Devcon #3 - Dankrad | EIP-4844

Welcome to Devcon 6. The first Devcon for Bankless, the conference was a ton of fun and an amazing cultural experience in Bogota, Colombia. Dankrad Feist is leading the charge of Danksharding, expressed through proto-danksharding in EIP-4844. The Layer 2 Wars are heating up, and Dankrad’s here to talk about it. ------ 📣 Push | Try the Communication Protocol of Web3 https://bankless.cc/Push ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/ 🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/ ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum ❎ ACROSS | BRIDGE TO LAYER 2 https://bankless.cc/Across 🦁 BRAVE | THE BROWSER NATIVE WALLET https://bankless.cc/Brave 💠 NEXO | CRYPTO FINANCIAL HUB https://bankless.cc/Nexo 🔐 LEDGER | NANO HARDWARE WALLETS https://bankless.cc/Ledger ⚡️FUEL | THE MODULAR EXECUTION LAYER https://bankless.cc/Fuelpod ------ Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:30 Dankrad 4:00 Vibes & Morale 5:30 Post-Merge Ethereum 7:30 Danksharding 10:16 New Opportunities 11:55 Unlocking Use Cases 13:45 The Layer 2 Wars ------ Resources: Dankrad https://twitter.com/dankrad ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03David Hoffman?

  Welcome back, Bankless Nation, to DevCon 6, the DevCon 6 experience. In this interview, I'm talking with Dankrad Feist of Danksharding fame, of course. Dankrad is the guy that is leading Danksharding for us all, EIP 4844, which is proto Danksharding, and then later Danksharding itself. I asked Dankrad about the Layer 2 wars and how 4844 will impact all of these things, and what Ethereum will look like under a 4844 paradigm, and really just why we should be excited about 4844. I also asked Dankrad about his experience in Bogota, what it's like to be at all of these DevCons, and how Bogota is different, and what Dankrad gets up to after DevCon is over and the sun goes down. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dankrad Feist from the EF, Mr. Danksharding

• 0:45David Hoffman?

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• 1:30David Hoffman?

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• 2:15David Hoffman?

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• 2:59Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:59David Hoffman?

  No? Which, okay. How many DevCons have you been to?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  My first DevCon was Prague, so 2018.

• 3:04David Hoffman?

  Okay, 2018. So that's three DevCons. So this is your third DevCon. How does this one compare to all the other ones?

• 3:09Speaker 01

  I think this one's really, really great. Yeah. Yeah, great shout-out to the organizers. I think like it's, I think the best DevCon so far in terms of organization and how everything like just works smoothly.

• 3:23David Hoffman?

  This is my first DevCon, but I've heard of the chaos of previous DevCons. And it also seems to kind of correlate with the general chaos of the Ethereum ecosystem. Now we're a little bit more like we're post-merge, like we've shipped some stuff. We got our coordination down, and it has also extended itself into the DevCon layer, if you will. What are you enjoying the most about Bogota and about DevCon? What's really like gotten your juices flowing here?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  I think like, yeah, it's the mood of like Ethereum now. Like, I think there was a long time where it felt like progress was really slow and was tough. And like, research never actually made it into the protocol. And I think we are at an inflection point where that is actually changing with the merge. And I think like you can feel it in the community that this like people see this optimism and are very happy that like over the next few years we'll actually scale and we'll actually be able to do all the things we wanted to do.

• 4:16David Hoffman?

  Certainly, yeah. And you know, as all the listeners will know, we all feel like we're in a bear market, but you don't really feel that energy here. And I want to ask you about like developer morale now that we are post-merge. Like it's probably the biggest win in the crypto space and definitely in the Ethereum space that we've ever had. So how is developer morale now?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  So I think, I mean, I always think like, I don't know, I can't speak for everyone, but I think like many developers feel that they're actually more productive in a bear market and it's actually a better time to ship things because you're distracted by fewer things. There are not that many people who maybe like are only in it for the money and calling you all the time and all that. So I think people are still very positive and optimistic. I think it was a stressful time for many of them, so I think many of them will probably at some point wanna take some time off as well, but I think like the mood is optimistic.

• 5:11David Hoffman?

  Certainly, well deserved, but also Ethereum developers never seem to stop developing. Now that we have like this confidence of the merge behind us, I've always thought that like the merge was just the biggest training ground for developer coordination and developer shipping. And now, not only have we practiced coordination, we've delivered it and had that like a great, successful merge, and now we're on the other side of it. Do you think development is actually gonna like speed up once everyone has had their break and comes back to the table?

