The Ethereum Roadmap Wars | Will Ethereum Win?

In this episode of Bankless Takes we dive into the growing sentiment that Ethereum is losing its edge, with its roadmap straying and competitors catching up. We’ve spent a long time evaluating these arguments, and today, we give our take on the Ethereum Roadmap Wars. This is our best take on how the debate unfolds and why, in the end, we’re still bullish on Ethereum’s future. ------ 🎮B3 | THE FUTURE OF ONCHAIN GAMING https://bankless.cc/b3 ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2 ⁠ 🦄UNISWAP | BROWSER EXTENSION https://bankless.cc/uniswap 🪄 MAGIC EDEN | HOME OF WEB3 https://bankless.cc/MagicEden 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🤖 0G | MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE, INEVITABLE https://bankless.cc/0G ------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/82?referrer=0x077Fe9e96Aa9b20Bd36F1C6290f54F8717C5674E ------ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Start 03:24 The Roadmap Wars 12:22 What Are The Wars Really About? 25:40 Roadmap Proposed Solutions 35:03 Why Are We Fighting Over DeFi 39:15 What Do We Do About It? 44:59 Where Will DeFi End Up? 50:23 What About $ETH The Asset? 53:43 The Bull Case For ETH ------ Not financial or tax advice. 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.

• 0:04Ryan Sean Adams?

  Bankless Nation, it's time for another Bankless Takes. We haven't done one of these in a while. And just as a reminder, these episodes are just like David and my pure, unadulterated takes, like take them or leave them. I mean, this is just how we're feeling, what we're thinking at the moment, not investment advice. You have any more disclaimers for the Bankless Nation here?

• 0:22David Hoffman?

  Yeah, I think the vibe is like Ryan and I do a ton of podcasts together and then we need to reflect on the podcasts that we've done over recent times. And so the Bankless Takes is just kind of like a moment for me to ask Ryan, "Hey, Ryan, what'd you think about the things that we've learned over the last month?"

• 0:36Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah.

• 0:37David Hoffman?

  And for Ryan to ask me the same.

• 0:38Ryan Sean Adams?

  Well, so the topic today is the Ethereum Roadmap Wars, which I feel like we've been talking about since probably June or so. And it's part of this larger feeling that within crypto, and this is a sentiment-type feeling, that Ethereum is losing, that the roadmap has gone astray, that competitors are catching up, that Ethereum and Vitalik Buterin need to get wartime serious and change their roadmap.

• 1:02David Hoffman?

  That Ethereum itself is perhaps off track.

• 1:04Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah.

• 1:04David Hoffman?

  And we need to reconsider what track that we're on.

• 1:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  And so we have evaluated this position. We've heard many of the Ethereum bears take this position, even some folks that are internal to Ethereum inside the community who are also taking this position. So I feel like now we've considered this position and we've considered the counter evidence and the counter arguments. So it's like maybe time to just talk and regurgitate. So this is about the Ethereum Roadmap Wars and where we are and what we think about them and how they resolve and why, I don't know about you, David, but why I at least am still bullish Ethereum.

• 1:40David Hoffman?

  And of course, we're not the only ones that are considering this. I would say the Ethereum community at large is considering this. And so even though some people are saying, "Hey, like actually the path that we're on", some people are saying that the path that we're on is just the correct path. It is still being articulated now differently as a result of the conversations. So I think collectively, there's been some processing about the conversations that have been held. So we're going to get into all these conversations, but first a moment to talk about our friends and sponsors over at B3. B3 is a Gaming ecosystem, a layer three gaming ecosystem built on base, but is also chain agnostic. Think of it like the OP stack, but for games. And right now there are plenty of just like kind of fun quirky addicting games,

• 2:23David Hoffman?

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• 3:02Ryan Sean Adams?

  That's called basement. Get down to the basement, basement.fun. And David and I saw this, MuDang has a crypto blockchain game on here. And I got to imagine MuDang is over there.

• 3:12David Hoffman?

  How much MuDang XP have you acquired?

• 3:15Ryan Sean Adams?

  Well, look at all these tokens that MuDang is collecting. I imagine this is ERC 20 that you could trade on Uniswap. So that sounds fun. All right, let's get to the main event here and talk about the roadmap wars, the Ethereum roadmap wars. And I think we should begin this conversation to kind of recap the criticisms so far.

• 3:36David Hoffman?

  Got to define the problem.

• 3:37Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, let's, let's collect the criticisms and the sentiment so far. And let's do a good job of this, David. Let's steel man the case. And basically, if I were to summarize the sentiment in hyperbole, it's kind of like Ethereum is dead. It's being squeezed. It's being outflanked. It's being squeezed on one side by like Bitcoin as a better monetary asset and the other side by all of these alternative.

• 3:59David Hoffman?

  Much more successful Bitcoin ETF.

• 4:01Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, exactly. And on the other side, by all of these alternative layer ones that are kind of like fast layer ones, which the cycle's darling has been slotted up to this point, so it's being outflanked, it's being squeezed. And I think there are maybe three reasons for this, at least categories of reason, that I want to bounce by you. And then, David, you and I should do a good job of like, I want to do a good job of steel manning the case here, to get us up to speed. So, the first is this, it's an overall sentiment that Ethereum doesn't have a North Star. So, you know, some of the other communities, like Solana, for instance, is NASDAQ on-chain, that's the vision, that's our North Star, that's what we're trying to build to. Well, what's Ethereum's? Can you articulate it? It's not digital gold, like Bitcoin, is it? I mean, that's the purpose of Bitcoin,

• 4:46Ryan Sean Adams?

  everyone kind of knows that. It doesn't have a, you know, like, one-line quip. You know, other alternative layer ones, it's all about fast finance, Bitcoin, the digital gold, competitors just have a better North Star. So, this is kind of the collection, this is almost a vibey-based narrative type of critique here. And like, that's the first.

• 5:06David Hoffman?

  The second big criticism is Ethereum's roadmap, the creation of layer twos are creating these parasites. Layer twos are parasitic to Ethereum. Ethereum, the layer one, once upon a time, created a ton of value, it created a ton of ETH burn, it created a ton of revenue for stakers. And now, since the emergence of layer twos and the migration of activity onto layer twos, a lot of that value capture has started to approach zero, it's gone down quite a bit. ETH has been actually inflationary year over year. DeFi activity has migrated onto layer twos, there is less ETH fee capture for Ethereum on the layer one. And also, layer twos are just, they're actually just distinct blockchains.

• 5:50David Hoffman?

