Dmitry Buterin | Layer Zero

Dmitry Buterin joins David for the premiere of Layer Zero, a new Bankless podcast that explores the human side of Ethereum. Beneath the technological innovation and socioeconomic disruption happening in the DeFi space, there are human beings – really interesting, thoughtful, passionate human beings. Layer Zero is at the bottom of the economic stack: the people. For the debut episode, it only made sense to bring on Dmitry, father of Ethereum founder Vitalik. Topics include Vitalik’s youth, Soviet Russia, and universal consciousness, but they don’t stop there. How often does Dmitry check ETH Price? What’s his workout routine? Tune in and find out. ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/ 🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/ 🎖 CLAIM YOUR BADGE: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/-guide-2-using-the-bankless-badge ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 🍵 MATCHA | DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGE AGGREGATOR https://bankless.cc/Matcha 🔐 LEDGER | SECURE YOUR ASSETS https://bankless.cc/Ledger 🦄 UNISWAP | DECENTRALIZED FUNDING https://bankless.cc/UniGrants ------ 📣 TracerDAO | Building DeFi Infrastructure. Join the Discord! https://bankless.cc/TracerDAO ------ Topics Covered: 0:00 Intro 4:00 Dmitry Buterin 6:30 Growing Up in the Soviet Union 11:27 Learning Computer Science 17:02 Vitalik’s Youth 20:58 A Gifted Kid 22:43 Mindfulness & Spirituality 26:43 Kindness & Compassion 32:00 Ethereum & Spirituality 39:57 Political Compass 45:21 Canada & Vitalik’s Social Skills 49:20 The World Traveler 55:29 Conferences & Safety 1:00:23 ETH Price 1:01:48 Exercise 1:03:52 Hanging Out 1:04:53 A Chaotic World 1:07:00 Consciousness & Communism 1:15:56 A March to Universal Consciousness 1:18:48 Exporting Values ------ Resources: Dmitry on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlockGeekDima?s=20 ----- 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://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures

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

• 0:07David Hoffman?

  Welcome to Layer Zero. Layer Zero is a podcast of unscripted conversations with the people that make up the Ethereum community. Ethereum is built by code, but it's composed by people, and each individual member of the Ethereum community has their own story to tell. Cypherpunks understood that the code they write impacts the people that use it, and Layer Zero focuses on the people behind the code, because Ethereum is people all the way down, and it always has been. On the first episode of Layer Zero, I'm excited to have a conversation with Dmitry Buterin. And if we're calling this Layer Zero, I think Dmitry Buterin might be Layer Negative One. Dmitry Buterin is the father of Vitalik Buterin, the guy that kicked off this whole Ethereum movement. And I really

• 0:51David Hoffman?

  wanted to have him on as the first guest because of the relationship between the DNA of the people that make up this industry and the actual things that come to manifest on it in code. I think there's a relationship there. Dmitry was born in Russia and was raised in communist Russia. And we go through the story of what that was like, his first introduction into computers, his computer science major at university, and then moving into the world that he's in now, where he lives in Canada. Dmitry is focused on the world of meditation and mindfulness, and that is a topic of conversation that I'm also very interested in as well. And so we start to, we talk about, in

• 1:36David Hoffman?

  addition to many other things, the relationship between Ethereum and acceptance and kindness, and how the protocol is a reflection of the values of the people that built it, as the introduction to this podcast just suggested. And then we also talked about what it's like to be Vitalik's dad, and watch this kid go around the world trying to garner support for this Ethereum thing, even before we all knew that Ethereum was going to be what it was going to be. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation with Dmitry Buterin, and I hope that you enjoy all Future podcasts with the people that you've already listened to podcasts to before, but in a different context about how the people that compose this ecosystem make up the code

• 2:21David Hoffman?

  that dictates our lives. And so, without further ado, I bring you Dmitry Buterin. But first, a message from these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. Living a bankless life requires taking control of your own private keys. Not your keys, not your crypto. That's why so many in the bankless nation already have their Ledger hardware wallets, which makes proper private key management a breeze. But the Ledger ecosystem is more than just a secure hardware wallet. Ledger is the combination of the Ledger hardware wallet and the Ledger Live app. And if you're used to seeing all of your crypto services and favorite D apps all in one place, Ledger is where you want to be. Not only does Ledger let you buy crypto assets straight from the app, but it also hooks into decentralized exchange aggregators like Paraswap,

