Koeppelmann introduced the concept of 'native Rollup' in his keynote speech. The design core of these Rollups is Ethereum's values, such as decentralization and trusted neutrality. For Koeppelmann, the practical significance lies in: these Rollups do not rely on multi-signature mechanisms that control their key functions, have Rollup proof systems with multiple implementations, and undergo rigorous testing of the Rollup codebase (i.e., 'thousands of eyes scrutinizing every line of code'), just like Ethereum itself.
Title: Gnosis co-founder Martin Koppelmann's keynote speech at Devcon 7
Source: YouTube (@EthereumFoundation)
Finally, the entire day's agenda at Devcon focused on exploring the philosophy of defensive acceleration ('d/acc'). Its founder Vitalik Buterin described it as follows: "d/acc is a philosophy, a set of technologies and protocols aimed at building technologies that serve human autonomy as both means and ends. Every technology we develop should be committed to achieving common freedom and happiness."
Many Devcon attendees received a booklet introducing the d/acc philosophy at the entrance ceremony, and on the last day of the conference, they received a booklet about the future of the Ethereum protocol, both written by Buterin.
Title: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin's keynote speech at Devcon 7 'd/acc Exploration Day'
Source: YouTube (@EthereumFoundation)
The brochure and agenda for Devcon 7 emphasized the shared philosophical ideas among Ethereum developers, rather than just a common technical roadmap. Compared to any innovations, upcoming upgrades, or development teams within the ecosystem, the most striking 'North Star' of the conference was the participants' shared desire: to build permissionless, transparent, and trust-minimized systems for the benefit of all humanity.