  You know, centralized sequencers, completely differentiated block space. And so, you know, Base, we report on this on the weekly rollout pretty frequently, Base is making a ton of revenue, and that revenue is going to Coinbase. Arbitrum is making a ton of revenue, and that revenue is going to the Arbitrum DAO. And in that same era, in which the profits of layer twos are very large, those profits are coming out of the profits of the Ethereum layer one, as evidenced by the net inflation that Ethereum has had year over year.

• 6:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, and I think the data sort of backs, at least to some of what you just said, but there's less fee capture for Ethereum. You said Base is kind of making all the margin. They're not really passing much onto ETH holders in the form of like a burn or cash flows for if you're a holder of ETH. And then there is something to the case that L2s, you know, the Ethereum community has been saying, hey, L2s are Ethereum. And they're right in one sense, but they're also like not correct in another sense. In one sense, I think they're right that L2s are part of the Ethereum ecosystem, part of the Ethereum economy. I think there's maybe lots of reason to think they are net good for Ethereum, the network. But it's also not quite interchangeable. The block's based on something like Base,

• 7:06Ryan Sean Adams?

  if it's a stage zero or stage one, does not quite give you the same security and settlement assurances as something on mainnet. It doesn't. And the reason why is because it's not all the way, you know, stage two. So there is some potential ability to kind of like, you know, like for a centralized actor to basically do something nefarious.

• 7:30David Hoffman?

  I would also even add to that, even if Base did become a stage two, it still wouldn't be Ethereum. Like, these are blockspaces, they're just different. They're different blockchains. They're not the same thing.

• 7:39Ryan Sean Adams?

  They are different in fashion. And also, you know, the sequencer is centralized, right? So that's another piece of the puzzle here. So I think that like, there's some truth in the idea that layer twos are not Ethereum. And also, there's truth that layer twos are Ethereum. And so like, this subtlety, of course...

• 7:57David Hoffman?

  Like all debates, they end up in semantics.

• 7:59Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's semantics.

• 8:00David Hoffman?

  What is Ethereum is up for debate.

• 8:02Ryan Sean Adams?

  Okay, so we don't know the roadmap. Ethereum doesn't have North Star. These L2s, they're looking parasitic, at least in the short run to Ether, the asset. And then this third one is Ethereum is fragmented. What do people mean by that? And we started talking about this earlier in the year with a like fixing fragmentation series. But what is the main criticism with Ethereum feeling fragmented?

• 8:23David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so the Ethereum roadmap, which is to eventually produce hundreds of thousands of transactions per second, if not millions of transactions per second. And we are achieving that scale by having a collection of scaling zones that when you add them up, can maybe we can get to a million transactions per second. But maybe that's because you actually add 10 different rollups that each have 100,000 transactions per second. And then you add them in aggregate to get to a million transactions per second. And that is fragmentation. It's not exactly what people thought about scaling to a million transactions per second. People want a million transactions per second, like on the same network, in the same spot, in the same shared state.

• 9:06David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so while the Ethereum roadmap is like, well, we can get a million transactions per second, but it comes from these different corners of the internet and it's actually not in the same spot. And so this whole multi-chain UX has emerged, bridge hopping, using a cross to go from one chain to another, which takes time. It creates like derivative assets. So there's like Arbitrum USDC, there's Optimism USDC, there's Optimism ETH. And you can like accidentally bridge over like an optimism derivative token onto Arbitrum and then it's another derivative token. But then that token is also on the layer one and it's a different one. And so this fragmentation emerges and it's just a terrible UX.

• 9:49David Hoffman?

  It also liquidity fragments, like when everything is in the same uniswap pool, liquidity is much better. But when we have like 20 different implementations of uniswap across many different chains across Ethereum, that's just like, it provides poorer execution. It's literally a worse financial product. And then in addition to all of that, in addition to the fragmentation, like some of the best places to execute your DeFi trade or to do your activity are just somewhere else that you are not. And then you need to go take steps to get there. And it doesn't really feel, some people are saying, well, this doesn't count as scaling. If you need to add in many, many, many networks in order to get a million transactions per second, that shouldn't actually count. It should actually just be this one seamless network.

• 10:33David Hoffman?

  And we scaled that to a million transactions per second. And that's not what Ethereum is doing. So that's kind of like the whole Ethereum is fragmented concern.

• 10:40Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, the wallet UX really hasn't caught up to this, right? It's kind of like messy. I mean, that can catch up, but people's lived experiences is every layer two feels like sort of a separate chain and you're like, you know, starting kind of from scratch. I'll also add to this, this feeling of like, well, you know, in the old days, when somebody was getting on chain for the first time, you had one place to direct them. Just come to Ethereum, right? Well, now where do you direct them? Where do I start? Do I start on base? Do I start on Arbitrum? Do I start on like ZK sync stack? Or if I'm a developer, where do I deploy my application? I have all of these different chain options. It's no longer simple as it was in the days where there was one Ethereum chain and one mainnet. So from that new perspective, it's fragmented as well.

• 11:22David Hoffman?

  Yeah. Application developers don't want to also have to make a bet on which horse they think is the fastest in order to deploy their app. They just want to deploy an app.

• 11:32Ryan Sean Adams?

  Okay. So all of this, critics will say, explains this chart that I'm looking at. This is the Bitcoin, ETH Bitcoin ratio, and it has been going down for the last year, since the beginning of the year, and the last two years, right? And so this is Ethereum being squeezed by Bitcoin as a monetary asset. And then on the other side, if we were to look at the ETH sole ratio, the sole ETH ratio, that would be in the opposite direction. So Solana and some set of alternative layer ones have appreciated relative to Ether over the past like year to like 24 months, you like some rather significantly. So this is an example of evidence for everything you just said. So, you know, the criticisms that we just said, well, the market agrees with it because look at what's happening in the market.

• 12:16Ryan Sean Adams?

  And it looks like Ether, the asset, is being squeezed between other assets.

• 12:22David Hoffman?

  And also importantly, like you're actually getting this ETH BTC ratio from Max Resnick, who is explaining that this is evidence as to like why the current Ethereum plan Man is actually failing. This is in a Twitter thread that says, in a competitive environment with network effects, we cannot afford to tank for years and cross our fingers. It didn't work for Polkadot. It did not work for Cosmos, but maybe it might work for us. And he's saying, no, they didn't work for them. It's not working for us. That's why we need to scale the layer one. And then his evidence for this is the Ether Bitcoin ratio. And so people are using price, like clearly price is down. Therefore, something is wrong.

• 13:01Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, and I think we've had a number of guests that have made this case. Max Resnick is one. There's somebody by the name of Brett on Twitter, who's just like very active in this space. And John Charbonneau. And some of those characters, I would say, are sort of inside the community, inside the house. They're working on Ethereum related projects or traditionally friendly to Ethereum. They've made the case and have some compelling arguments around this. We've also had those that are like, you know, traditionally very antagonistic to the Ethereum community, people like Kyle Simoni, obviously, you know, making these claims maybe for different reasons, people would argue, but there have been some pretty good articulations of these claims. I guess, let me just ask you, while we're in the steel man zone right here, of those three, Ethereum doesn't have a North Star, L2s are parasitic, Ethereum is fragmented.