• 3:03David Hoffman?

  which makes sure that you are getting the best prices on your trades without your assets ever leaving your control. DeFi never stops growing and the Ledger Live app grows alongside with it. So click the link in the show notes to see all the DeFi apps that Ledger Live has. And stay tuned as more and more apps come online. And if you don't have a Ledger hardware wallet, what are you even waiting for? Go to ledger.com, grab your Ledger, download Ledger Live, and get all of your D apps all in one place.

• 3:31David Hoffman?

  Arbitrum is an Ethereum scaling solution that is going to completely change how we use DeFi. If you've been using Ethereum for the past 12 months, you've probably noticed the high gas fees and the slow confirmation times that have been plaguing DeFi. Too many people want to use Ethereum and it doesn't have enough capacity for all of us. That's where Arbitrum comes in. Arbitrum is a layer two to Ethereum, which means Arbitrum can increase Ethereum's throughput by orders of magnitude at a fraction of the cost of what we are used to paying. When interacting with Arbitrum, you can get the performance of a centralized exchange while tapping into Ethereum's level of security and decentralization. This is why people are calling this Ethereum's broadband moment, where we get to add performance onto decentralization and security. If you're a developer and you want to save on gas costs and make an overall better experience

• 4:16David Hoffman?

  for your users, go to developer off-chain. labs.com to get started building on Arbitrum. If you're a user, keep an eye out for your favorite DeFi apps building on Arbitrum. Arbitrum has been working with over 300 teams, including Ethereum's top infrastructure projects, and will be opening up to all users shortly. There are so many apps coming online to Arbitrum, so you may want to pack your bags in preparation for the great migration to the Arbitrum Layer 2. To keep up to speed with Arbitrum, follow them on Twitter at Arbitrum and join their Discord. All right, everyone, I'm here with Dmitry Buterin, the founder of Vitalik. I had to steal that joke from Laura Shin. She was the one that made that.

• 4:58David Hoffman?

  Dmitry, welcome to Layer Zero, the first ever guest on the first ever episode of this new podcast. Welcome.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 5:07David Hoffman?

  So for listeners who are trying to get a grip for what Layer Zero is, Layer Zero is about the people that compose this community, this fantastic community that we are all a part of. And Dmitry Buterin is Vitalik Buterin's father. So technically, he's like Layer Negative One, whatever comes right before Zero. And so I think this is going to be a fantastic conversation to kick off this new show. So Dmitry, I'm excited to get into some non-Ethereum, non-DeFi related subjects, and maybe we touch on them later. Yeah.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Totally. And I think I love their, I love the name, Level Zero, right? And I was just reading some articles this morning about governance and this and that, right? And people, again, we people want safety and stability. It's like, you know, code is law. But the thing is, like, code is written by humans, and code will be full of bugs. Humans are full of bugs. And, you know, this is a never-ending process of, you know, it's a feedback loop. So really, it's really important to focus on that invisible layer, because it's, I mean, invisible in the code, right? But it's an extremely important aspect of this whole ecosystem, right?

• 6:21David Hoffman?

  Yeah, at the end of the day, if all of the humans of the world disagree with the code, then the code is invalid, and it doesn't matter. And it's back to, back to the human layer. So I want to go all the way back and kind of ask you, what was it like to grow up in Russia? What was that like? And what city did you grow up?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  I grew up in a city called Grozny in a place called Chechnya. Uh, so that's southern border of Russia, close to their Afghanistan border. Um, and you know, it wasn't so much Russia, it was Soviet Union, right? And it was interesting, right? Because end of the day, uh, we have all kinds of memories from our childhood, some good and bad. And depending on our current emotion, you know, some can prevail. So there was all kinds of stuff in the childhood, you know, having fun, you know, I had a very curious mind and I think I still do. And uh, doing fun stuff and you know, trying to blow things up and then getting interested in electronics and whatnot.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Having to learn some disciplines, going into swimming, this and that. Getting lots of propaganda from the state, you know, the state was this uh, uh, all powerful benevolent force that was doing everything, right? And entrepreneurship was considered to be bad. And again, like everything is done by the state and the state is perfect. And uh, and you know, we were all standing on this uh, doing these concerts and singing hints to Lenin and communism and whatnot. But as you grow a little bit and you see all this uh, you know, discrepancy between what you've been taught and between what's actually happening, right?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  And nobody is really believing that, everybody is just kind of playing the games. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's kind of do this, but now let's talk about real life, right? So it was really fascinating environment to kind of look at all of that stuff.