• 5:41Speaker 01

  I mean, personally, I do hope so because in a way, like, I think like what we are planning to do over the next few years is gonna be quite difficult. Like, it will require a lot of work and a lot of coordination. So yes, like, we definitely need to like improve our game as well on like making those changes happen. But I think, yeah, I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna work. Like, I can see like lots of momentum in the Ethereum community.

• 6:10David Hoffman?

  What are the technical challenges that you see looming overhead in the horizon?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  So, I mean, I think like, yeah, I mean, basically with sharding, data sharding, like, we are attempting something that has never been done. And it's also especially like, so it's like a complete change in terms of how blockchain work. And clearly, like, some other projects are attempting this as well. I think all of them are somewhat less ambitious in terms of decentralization than we are. And so that makes it just a very hard project to deliver these things. And like doing all these on a working project that has like large-scale use makes this all the more difficult.

• 6:52David Hoffman?

  Yeah, but isn't Ethereum always doing things that have never been done before?

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yes, I mean, I guess the merge was one of these things. But yes, yeah, for sure it is. But I think, yeah, I mean, I think like these changes over the next few years are, I think like Vitalik had this nice S curve. And I think, yes, it is right. We had this little inflection at the bottom. And now we have to like, deal with the rest of it.

• 7:15David Hoffman?

  And so the year of 2021 was like the year of ultrasound money. It was EIP 1559. It was the merge and like, you know, testing this merge. But now that's all behind us. And now everyone is focused on EIP 4844 or proto Danksharding, of which is your name, right? Danksharding, Dankrad and also Proto Lambda. Do you feel like, my vision is like the Rocky Balboa is running up the stairs. And like, now it's your moment. Is that how you feel? It's like, oh, this is Dankrad's moment.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  I mean, it's certainly the things that I have been looking forward to the most in terms of what I actually wanted to do when I joined Ethereum Research a few years ago. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to these changes, making it to the protocol.

• 7:59David Hoffman?

  OK, so what about Danksharding or proto Danksharding? Why is that what your brain focuses on? Like, why is that the thing that interests you? Like, some people, some people are interested in EIP 1559. Justin Drake is interested in ultrasound money. You're interested in Danksharding. Why?

• 8:14Speaker 01

  I mean, all of these are important things. But clearly, I think, I mean, Ethereum right now maybe can serve in its current form, like maybe a million people or something. And we want to bring that to a billion. So like, I feel like every like day we're spending at the current form is like a day that's lost to all the other people who could use Ethereum. So I think like, in that respect, I feel that's a very urgent change.

• 8:39David Hoffman?

  Sure, OK. And I'm sure you've explained what proto Danksharding and Danksharding is. But have you ever done it in like, can you explain Danksharding in like one sentence or less? How quickly can you explain Danksharding?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  It's basically, it's the rollup booster. You've heard about rollups? They make Ethereum much cheaper and more, and more efficient. And basically, it's like, it's like putting an afterburner under them and to making them work even much more cheaply and allowing them to serve a lot more users.

• 9:09David Hoffman?

  And why? What is the big technical lift here? Like, when you look under the hood of the Ethereum protocol, what's the technical lift that we've never done before?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  So in terms of like the current change for 4844, there is no fundamental change how technically the blockchain works. There are some new things that we introduced that were prepared for full sharding, but those are not strictly technically necessary for what we're doing there. What the big change with sharding will be that we're building a blockchain that maintains the full security as we're used to and decentralized from Ethereum, but does it by providing a data availability that scales beyond what the individual node can process. So so far, all blockchains are built in mind with like, okay, like we can't can never do more than your individual node that you run at home can process. And we are going beyond that.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  We are building a blockchain that is as secure and decentralized, but can go beyond that scale.

• 10:06David Hoffman?

  Okay, beautiful. And of course, having accessibility is a core pillar of Ethereum. And this is how we, like you said, allow Ethereum to be accessed by by everyone in the world. Is there some, now that we're post-merge, there was, I'm assuming, a lot of previous developer talent that was focused on the merge that is now no longer focused on the merge. And so now, now like, is that now it's being diffused across, you know, all the other EIPs? Is it like, how much of EIP 4844 is now the focus versus people focusing on other things like account abstraction or other EIPs?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  I mean, so these are discussions that are going on right now. And clearly, like, I'm a big proponent of like, making 4844 happen, even in the next hard fork. There are definitely some other things that will compete with that, like withdrawals need to happen. Lots of EIPs want to get in, of course. I would say like, getting 4844 done is very, very urgent. I hear that from many like, roll-up teams and other teams that like, they're literally making the case that they have business cases they want to deploy, and they cannot happen if they don't have 4844. So so I'm making the case that this should be a very high priority, but the discussions on that are not finished.