• 13:46Ryan Sean Adams?

  What do you think are the like, the most compelling, like, what are the most accurate you like takes out there? And what are the sort of the, you know, most compelling arguments?

• 13:56David Hoffman?

  Probably in the reverse order that we articulated them. So, starting with Ethereum is fragmented. That is a real problem that needs to be addressed head on. Layer twos are parasitic to ETH. I'm not going to call a problem, although it is worth noting the changing economics around Ether, the asset, and, and just paying attention to what's going on there. And I think we'll circle back around to that part of the conversation later in this episode. Ethereum doesn't have a North Star, I think is actually the weakest. People like their memes, so like Solana's NASDAQ on chain or decentralized NASDAQ vision is like, easy to articulate. But I also think just like, it's one of those things where like, if you optimize for decentralized

• 14:38David Hoffman?

  NASDAQ, you accidentally are ignoring some things and then you actually just walk yourself off of a cliff because you ignored those things. Bitcoin is digital gold. Bitcoin has also been very, always been very simple, and so it's very easy to meme. Ethereum has always gone for like, one of the more complex visions, the most complex roadmaps, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. And just because you can't consolidate like a roadmap into a meme. Doesn't at all mean the North Star isn't there.

• 15:05Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, one thing I'd say, I might phrase it a little bit differently, rather than complex roadmaps, I might say ambitious roadmaps, because when you look at the Ethereum roadmap, it truly is ambitious. And let's pause while we're still talking about this and acknowledge kind of like a counterpoint to all of this. Because I want to acknowledge this, because I want to get your assessment of how much of a factor you think this is actually playing in this. And this is an alternative explanation for all of the criticism and sentiment, ETH is dead, ETH is being squeezed, ETH is being outflanked that we just heard above, is basically David, this, price drives narrative. All right. And so like, we are only talking about this and we only have this level of criticism and sentiment

• 15:50Ryan Sean Adams?

  because ETH price is down. And so we're looking for an explanation. Do you like TradFi Media does this all the time. If you go on CNBC, stock market's down. There's always like, you know, 20 analysts who have the reason why the stock market is down.

• 16:04David Hoffman?

  The most adjacent reason to like, why the price moved in the way that it moved.

• 16:08Ryan Sean Adams?

  And sometimes it is related to that move, but like, a lot of times, it's just part of the random walk of like markets, right? Just like markets go up, markets go down, they don't perfectly reflect all of kind of the accurate, you know, like fundamentals. And so some people would say, the only reason these criticisms are actually being surfaced is just because ETH price is down. And this is all cyclical, this is short term, this is not long run. And the conclusion is just be patient, just wait. And some within the Ethereum community are basically saying, well, all of these criticisms, David and Ryan, why are you even platforming them on Bangless? They can be safely ignored. Like, just ignore them. It's just FUD and just like, you know, don't worry about it. What's your take on that? To what extent do you think that is factoring in here?

• 16:54David Hoffman?

  Well, the ETH BTC ratio has been down for two years. So at some point, you have to ask yourself, well, how random of a walk is this? Like, two years of a random... I do agree, I do agree with the point that like, we are, I've actually kind of said this in various capacities and people have disagreed with me, but like, we're in a bear market. We're in a bear market. Maybe we're not in a bear market of prices, which yes, that's technically what a bear market would be. But like, we're in a bear market of like, user adoption. We're in a bear market of mainstream attention.

• 17:24Ryan Sean Adams?

  Or at least we're not in a bull market, you would say.

• 17:27David Hoffman?

  We're definitely not in a bull market, right? And so, inside of this kind of like, insular two years of crypto, of which there has been not any new users since 2022. 2022 was the last time we got new users, really. Like, maybe people got pulled into meme coins, but not really. And so, inside of that environment, we haven't had any fresh new blood. We don't know what the outside consumers want. And so, I think there is some credence to the idea that like, you can kind of random walk pretty far inside of that void of a adoption bear market. But nonetheless, two years is like, a long time for a random walk. I think it's irresponsible to say that. Because Max Resnick, in my debate with him and Permissionless, made this point, where like,

• 18:12David Hoffman?

  maybe, maybe prices are down because of this third thing, which is that the actual roadmap is off track. Right? Maybe the roadmap is off track. Maybe, maybe the fragmentation and the prices are actually related to each other. Maybe those are down because of the same thing, for the same reason. And I think like, if we want to be proactive and not rest on our laurels, and lean into the fact that like, yes, Ethereum has a roadmap, that we need to execute change. And we have the opportunity to consider the changes that we are executing and reevaluate them on a case-by-case basis. We are not Bitcoin. We are not setting a North Star at the very genesis of our network and then tunnel visioning our way there.

• 18:57David Hoffman?

  We are considering steps along the way. We pivoted the Ethereum roadmap. Pretty heavily in 2019, we have this option to like, consider the choices that we're making. And so therefore, we should do it. And as two years of a downtrend, of a price downtrend in the Bitcoin Ether ratio continues, we should be considering that more over time. And so at some point, price does become signal, not noise.

• 19:20Ryan Sean Adams?

  You were talking about the Bitcoin ETH, the ETH Bitcoin ratio, but how about the sole ETH ratio as well, or other alternative layer ones? Would you say the same?

• 19:29David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so the sole ETH ratio has been going up for one year. The ETH Bitcoin ratio has been going down for two years. And so, yeah, you are seeing signal on different corners of the crypto industry.

• 19:39Ryan Sean Adams?

  I mean, I have to agree with you there. I think that it would be unwise and just like, not in the best interest of Ethereum to just ignore all criticism and dismiss it as FUD. Like, at least you have to like, look at that criticism and see where the merits are and steel man the case and then kind of like, assess. Although I will say, like, it could be up to 70% of this is like, actually, you know, price driving narrative here. And we'd be having a very different conversation if price was in the other direction. And so, there might be something like, going on and there might be some merit to that. But I'm just like, not in a place to like, ignore that. Like, why would you do that? What you then create is kind of a, you know, a environment and a culture that is like,

• 20:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  immune to all criticism and you never pivot, you never change, and you never adopt and learn. And I don't think that is a good place for like, a crypto network to be. One other thing I'll add to this is, I think there's some unrealistic expectations out there as well. There's actually something that Kyle Simoni said in our conversation that I somewhat like, agree with. He's like, you know, Ether is a 300 to 400 billion dollar asset right now. Okay? And so like, last cycle, 40x gains from the bottom to the top, you know? Like, 100 to, you know, 4,500, something like that, which was the ETH, it rose that much. You can't get 40x gains every single cycle. It's just like, it's too big. And so, I think that there are some people that are first cyclers and they're looking

• 21:06Ryan Sean Adams?

  at Ether the asset and they're like, okay, I hear what you're saying about Ether being a good asset. But it's not going to like make be life changing money. And the reason I came to cryptos is life changing money. And so like, I think that there's some mismatch there.