• 8:22David Hoffman?

  I I I'm assuming there's some semblance of resonance with this, but when when growing up in America, there's always the question of like, what do you want to be when you grow up? What what was that question like for you in in Russia? What what form did that question come in?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Well, I guess it's supposed to come up pretty much for every child. I don't recall that's ever really coming up for me. And again, maybe it's part of their social, cultural level and, you know, socialism that Soviet Union was, right? But it's kind of you were just feeling like you're part of this, you're a meaningless part of this huge blob of stuff. And the blob is moving somewhere and you will be told what to do, you, you, you know, you will be told where to work and kind of you will be, you know, your, the kind of money you make and will be defined for you, all of this stuff. And yes, you will be, you know, the free healthcare and education, blah, blah, blah.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  So you just do what you're told, right? And it's really interesting because it's also, you can see that even in modern Russia, which is very different than when, very far from the Soviet Union, but the whole concept of, there's a huge difference in that and in the West. And especially in the States, there is this respect for the individual. And in, in that society, it's like individual means nothing, you know? We can easily just move a million people here, we can mill, we can kill, you know, 10 millions here and they don't matter. You know, just their collective matters and an individual doesn't matter. So.

• 10:05David Hoffman?

  So did you have that question answered for yourself inside of your own head? Or did you not even think to ask the question like, what do I want to do with my life later?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  I mean, when I, when I got old, you know, as I was growing up, I was just kind of following the things that were of interest to me, especially as I realized that, or I don't have to just kind of follow the things that I've been pushed to by my parents and whatnot. Uh, man, you know, I always, I had a huge library at home, which was really awesome. It really helped me uh grow and satisfy my curiosity about life and everything. And there was lots of, lots of kind of books about science and math and puzzles and stuff like that and sci fi. Even though it was pretty hard to get books in the Soviet Union, it was funny, like actually to get some new books,

• 10:55Speaker 01

  you actually have to uh submit into recycling, like, you know, ten kilos of old books, stuff like that. Um, so I got interested eventually in electronics and then I got interested in cybernetics and kind of basic computer systems and programmable calculators. So by the time I finished uh school, high school, if you want, then I knew that, okay, I really want to study computers and stuff related to that. And can I, I chose the university and I went for that.

• 11:27David Hoffman?

  Do you remember your first introduction to a computer? Like, what was the first time you touched a computer?

• 11:34Speaker 01

  I probably was maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen, oh yeah, probably somewhere around that age. And the first, my first experience was, was this, uh, you know, in school, we got, we're supposed to get some kind of hands-on experience, uh, some, you know, not outside of regular learning, that you get some hands-on experiences uh in a particular whatever factory organization, right? And in this case, we were at some kind of, uh, I don't even remember what the organization was, but they had this, uh, what do you call them, a mini computer, right? Like, you know, when you have terminals and you have this huge computer somewhere and then you have printers and whatnot.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, it was really exciting to kind of be, being able to kind of touch that. And, uh, and then they had some experience with personal computers. And maybe even before that, probably my first introduction was the, I put a programmable calculator, right? Like Soviet Union was, uh, Like was not known for creativity, but it was just ruthlessly copying all this stuff it could steal and copy from the West. So I believe that the programmable calculator that they had, it was just a copy of something that was created in the West. Couple of whatever decades or a decade before that. And it was this scientific calculator, which had hundred bytes of memory and and that memory was all that you had for data and for code.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  And it was really cool as I kind of was reading some magazines and trying to and it didn't have any, uh, it only had RAM. So you switch it on. You have to type in their, the codes and then you run it and it does their calculation. And people were actually still building some little games on that, right? And their inventiveness of kind of building stuff, you know, in hundred bytes of machine codes that kind of, that fascinated me. It was so cool to, to kind of learn about that and try to play with that and whatnot.

