On September 28, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder, stressed the importance of establishing clear alignment criteria within the Ethereum ecosystem. In his proposal, Buterin highlighted the need to integrate decentralization and cooperation to ensure the ecosystem remains coherent and effective. This approach aims to prevent Ethereum from fragmenting into isolated and incompatible projects.
Key Aspects of Ethereum Alignment Proposed by Vitalik Buterin
Vitalikâs concept of âEthereum alignmentâ revolves around several core principles, each aimed at fostering a more unified and secure Ethereum ecosystem. These principles include values ââalignment, technological alignment, and economic alignment. Vitalik emphasizes the importance of these principles to avoid the risk of social layer capture, where alignment is based on personal relationships rather than objective metrics.
Open Source: Vitalik emphasized the importance of open source code, ensuring security and allowing third-party improvements. Core infrastructure components, which are critical to the ecosystem, must comply with the FSF free software definition and the OSI open source definition.
Open Standards: Interoperability in the Ethereum ecosystem is critical. Projects should build on existing standards like ERC-20 and ERC-1271 or collaborate to create new standards if necessary.
Decentralization and Security: Avoiding centralized trust points and minimizing vulnerabilities is critical. Vitalik suggests metrics such as walkaway tests and insider attack tests to measure a projectâs decentralization and resilience.
Positive-Sum: Projects should benefit the entire Ethereum community, not just their own ecosystem. Using ETH as a token and contributing to public goods is an example of this principle.
Broader Impact: Ethereum projects should aim to have a positive impact on the world, such as promoting financial inclusion or contributing to general computer security.
Implementing and Measuring Ethereum Alignment
Vitalik Buterin envisions an entity like L2beat emerging to track how well projects meet these criteria. This would encourage projects to compete based on clear, understandable metrics, rather than social connections. The Ethereum Foundation should support such an initiative, but it remains a step away from maintaining neutrality.
By defining alignment through specific and measurable properties, Vitalik believes that the Ethereum ecosystem can achieve a fair and inclusive meritocracy. This approach ensures that alignment is not just a social game, but a well-defined and fair process, fostering a stronger and more cooperative Ethereum community.