• 21:20David Hoffman?

  I don't know if that's valid because that is a US dollar anchored price reference point. And the angst coming from the Ethereum community is coming from the ratio of market caps compared to Bitcoin and Solana.

• 21:33Ryan Sean Adams?

  Okay, but so I would say it's more accurate for the the sole ETH ratio. And like the lower market cap alternative layer ones like basically your base case should be a hot L1. That's an alternative to Ethereum is going to pump more than Ethereum this cycle in any bull market environment. It just has to because it's coming off a floor of like five to 20 billion or something like this, right? I mean, Solana.

• 21:58David Hoffman?

  Eight billion when Solana cratered after STX.

• 22:01Ryan Sean Adams?

  It was so oversold.

• 22:03David Hoffman?

  That is so low.

• 22:04Ryan Sean Adams?

  Right? And so you're coming off that bottom and it's a much smaller market cap asset. So of course it makes sense. Now, I will agree with you though, David, that you can't waive the Bitcoin.

• 22:13David Hoffman?

  Oh, my God, 4 billion. It came off of 4 billion.

• 22:16Ryan Sean Adams?

  Exactly. And what ETH probably didn't drop below what, you know, 200 billion or 150 billion or something like that, right? So like when your floor is 4 billion, of course, you're gonna like.

• 22:28David Hoffman?

  150, yeah.

• 22:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  Have much more upside potential, but but you are right in that it doesn't like, you know, that argument doesn't hold sway with the ETH Bitcoin ratio. The fact that Bitcoin has been overperforming is like, like significant. Anyway, I guess we're both of the opinion that we can't just, you know, like dismiss all of this as fun.

• 22:49David Hoffman?

  Approach things head on. You do hard things. That's generally the most proactive thing. That's just general life advice. It's just like, don't ignore our fun.

• 22:57Ryan Sean Adams?

  Lean into the criticism.

• 22:58David Hoffman?

  Yeah, lean into it, like figure it out.

• 23:00Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah. Okay, so as a result of all of this, some people are proposing roadmap solutions. And I would say both people internal to the Ethereum community say we might need a pivot in some way. And also people external. So we're going to talk about all that and more. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible, including our recommended exchange for 2024. Is Kraken, go create an account.

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• 25:41Ryan Sean Adams?

  So we're back. I would say inside the community, we're talking about the roadmap. Inside the community, the Ethereum community, there's this mantra of make the L1 great again. People like Max Resnick are repeating this often. And this is the idea of prioritize L1 execution a little bit more. Like, we have, on the Ethereum side, really prioritize Layer 2s and data availability and blob space for Layer 2s. And that seems to be the continued trajectory of the roadmap. And so some within the Ethereum community are saying, no, come back to the Layer 1. There's some more work we could do here. Let's not forsake execution on Ethereum's Layer 1. So that's kind of the general philosophy of those inside the community.

• 26:22Ryan Sean Adams?

  I would say those outside the community, those not invested and excited about Ethereum, are basically like, Ethereum's an old horse. Like, just give up and die. It's a buggy. You know, there's all these faster blockchains and just like, you know, you will be legacy tech.

• 26:39David Hoffman?

  It's all about the tech.

• 26:40Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's all about the tech, that sort of thing. So they're just kind of like, give up and die. It's the sentiment coming from outside the community. But that's how I would summarize the proposed solutions for the roadmap. But what do you think these roadmap wars are really about? Because you think there's an underlying logic to it and some prized thing that we're actually fighting for here.

• 27:00David Hoffman?

  I want to reframe a lot of the conversations that we've had, the roadmap wars. Wars implies like something that we're fighting over. What are we fighting over? Max Resnick will say we're fighting over Layer 1 execution. I think really a lot of the debate is, should be reoriented around DeFi. And this is something that I think is very near and dear to both of our hearts. Ethereum created DeFi. We both, I think, were very pilled when we both minted DAI from MakerDAO. And we were like, wow, this is amazing.

• 27:31Ryan Sean Adams?

  I mean, Bankless itself is just another word for DeFi.

• 27:34David Hoffman?

  For just, is just DeFi, right? And so like, DeFi is kind of this very special thing that is coming out of crypto. The idea to break finance out of Wall Street and democratize it and put it on the internet as internet protocols is something that deeply motivates like me and Ryan. And I think there is this fundamental essence that is highly related to crypto. You can't really have crypto. Without DeFi, like DeFi is so important. And so I want to actually reframe the entire roadmap wars as like, we are fighting over DeFi and being the home of DeFi. And I also want to illustrate DeFi as like, kind of this like one of one object, this, this

• 28:15David Hoffman?

  golden goose that Ethereum, the Ethereum layer one created currently holds, but is potentially under threat of, of losing. Uh, and it's under threat of losing by its own design. That's the kind of the roll up centric roadmap. Like, we are going to give this DeFi one of one object up to our layer twos. Uh, or maybe we actually lose it in that transition to layer twos. We actually lose it to Solana and a different network has it. Why is DeFi a one of one object? Uh, there is efficiency, network effects when it comes to DeFi. Liquidity begets, begets liquidity. There's that, that meme that like, if anything has the most liquid markets, it's going to just attract further capital to exchange on that market.

• 29:00David Hoffman?

  So liquidity begets liquidity, capital efficiency begets capital efficiency, uh, composability begets composability. And so, you know, when we were getting into DeFi, we had this concept of money legos, right? Like Uniswap could work with Maker Dow, could work with AVE, could work with like anything else that's built on the Ethereum layer one. And this composability is something that you could find in crypto that you couldn't find, uh, in TradFi. And so there's this idea that the, the epicenter of DeFi will just be in one specific spot, kind of how we've seen Wall Street be the home of finance. DeFi has this one home of finance. And right now, to this day, it is the Ethereum layer one. Like the metrics just point to that being true no matter what.

• 29:42David Hoffman?