• 13:38David Hoffman?

  Oh, I, I remember doing the same thing in math class with my like TI eighty four and, and everyone who was bored in math class would figure out that like, you could make like the different patterns by putting numbers in, you press enter and you would see it scroll and you can make like, you make little mazes. Uh, I, I don't know how many bytes of, of memory that TI eighty fours had, but that was, that was my introduction. It was definitely just an entertainment tool for kids that were bored in math class.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know, also my curiosity always kind of then pushed me to explore. Okay. So this is how it works. Interesting. Now what happens if I press all of these buttons? What happens when I do this? What happens when, you know, it says it's like, there's no more memory, but then I try to put another command, you know, stuff like that. So like I got really interested into the concept of what is now known as hacking. Right. But basically trying to, okay, so here's a complex system that does what it's supposed to do. Now what can we do with it that it's not supposed to do?

• 14:41David Hoffman?

  Would you say that like computers resonated with you particularly? Or were you just a normal like, you know, teenage boy that gets fascinated by gadgets? Did you have any particular resonance?

• 14:52Speaker 01

  There were no gadgets around me, you know, like in the Soviet Union, like, you know, first of all. So I grew up in like, in the end of seventies and then the eighties, right? So very few gadgets, again, you like Soviet Union was extremely poor compared to the West. Uh, and access to this kind of stuff was extremely limited and maybe accessible to the elite. So, so computers were the most, I mean, I only got access to them when I was in my teenage years. And, uh, uh, they were really hard to get access to. And they fascinated me with their level of complexity, you know?

• 15:30David Hoffman?

  And so you went to school for, uh, computer science or cybernetics?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:34David Hoffman?

  Computer science. What's cybernetics?

• 15:36Speaker 01

  It had like a long, complex name, like, you know, software applications for computer systems, whatever.

• 15:44David Hoffman?

  And then what was your like first job out of school or, or career path that you got out of that?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Uh, the very first job I, it was, I was a software engineer, actually in a bank.

• 15:56David Hoffman?

  In a bank, huh? Nice. And then where in this story did you meet Vitalik's mom?

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Uh, in the university, yeah, she was in my class in the university, yeah.

• 16:08David Hoffman?

  What was she studying?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Studying together.

• 16:11David Hoffman?

  What was she studying? Same thing?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Same thing, yeah.

• 16:14David Hoffman?

  Ah, ah, okay. So we had, we had two, two computer nerds meet because of computers, huh?

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, at that age, computers are fun, but then also, oh, what about booze and sex and whatnot? That's fascinating too.

• 16:27David Hoffman?

  Blues, huh? Was blues a thing in Russia?

• 16:30Speaker 01

  No, booze.

• 16:32David Hoffman?

  Oh, booze. Oh, I thought, okay, fair enough.

• 16:38David Hoffman?

  Can you, can you tell me that story of, of how you met Vitalik's mom?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Well, it was just she was in my class, you know, like and then exactly how it unfolded, you know, it's really hard to remember that. It was, you know, whatever, thirty plus years ago.

• 16:54David Hoffman?

  Hmm, interesting, interesting. So when one of the reasons why I was asking about computers is because like, I would imagine when Vitalik was growing up, when if you plopped him in front of a computer, he would just like magnet like gravitate right, right towards it. Would you say that was true?

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. Right. And, you know, also for many parents, we kind of, we end up trying to live our dreams through our kids, right? You know, like when we were kids, there were still things that we're somehow not able to do and get access to, right? And, you know, then you buy all this Lego sets and it's part of you really wants to play with them. It's like, oh, no, it's for my kid, because it's also hard for you to admit that. Big part of you just wants to play with that too, right? So when Vitalik was growing up, I'm like, oh, man, I really, when I was younger, I really wish that I had access to computers. So then this kid seems to be really smart. So let's put a computer in front of him and

• 17:53Speaker 01

  let's see what he does with that, right? So and I think like from an age of whatever it was, four, five, he got extremely curious and interested in playing with computers and, you know, you know, that old IBM PC that we gave him.