• 11:19David Hoffman?

  Certainly. And the way I kind of think of 4844 or dank sharding, you called it a an afterburners for roll-ups. I think that's a great way to do it, to articulate it. It's also just like unlocking a ton of new use cases on rollups that we wouldn't be able to have otherwise.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:35David Hoffman?

  Mainly just because we're lowering the fees down to

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 11:37David Hoffman?

  almost the theoretical minimum.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  And it's also like, it's like this question, like often like people have these use cases in mind, but they just know that at the current scale, they can, they can just never work. So they don't even try to deploy them. So I think these can now happen.

• 11:52David Hoffman?

  Okay, so we, we ship, we ship dank sharding, layer twos, become super fast, super cheap, super available. What are some of these use cases that your people are talking to you about? Or are there use cases that you're excited about that would be unlocked after 4844?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's like, I mean,

• 12:09Speaker 01

  it's a permissionless system. So like, I think, I think we probably can't even imagine what people are going to build on it. Like, I mean, I think five years ago, we wouldn't have known what people will build on it now, now. But I think there are great many, I mean, clearly like, I'm always like, okay, like, think about the simple things as well. Like, I mean, think about payments, like, it is an important use case and we can't probably support it now. But I think like many other cool things, like maybe more social media apps, that sort of stuff can happen. I, I can't, I don't have a great imagination for everything that could happen.

• 12:44David Hoffman?

  Sure, and it's, of course, it's a hard question and you just don't know. We've never, the blockchain world has never seen

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:49David Hoffman?

  this availability before. We haven't had these opportunities because we haven't had secure block space that is super cheap. My take on this is that the, you know, the Ethereum layer one is heavy, heavy finance. You know, NFTs that are super highly valued, a lot of DeFi stuff. And Vitalik, of course, is obsessed with non-financial use cases of a blockchain.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 13:09David Hoffman?

  And I think that we don't really get non-financial use cases of a blockchain until we get transactions that are basically free.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:15David Hoffman?

  Because the only transactions that we can really afford are the super expensive ones. And those are going to be finance transactions.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Well, there are some exceptions. There are some high value non-financial transactions like, yeah, ENS, key revocations, things like that.

• 13:27David Hoffman?

  Sure. Right, but it's very limited, right?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  But overall, it's true.

• 13:30David Hoffman?

  Yeah. And so if we want to unlock non-financial use cases of a blockchain, we need transactions that aren't financial, as in Like basically free. So I'm sure Vitalik will be super happy to see all these new use cases that come about. What else across the Ethereum developer space has captured your attention? Or are you just like tunnel vision on 4844?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  I definitely do have like most of my attention is focused on the technical stuff. So like I'm and particularly L1. So like my other big project is statelessness, which I also think is like an important change to the blockchain.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Like, I mean, I can see many things happening, but often I don't have particularly time to look very deeply into into the applications.

• 14:11David Hoffman?

  So right after this interview, I'm about to interview Bartek right over there. And the Layer 2 wars are hot. And you're, I mean, you're at the EF, so you kind of just get to watch them all happen in front of you. Do you have any like hot takes about the the Layer 2 wars or just like any observations? Because there's a ton of announcements that happened this week.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Right. I don't think I have any hot takes. I'm no, I'm, I'm really glad that it happens. And like, I, I don't know, I couldn't have imagined like even one year ago, how, how many teams would be and really high quality teams would be trying to do this. Clearly, there are still like, I mean, there are still many problems, right? Like, I mean, most of them, almost all of them aren't proper L2s yet. And that that's really the big challenge that probably you're also gonna talk about with Bartek. But, but I mean, I have no, I mean, I don't, I don't think all of them are gonna make it. But I have no, I'm, I'm pretty certain that within a year, we will see like

• 15:10Speaker 01

  fully decentralized, proper, secure L2s on Ethereum, and that's, that's amazing.

• 15:16David Hoffman?

  Well, Dan Grad, this certainly seems to be the golden age of Ethereum building. And so thank you for being a shepherd, a pioneer of that age. And I hope you have a fantastic time, the rest of your time here at ETH, at DevCon Bogota.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:29David Hoffman?

  Cheers. Bam.