  Uh, but on the margins, we've seen the growth of DeFi happen elsewhere. So even, even though that the Ethereum layer one is the dominant Loki of DeFi, we've seen a lot of new DeFi be grown on Arbitrum, a lot of new DeFi be grown on Base, new DeFi being grown on Solana. Uh, so even when there is this intense network effects around liquidity and just like DeFi capital efficiency inside of the Ethereum layer one, we are still seeing the net new growth of DeFi happen elsewhere. And DeFi, the reason why I call it the golden goose is because it has all of the value. DeFi has the largest transactions. It creates the most MEV. It produces the

• 30:22David Hoffman?

  most reservation demand for a natural asset, the Ether, the asset for Ethereum, Solana, for the Solana Layer One. And in our opinion, the bankless thesis has been DeFi actually can create money of the respective Layer One. Like, DeFi is the thing that Ethereum has that Bitcoin does not, and has been a huge component in the Ether's money thesis. Like Ether will be able to financialize itself using its own homegrown DeFi economy to be a better money than Bitcoin, whereas Bitcoin kind of still needs Coinbase, or Kraken, or centralized operators to financialize Bitcoin, the asset.

• 31:00Ryan Sean Adams?

  This is kind of like Professor Omid's idea of Ether, the asset, being a high-quality liquid asset for DeFi specifically. And the idea is, when you have, when you're Layer One, and when your economy has decentralized finance, it doesn't have to relinquish custody to a crypto bank for lending and borrowing, like a Celsius, for instance, or an FTX for trading, right? You can have a decentralized exchange to all of these things. And that's basically the bankless thesis, what you're just describing here.

• 31:31David Hoffman?

  And this is a thing, like I said, it produces so much of the value that blockchains really want to capture. It produces transaction demand, and produces large transactions. These large transactions produce second, third, fourth, fifth order consequences in terms of MEV transactions. So so much activity happens, whichever blockchain can be like the Wall Street for DeFi. And something that we've learned is that DeFi is also strictly better with fast, cheap execution. Fast block times, cheap transaction costs. Slow and constrained blockchains actually don't produce good DeFi. Slow, constrained blockchains

• 32:13David Hoffman?

  produce more MEV than what's necessary. There are less efficient markets, there's slower liquidations, there's slower liquidity balancing, and it costs more for users, which constrains The total supply of active market participants that can participate in this like DeFi economy, which also therefore reduces the available capital for this economy. Some applications like perps, options, klogs, central limit order books, or anything complex really, requires low fee, fast block times, blockchains. It's better UX. It's better UX. And also just users, just low, enjoy. The UX is better with low fees, fast block times. And so for this reason, this has been part of the push for like the Max Resnick push of like,

• 32:54David Hoffman?

  make the Ethereum Layer One great again. Optimize the Ethereum Layer One for DeFi. And while going through this, these like series of episodes that we did, I am kind of compelled by that, where we have been very constrained at the Ethereum Layer One, and we have kind of really incentivized people to migrate to Ethereum Layer Twos. And so Arbitrum is proudly beating their chest to be the home of DeFi for Ethereum. And so if that is true, if Arbitrum does take the one of one golden goose, and it captures the network effects of DeFi, well, then you kind of go back to, that's good. It's still inside of the Ethereum ecosystem. It's good for Ethereum.

• 33:37David Hoffman?

  But it's also not as good for Ethereum because of kind of the concerns around the parasitic nature of Ethereum rollups. Well, then the value of DeFi goes to the Arbitrum DAO, which is less credibly neutral than if it were the much more decentralized Ethereum Layer One. And so this has kind of been like why execution has been a very prominent subject of these debates. But also I think why what we're really collectively fighting over is this golden goose of DeFi. It's who wins DeFi? Is it going to be Solana? Ethereum's giving it up, apparently, because the roadmap is saying we are going to continue to have solo stakers at the Layer One.

• 34:19David Hoffman?

  We're going to continue to have 12 second block times for the foreseeable future. We're going to continue to prioritize decentralization. And so therefore, that what people are saying is that choice means that Ethereum is going To give up the layer one, the one of one golden goose. And who captures that golden goose? It could go to these VC funded layer twos. Arbitrum, Optimism, Base are going to squabble over DeFi. Solana is also going to fight to capture that one of one golden goose. And so where DeFi goes has been a part of perhaps why the ETH BTC ratio is down. The Solana ETH ratio is up. And then people are talking about their fragmentation of the layer two landscape.

• 35:03Ryan Sean Adams?

  I think there's one semantic, you know, definitional element that we have to talk about, which is when we say DeFi, what do we actually mean? And I think there's like two types of DeFi that people mean in crypto and they'd sort of blend these things together. One is what I'll call like strong DeFi, like DeFi with strong settlement assurances. And the other is kind of like DeFi light. Light DeFi does not have strong nation state resistant settlement assurances. Strong DeFi does. And again, when we say settlement assurances and kind of like property rights and, you know, these types of things. It basically means the like the inability for any third party actor to steal, censor, inflate, cheat in some way. The the participants inside of that network.

• 35:45Ryan Sean Adams?

  And when I say a strong DeFi, what I mean is at the nation state level, like a nation state actor does not have power to steal, censor or inflate any of the property inside of that blockchain network. Okay, so it's like the highest grade security you can get because at the nation state level, we're operating in kind of the, you know, the rule of the jungle. And it's all against all. And so there are these like incredibly powerful forces that would like to try to manipulate and control a property rights system. And if they can't, then you are nation state sovereign resistant. You have strong DeFi. And I would say that only two chains right now have passed into that threshold of being able to host strong DeFi. One is Bitcoin, as evidenced by the fact that you have countries like El Salvador with Bitcoin.

• 36:31Ryan Sean Adams?

  The use case as a store of value on their central bank. So they're using Bitcoin literally to defend against other nation states from a store of value perspective. And then Ethereum, which in addition to the store. Value properties hasn't been picked up by a central bank yet, but has censorship resistance against even things like OFAC sanctions. So OFAC sanctions, a set of smart contract, those blocks are still built within Ethereum. Everything else besides Ethereum and Bitcoin has not been tested at the level of nation-state resistance, like sovereignty. And so a lot of the other category of blockchains are just operating in kind of a DeFi light type context. They'll work as long as the nation state's cool with it, as long as it's not like illegal in some particular jurisdiction.

• 37:16David Hoffman?

  I would even say that Ethereum has been tested in ways that Bitcoin has not. There has been coin join mixers, Bitcoin mixers, Bitcoin versions of tornado cash that are centralized companies that have been shut down and seized by the FBI. Bitcoin has always been higher than the level of the nation state for BTC, the asset. But it's also been a long time bankless system that will actually Bitcoin DeFi is actually quite neutered, is actually quite stunted, hence why Ethereum DeFi is this very valuable place. So there's actually only one DeFi ecosystem with smart contracts that has been able to operate antagonistically above the level of a nation state. And even Ethereum layer twos and all other layer ones have not actually passed over

• 38:01David Hoffman?

  that threshold. So there's actually only one economic zone, the Ethereum layer one, that has strong DeFi. Everything else is going to be like weak DeFi. It's going to be DeFi light.