• 18:09David Hoffman?

  Hmm. So feel free to just not answer any question that becomes too personal. But how how soon after you met Vitalik's mom, did you guys have Vitalik?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  I mean, we met in eighty nine.

• 18:25David Hoffman?

  Uh huh.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  In the university, right? And Vitalik was born in ninety four.

• 18:30David Hoffman?

  Okay. And so by the time Vitalik was born and was actually like a functional being that could actually play with a computer, were computers, computers are far more accessible at that point than when you were a kid, right? And so you guys just had one in the home?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had an old IBM PC and you know, we now had access to computers, even you know, can you imagine laptops, you know, for personal use. So then like, okay, but computers were still considered to be extremely valuable and rare and expensive. So we just kind of had an old one that we gave to him to explore and play with.

• 19:07David Hoffman?

  What, what could you do on that computer? Like, what were some of the, what would you do? Were there games?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  No, not really. I mean, very few, but Excel, actually, there was Microsoft Office installed on that. And he loved Excel because it was such your, there were still, you know, because initially, he was not interested in like Excel as such, but in Excel, then you could draw circles and you can fill them with color. You can draw lines. I mean, you can do all kinds of stuff, draw and whatever. But very quickly, he also got interested in actual Excel functions and then like, okay, you put, because he learned about numbers very early on and you know, math was kind of obsession and joy for him, right? So, and once he figured out, oh, I can put a number here and then here and then through functions and stuff like that.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Then he got really fascinated with just doing stuff with an Excel, doing functions and whatnot. And, and later on, when he was maybe, I'm guessing maybe around seven, the kind of the first programming language that are also easily accessible on that old computer that was using was Visual Basic for, you know, built Visual Basic for applications, which was built into Microsoft Office. And that was kind of the first thing that I was teaching him a little bit.

• 20:29David Hoffman?

  That's funny because people often, one of the most salient metaphors I've heard about Ethereum lately came out of the Tim Ferriss podcast with Naval. And he illustrated Ethereum as just like a global Excel sheet that we all can like write to. And you're telling me that Vitalik's first two like things about him was his obsession with math and his tinkering with Excel?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:52David Hoffman?

  That's awesome. That's awesome. You can just extrapolate that right into the future.

• 20:58David Hoffman?

  So obviously, everyone in Ethereum holds Vitalik with an insane amount of regard. And obviously, he invented Ethereum. So there's some history of incredibleness to Vitalik. But when in Vitalik's childhood, would you say was the first inclination that this kid was different or special in any way?

• 21:23David Hoffman?

  Was it obvious?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Every child is different and special, right? In different ways. And every child, they have their own peculiarities and quirks and struggles. But I mean, him being very smart and learning very easily was pretty obvious by, I don't know, like three years old, right? Like, I learned to read, I think, around three and a half years of age. And I think that Vitalik, I don't really recall, but he probably learned to read before that. Like, maybe he was around three. So when you see that child is really taken into this abstract notions of symbols first for reading and then for math, then it becomes quite obvious.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  So, okay, so it looks like his brain is really enjoying exploring those kind of concepts. And you know, when he was, say, six, and he was playing with Lego sets, and he was not building like castles and whatnot, but he was like, oh, I built a six, and here's a five. And then there were some kind of animated, some kind of special digital animals and whatnot. And so it was again, like, he was playing with math, but also not just in his head, but through the physical world.

• 22:41David Hoffman?

  And Dmitry, I know you're really big into the concept of spirituality and mindfulness and meditation. When did that come and become a part of your life?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  The evolution of this, I think it was like, again, I had always had this innate energy of curiosity, right? So for me, first as a child, it was expressed in my desire to learn science and math and physics and stuff and whatever. And then computers, right? And then eventually, kind of then curiosity of like, okay, what kind of other objects are there in the world? And then, okay, humans, obviously, some of very common and extremely complex objects. And like, oh, how do humans work? And I got interested in the subject of personal development and things like that, right? And then eventually psychology and then through that eventually,

• 23:37Speaker 01

  it was Sam Harris, I don't know if you're familiar with the name, but kind of he's the guy whose book finally kind of got me into this whole, if you will, spirituality direction, because also I had lots of resistance to that. Like, growing up, a lot, one huge aspect of Soviet propaganda was that religion is bad, bad, bad. And so anything in that whole space, you know, religion and spirituality for me, I consider that to be in this whole space. And I was like, oh, no, this is kind of bad, stupid, you know, useless stuff. So let's kind of not go there. And kind of Sam Harris, I read his book and then that kind of really helped me to find a different perspective on that.