• 38:10Ryan Sean Adams?

  And I think strong DeFi is necessary if you're trying to create a store of value or a monetary system for like the entire world. And so when you were talking about like DeFi is strictly better with fast, cheap, shared execution, that is true, holding all things equal. But if in exchange for that fast, cheap, shared execution, you are making compromises and you are leading to a more centralized system that can only support like DeFi light, weak DeFi, well, what have you really gained here?

• 38:37David Hoffman?

  That's not really why we're here. That's not, that's not why Bankless is here. And that's not why we believe that crypto is here.

• 38:42Ryan Sean Adams?

  So there is this question, I would say of like, what does the rest of the world want? And I would contend that the core of crypto is always going to be something that operates outside of the Nation state and provides that grade of security. Or else, why do you not use a permission fintech database with a set of APIs? And anyway, this all leads to the question of what do we do with the roadmap? And what are some of the, like, so scale the L1, continue with the L2 course that Ethereum is on? Taking all of the context, everything we just went over. What are the, what's kind of the what do for Ethereum from a roadmap perspective?

• 39:23David Hoffman?

  These two camps subdivide inside themselves, but the two large camps are we got to pivot the roadmap. Let's scale the layer one. That's one side. That's like the Max Resnick side of things. And then there's the stay the course. This is just noise. Just grow the layer twos. Maybe this is also, this is the noise camp. It's also the, well, this is actually just the growing pains camp. This is the side of things where like, well, Ethereum is going through puberty. It's actually tough. It makes sense that the ETH BTC ratio is down in this present moment of time because we're doing this weird transition, this weird handoff of DeFi from layer one to layer two. But actually, the price actually makes sense because we're doing this like evolution thing where we're shedding one era of Ethereum for another.

• 40:03David Hoffman?

  The pivot the roadmap has garnered increasingly more energy over the last year or so. And especially with Max Resnick getting really spicy on Twitter. So what about that? What about that roadmap? Can we just like juice the layer one? And there's like two different ways to do this. There is the Max Resnick F the solo stakers path where he says solo sakers are unnecessary. We don't really need them. They're actually slowing down the network. Slow sakers have captured Ethereum, which is kind of funny. And then there's the Vitalik Buterin scaling the Ethereum roadmap path. Which turns out, we actually are scaling the Ethereum layer one. That is actually the current plan.

• 40:47David Hoffman?

  And also, it's worth noting that Palenia, I think, wrote the best Ethereum layer one scaling roadmap article all the way back in December of 2023, so coming up on a year ago. And they just write a very concise, articulate. Somewhat technical Ethereum layer one scaling plan where at the end of this roadmap, the part of the Ethereum roadmap that scales the layer one that we end up with this snarkified Ethereum layer one, which makes it, which takes the power of ZK, imbues it into Ethereum and makes it like ZK Ethereum. And at that point, we can like really take off the brakes of the Ethereum layer one and have very strong

• 41:29David Hoffman?

  execution capacity at the layer one, very fast block times, think like two second block times, very fast for an Ethereum layer one. And that would be pretty powerful. That is the current plan, which then kind of goes back to like, okay, then what's the issue here? This is the plan. We are scaling the Ethereum layer one. And then Max Resnick will say, well, yes, and we need to prioritize the layer one today, not tomorrow. And so what do we need to do is we actually need to prioritize layer one execution right now. Instead of prioritizing layer twos so hard, we keep on prioritizing layer twos. Arbitrum is just taking the DeFi golden goose away from the Ethereum layer one. We're giving it to them for free.

• 42:10David Hoffman?

  We don't get any of that value back. Why are we doing this? Let's just scale the layer one right now. And that's kind of like the contention, the point of contention, I would say is like, can we scale the layer one in the way that Max Resnick wants today? And that conversation has kind of concluded in the idea of, it's actually bandwidth that is the reason why we cannot scale the Ethereum layer one without losing a critical mass of solo stakers. It's actually not hardware that's the constraint, it's bandwidth. And so that is the current like phase of Ethereum research right now is how much slack is there in the system? How much can we scale the layer one throughput with, without kicking off too many participants in the network?

• 42:52David Hoffman?

  So that's like part of like where this current conversation has gone to go research. And then there's the growth of the layer two path, which is, well, we're also competing with Celestia. And Celestia has so much block blob space that they have, you know, infinite slack for all of these rollups that come deploy on Celestia. And Ethereum has three blobs per slot, so that's three blobs every 12 seconds. And this is the Vitalik take as well, is we actually need to prioritize growing blob space because we want to prioritize the rollup-centric roadmap as we always have. Because we are almost at target of hitting three blobs per block. And if we hit the target of three blobs per block, then blobs start to become expensive

• 43:37David Hoffman?

  and rollups start to have to pay higher fees. And then they are at risk of using a different data availability solutions blob space, perhaps Celestia's, just leaving the Ethereum low key of influence and going elsewhere. And so we need to prioritize blob space because we want to prioritize rollups. Because what does that do? That creates more censorship-resistant blog space, block space, and allows more rollups to blossom out of the Ethereum Layer 1. And what is that North Star? That North Star is growing the total aggregate economy of Ethereum. That is the 4844 strategy. That's what Dang Sharding is. That's what blob space is, is that with blob space, we can grow more chains to be secured by Ethereum inside of the Ethereum umbrella.

• 44:22David Hoffman?

  And that is growing the Ethereum economy, which is the correct way to grow the most value. And so these are kind of the different directions that people are all kind of like tugging Ethereum in.

• 44:31Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I guess my take in hearing all of that and all of the debate is like Ethereum is both scaling the L1 and it's scaling the L2. But it's not, it's consciously not forsaking sort of the properties that make its validator set like special and decentralized. Just things like, you know, solo staking and being able to verify the client on like a, you know, like a pretty small, you know, like hardware footprint, right?

• 44:59David Hoffman?

  So it's not giving up strong DeFi.

• 45:01Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, exactly. And it's always, it's kind of always been doing that. And, but it's not following the path of alternative Layer Ones. It's just like still more in the vintage of the Bitcoin, strong DeFi type of mindset. So in this world where Ethereum scales the L1 and it scales the L2. But it doesn't give up decentralization. What do you think the future of that back to that golden goose? Where will DeFi be in this world?