• 24:23David Hoffman?

  Do you know when you wrote, read that book?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, well, I mean, approximately, it was probably when I was about maybe forty years old. So like, let's say nine years ago, nine, ten years ago, maybe, yeah.

• 24:40David Hoffman?

  Okay, so.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  I mean, I read a bunch of stuff before that, you know, and I tried, you know, I love reading and I still do. And I always read a lot of stuff. And I tried reading stuff about, you know, meditation and Buddhism and whatnot and. Uh, and back, you know, before his book, most of this stuff was kind of really hard for me to read. But then eventually, when I overcame this, you know, now I can talk to anybody about any kind of religion, about God, about whatever you want to talk to me.

• 25:12David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Cause I can kind of map the concept that they used to my own understanding of the universe, if you will.

• 25:19David Hoffman?

  So would you say that like when you discovered mindfulness uh and meditation and this realm of the universe, which I find particularly fascinating and I also credit Sam Harris is kind of like being my guide into this world as well. Uh, would you say that like you were already inclined uh to be a mindful person? Like maybe you are already mindful, even though you didn't really hadn't yet been introduced to the concept? Or would you say that this was like a brand new concept that you found fascinating that you had to like start from scratch with?

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Well, mindfulness is just like one of their aspects, branches of that whole space, if you will. So mindfulness specifically was not, not a huge aspect of that space for me. Uh, and I would not call myself a mindful person. I was really very much in my thinking head and my analytical brain, you know, thinking about stuff and whatnot.

• 26:22David Hoffman?

  So, so here, here's what I've been trying to weave together for like the past like 15 minutes. Because like this podcast is called Layer Zero. Uh, we, these, these crypto economic networks are made up of humans. You, you raised the human that made this Ethereum thing that we all are a community, a part of and.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  And you know, sorry to interrupt, right? But he has not made it by himself, right?

• 26:47David Hoffman?

  Yes.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  And I have not made Vitalik on my own, right? Like, that's very important aspect of this, right? Because again, Vitalik is who he is because of so many aspects and humans and other factors, right? And you know, and then Ethereum is also is a, or is because of so many other people collaborating on that. Yeah.

• 27:07David Hoffman?

  Right, absolutely, yeah. And I, I, and just to, that's 100% right is like nothing is made in a, in a silo. But what I find, what I find fascinating is that like generally the Ethereum community at large, I think it would be accurate to say is largely a. It's a very inclusive community, very friendly. And I think as you get closer and closer to the core of the Ethereum developers, the people that are actually writing the code, you find that to become more and more true. And so like, I know people like Carl Flors, who I just talked to from Optimism, and just another, other, you know, the circle of people

• 27:50David Hoffman?

  that I think Vitalik kind of like associates and hangs out with, all kind of share the same sort of inclusion, zen-ness, mindfulness about the world. And I see that like instantiated in Ethereum. And so I've always been fascinated. And one of the reasons why I wanted to lead Layer Zero with you is there's this relationship between some mindfulness, in my opinion, which promotes inclusivity, which actually dictates some of how we actually build this system. Because Ethereum is-

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe the word mindfulness is not the best label for this.

• 28:27David Hoffman?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Mindfulness for me is kind of like, is really about being deeply immersed in your perceptions, connected with them and whatnot, including your emotions, your perceptions. And Vitalik is not quite that. And you know, and I'm, I'm not that to, you know, to some degree. But I would call the energy that you describe in differently, you know, and the most simplistic term for this is kindness, but also you can talk about acceptance and compassion, right? And I do know that when this whole Ethereum thing was starting, and a bunch of people who are not even usually named as official co-founders, right? But I know that what they were talking about is that they wanted to create a community that would be, that

• 29:11Speaker 01

  would be inclusive, that, you know, would be built on the foundation of like being open and having a dialogue and stuff like that, right? And again, like people who have met Vitalik, who have spoken to him, they can sense that energy of kindness and acceptance in him, right? And you know, that's, that's kind of, this is very powerful energy. Can we all, all of us humans, we're really drawn to that.