• 45:31David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so this asks the very important question. And in the rollup centric roadmap, where will DeFi be hosted? Because we are prioritizing layer twos. So where's what's the role of layer twos in the in the hosting of DeFi? So there's one possible future, which we're kind of currently at in the Ethereum landscape now, which is a low number, few, large scale, generalized rollups, maybe even one host DeFi. They are the home of DeFi. And right now, this is like, kind of arguably Arbitrum. Arbitrum says it's the home of DeFi. Maybe Arbitrum has the one of one golden goose where all of the value of DeFi aggregates. Base is also in contention for DeFi here. And I kind of find this outcome less desirable, not very desirable at all, actually.

• 46:13David Hoffman?

  Just because, well, we have the faster block times and lower fees. So that's really good. But neither Arbitrum nor Base are credibly neutral at all. Those are, that's going to be weak DeFi. Like neither of these things have really been tested by the nation state. Arbitrum, the DAO has not been tested by the nation state to censor transactions. But Coinbase is a publicly traded US company. Like, I don't, I think.

• 46:36Ryan Sean Adams?

  Not with a centralized sequencer, right? It's not going to be, you know, strong DeFi with a centralized sequencer. And when you're kind of like stage zero or stage one on the L2 beat, right? Decentralization path.

• 46:48David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so in the model of a few number of large scale, generalized rollups, I find even with like stage two decentralized sequencing, like I'm still concerned that like having one single rollup being the home of DeFi is not strong DeFi. It's not credibly neutral. It's definitely not credibly neutral DeFi. And you can kind of see like why the Solana ether ratio is up. Because maybe people are saying like, well, Solana is capturing more DeFi. And it's going to be a stronger form of DeFi than Arbitrum or Base. And so that's bullish soul. And so maybe that answers that question there. That's one possible future, which is also kind of the current future, the current state of things, state of play in the Ethereum rollup centric roadmap. There's another possible future, which I'm much more bullish on, which.

• 47:32David Hoffman?

  I'm hoping it's coming and there are signs of it coming, which is a mesh network of app chains. And we're seeing this with the deployment of the uni chain as well as the frontier of base rollups, which is starting to get underway. And I kind of see these two futures as opposite ends of the same spectrum. If layer one resource costs are high, as in like we have a constrained decentralized layer one that we currently have, then it kind of favors the former. It pushes a lot of DeFi activity to one layer two, call it arbitrum. But if we really scale the layer one, if the resource costs are layer one are low, that actually incentivizes the latter, where all these app chains can use the very strong

• 48:15David Hoffman?

  execution of the Ethereum layer one to have stronger sequencing, stronger composability. And so even with, and the reason why I favor this like mesh network of app chains is that if every single DeFi app that's useful, call it Ave, MakerDAO, you know, UniSwap, which now is UniChain, if the applications that are DeFi all have their own chains and they're all independent chains and they're not going to like one ecosystem, they're not just going to arbitrum, then I think we preserve in that model credible neutrality. And it's actually still Ethereum that is holding that DeFi golden goose because it's Ethereum that's doing all of the sequencing, all of the composing of all of this mesh network of app chains.

• 48:58David Hoffman?

  And especially as we get into base rollups, which base rollups do have near perfect cross-chain execution, a base rollup application can instantly talk to a second base rollup application through the Ethereum layer one. But then we go back to like, well, we actually need to go back and scale the layer one because we need to have fast, cheap transactions for these app chains to compose their DeFi to. That's where I hope we are going. That's more credibly neutral to me is strong DeFi, because in this world of stage two app chains, they are censorship resistant, they inherit the properties of the Ethereum layer one. And then like the DeFi layer one, the DeFi golden goose is kind of retained by the Ethereum layer one.

• 49:41Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I think it's super early is like one thing I'd add to that conversation. I don't think any like chain is close to winning. There's also like these economic zones that are kind of forming like even if let's say Arbitrum is taking the lead right now, we haven't seen what the kind of the ZK sync economic zone might look like in the future or like, you know, the optimism super chain with like base and now Unichain and OP mainnet and a whole bunch of others. So there's going to be a lot of growth here and I think also just like that growth is good as long as it's kind of like many different parties and it's somewhat, yeah, like there's no one party that kind of like controls everything or one chain where all of the DeFi state kind of accrues.

• 50:24Ryan Sean Adams?

  I guess the other question though is what about Ether, the asset? So in a world where, you know, L2s are maxed out and whether that's in the form of sort of L2s with, you know, centralized sequencers or if they're decentralized sequencers and they're based rollups, that kind of thing, what about ETH the asset? Like what's the future there? Because that was part of what the main criticism has been is just like, none of this rollup-centric roadmap stuff is good for Ether the asset from a value accrual perspective.

• 50:56David Hoffman?

  So this is actually something I think I learned something from the Kyle Simoni episode where he talks about how all the software, the software costs are going to zero. Execution is going to zero, data availability is going to zero. Kyle Simoni doesn't think that MEV is going to zero, but I think he's wrong about that. MEV is also going to zero, at least from the protocol's perspective. So blockchains won't capture MEV, applications will capture MEV and this is evidenced by exactly why Uniswap made Unichain, Sorrela is making application-specific sequencing. So if all of these like resource capture value captures are going to zero, then what's left to capture value? And that answer is, well, the apps actually capture the value.

• 51:38David Hoffman?

  And the only thing left after the apps capture the value is like the equity tokens that govern the apps, so the uni token that governs the uni chain and money, the money that's flowing through these apps. And so the money becomes the money of these applications that are capturing value. And the applications that are capturing value hopefully are this like mesh network of app chains that I was talking about. And so this is kind of why we, I think, I think the bankless thesis is that all layer one tokens eventually converge on money as the model for their value capture. They turn into money for their ecosystem. And I thought this answer from Donkrad in the recent Ethereum Researchers AMA, AMA on Reddit was really interesting.

• 52:23David Hoffman?

  He kind of laid out the case that in order to, in order to have ETH value accrue in Ether the asset, the Ethereum economy needs to create value. And to me, what that means is that we need to grow the GDP of Ethereum by scaling out blobs to host more blockchains that settle to Ethereum and that create valuable applications for apps to capture value and use Ether as money. And so I've kind of been pilled on this idea that like the way that ETH becomes money is that the Ethereum economy just generates more value. We create more value. And right now, like what we always talk about this, what's one of the best business models that's been created ever since blockchains?

• 53:08David Hoffman?

  Selling block space. And so if in order for Ether to become money, we need to sell as much block space as possible because it's going to be all the applications that capture, that capture value. And the only thing that's left over is money because execution is going to zero, DA is going to zero, MEV is going to zero.

• 53:27Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I mean, I pretty much have sort of, that's what I'm betting on, basically, that layer one tokens are actually like monetary assets. And in like a big way, kind of Bitcoin got it right, right? Which is like, you know, Bitcoin being a store of value type of asset. So I think maybe to conclude that this conversation, this is a bull case. Let's talk about the bull case for Ethereum going into 2025. And for me, there are maybe like, four or five things that really pop into my mind. The first is this, I think the Ethereum roadmap is stronger than people think. They, there's a lot of people out there that don't really understand what Ethereum

• 54:09Ryan Sean Adams?

  is building towards, or don't understand its north star, and like why it's making the choices that it's making. But it's making very like, long-term choices with no shortcuts. And you can really see that when you go through, you know, recently Vitalik has been posting about like blog posts on the different, you know, phases over the different swim lanes of the Ethereum roadmap, the surge, the scourge, and the purge. And a lot of the considerations that we've talked about are kind of like embedded inside of the decisions that the Ethereum roadmap is making. I also think that the plurality of all of these L2 experiments where we're just not, it's not just one EVM execution layer, but all of this experimentation, the execution layer, I think

• 54:51Ryan Sean Adams?

  that's going to pay dividends in the future as well. Like, it's just a Cambrian explosion of different experiments. And some of those will hit, and some of those will be incredibly successful and propel innovation forward. So that's the first thing. The second is, a lot of the problems that we talked about earlier on, like particularly the fragmentation type problems, or the L2s are still decentralized, they're still centralized, they're not stage two yet. I think a lot of that's going to be solved in the coming, like the next 12 months, right? So we have lots of different bankless episodes on this, but I could see in 2025, kind of this reconvergence of liquidity, first in sort of these economic zones and superchains, but then there's technologies like AgLeiR. We also mentioned like base rollups, which, you know, if you become a base rollup, it kind of solves the

• 55:36Ryan Sean Adams?

  Fragmentation problem out of the box. And so we're going to solve that. I think we'll see a lot of L2s move closer towards stage two as well for regulatory reasons. They don't want all of the responsibility that being centralized it kind of like requires. And then I see a bunch of major catalysts ahead for Ethereum. One is we've got this nice, healthy cycle of DA gets cheap because Ethereum upgrades state availability. And then that induces more demand for layer two block blob space, data availability, which causes Ethereum fees to go up and then Ethereum releases another DA upgrade. And this is kind of a virtuous cycle.

• 56:20Ryan Sean Adams?

  We're going to get future DA upgrades for Ethereum with like, you know, full dank sharding and peer das, that sort of thing. And all the while, this induced demand is actually doing what you just said, David, which is it's not only creating fees for block space. That's kind of like a temporary type thing that just ebbs and flows. But it's creating induced demand for Ether as money inside of these burgeoning L2 economies. So right now there's over like 11 billion in Ether being used as money inside of the L2 economy. And I don't think people are looking at that. So that's huge. It's also notable that Ethereum is winning many of the L2s over. I mean, that is the L2 chain, right?

• 57:01Ryan Sean Adams?

  So it's building this complicated, you know, L2 economy on top. And I think people aren't seeing that Ether is a monetary asset right now. So that narrative has fully left the barn with respect to Bitcoin, right? Everyone knows Bitcoin's a digital gold, yeah, it's a non-sovereign store of value. We haven't even scratched the surface of that narrative potential for Ether, the asset. And I think we will as these types of things become self-evident. And then you just mentioned based rollups. I think next year is going to be a huge year for based rollups. And again, out of the box, you know, Justin Drake called these like, it's like a smart contract on Ethereum, but inside on Ethereum mainnet. But inside of that smart contract, you have cheap transaction fees. That's one way of viewing it.

• 57:43Ryan Sean Adams?

  And it's a really interesting, more aligned Ethereum aligned like design for rollups. And then of course, you have like the fact that Ethereum just feels oversold right now. It's underrated.

• 57:55David Hoffman?

  Honestly, I think this is the most bullish one.

• 57:57Ryan Sean Adams?

  The mean will revert. A lot of the criticism is overplayed. And so you want to sort of be looking at the asset when there's like panic, blood in the streets, ether's dead type talk. Like if you did that when Sol was at its, you know, four billion market cap, you'd be doing well. And it's not quite at that level, but there's like similar sentiment going around about ether right now. So that to me positions ether for upside in 2025. Of course, none of this is financial advice. And like have no idea, but I don't know, still feeling comfy.

• 58:35David Hoffman?

  I think betting on Ethereum when Ethereum is contrarian feels like home to me.

• 58:41David Hoffman?

  Like I've entertained the idea of like, maybe I just, maybe I just buy a juice layer one. You know, maybe, maybe I just bet on that horse and then I entertain that idea as far as I can, as long as that will go. And I'm like, ah, no, Ethereum's just gonna, it's all gonna come back to Ethereum. So like, I'm just gonna skip my way there.

• 58:58Ryan Sean Adams?

  I mean, I really like the roadmap. And if I were to kind of summarize the roadmap, it's scale the L1, scale the L2, scale the Ethereum economy, scale ether as a monetary asset inside of this economy and do all of this while preserving the decentralization that makes crypto special.

• 59:15David Hoffman?

  Which has always been the plan. That has always been the plan.

• 59:19Ryan Sean Adams?

  Well, I feel like for me, that's where I've come at the, the end of this cycle of episodes on kind of like Ethereum roadmap, like which way, what do we do? I mean, I feel like it's actually in a pretty good spot.

• 59:31David Hoffman?

  I think, I think I would agree. I think maybe there's one exogenous factor, which probably there's a whole episode to talk about here, but what is the environment in which the crypto industry is entering into? Is the industry entering into a more hostile macro geopolitical environment or a more dovish one? And I actually think a more friendly dovish environment is actually more bullish. The juice layer ones that have compromised on decentralization and entering into a more hostile geopolitical macro environment is actually much more bullish Bitcoin and ether that have transcended that gap. But I can let that be up to the imagination of the listener. I'll let you guys answer that one about what you think.

• 1:00:11Ryan Sean Adams?

  There you go. Well, risks and disclaimers, of course. None of this has been financial advice. As we mentioned, crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.

• 1:00:22David Hoffman?

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• 1:01:06David Hoffman?

  New projects are coming online to the Mantle Layer 2 every single week. Why is this happening? Maybe it's because Mantle has been on the frontier of Layer 2 design architecture since it first started building Mantle DA powered by technology from EigenDA. Maybe it's because users are coming on to the Mantle Layer 2 to capture some of the highest yields available in DeFi and to automatically receive the points and tokens being accrued by the $3 billion Mantle Treasury in the Mantle Rewards Station. Maybe it's because the Mantle team is one of the most helpful teams to build with, giving you grants, liquidity support, and venture partners to help bootstrap your Mantle application. Maybe it's all of these reasons all put together. So if you're a dev and you want to build on one of the best foundations in crypto, or you're a user looking to claim some ownership on Mantle's DeFi apps, click the link in the show notes to getting started with Mantle.