• 29:34David Hoffman?

  A hundred percent. And I think the reason why I was using the term, the word mindfulness is because to me, if you practice mindfulness, you become kind, right? You become, and you can appreciate the perspective of others. Like you get more empathy, you become more inclusive. And so maybe that's why I was using the word mindfulness.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Right, right. Well, and you know what? That energy of you will kindness and compassion, I know that in my human being, that always has been a very strong energy. And kind of being mindful, or you know, different mindfulness methods and practices that they kind of helped me, or you know, they probably contributed then to that energy being developed, right? And again, Vitatic, because of the unique combination of attributes in him as a human being, again, their intellect for sure, right? But then also again, he is a very sensitive person. He's also a very kind and compassionate person, right? And you know, those kind of things like, you know, they are some of the important energies that you can sense in him.

• 30:39David Hoffman?

  Absolutely. One thing I'd like to ask you is how would you define spirituality? Because to me, everyone kind of defines it differently.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right. Like, you know, the word doesn't mean that much, but.

• 30:55David Hoffman?

  But what does it mean to you?

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Like in general, you know, I like labels don't mean much to me, right? But for me,

• 31:08Speaker 01

  spirituality is, if you will, investigation and sensitivity to, well, investigation of some of the most fundamental questions about ourselves, like what we are, what is this? Kind of what is consciousness and stuff like that? Who's in charge? Where is all of this coming from? Right? So spirituality for me is the whole space. So when people investigate that, and there are many different avenues from many different practices, from whatever meditation to.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Mushroom store SD to chanting and drums and sweat lodges and whatnot, right? People investigate that and there is also, you know, philosophers and writers. So so many ways people tackle that, but really they're trying to kind of hear the most fundamental questions of who we are and where this whole thing is going and what does it all mean?

• 32:05David Hoffman?

  Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying the show. In the second half of the show, I actually revisit the conversation of consciousness and mindfulness meditation and acceptance in a different context to finish off the conversation with Dimitri and I related to his experiences with communism and kind of talk about the differences between some sort of universal coherence, which is what communism is trying to produce and some sort of universal platform about what Ethereum is trying to produce and how that relates to the individual, as well as a few other questions like how often Dimitri checks the ETH price and his favorite workout regimen. So I hope you're enjoying the conversation. Before we get to the second half of the show, we need to talk about the fantastic sponsors that make this show possible.

• 32:48David Hoffman?

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• 33:30David Hoffman?

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• 34:14David Hoffman?

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• 34:58David Hoffman?

  and help steer Uniswap in the direction that you think it should go. That's exactly what we did to get Uniswap to be a sponsor for Bankless and you can do the same for your project. Thank you, Uniswap, for sponsoring Bankless. Do you think Ethereum is relevant to the concept or topic of spirituality?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  So, topic of spirituality. Again, if I think about this as asking those, the most important questions, right? And when you ask those questions, it also takes you away from judgments like, oh, things should be this way, right? Then like you develop sensitivity like, okay, so where things are and instead of judging situations, then you kind of start observing. And then when you observe, then you actually develop what many people refer to as intuition, right? It's kind of when you're limited analytical mind, instead of kind of trying to extrapolate very few little details into like, oh, I know what it is, but instead when

• 36:05Speaker 01

  When you develop more and more sensitivity to this high level patterns, then you see, oh, you know, here are all the different patterns that are happening in the world. You can also see this as the space, as the universe is doing so many experiments, you know. Look at the US, they run one experiment with Trump, okay. Now there is another experiment with Joe Biden, right? Russia is currently running totally different experiment. And kind of if you look at this, from this perspective, you can see that, yeah, the universe has been running a bunch of very, if you will, authoritarian experiments. And the, whatever last few hundred years, if you will. And, and they seems to have been failing, right? It also tried to do this, I mean,

• 36:50Speaker 01

  collectivist experiments, which kind of ended up being really the same thing, you know, just in a disguise, very authoritarian. So it sounds to me that the answer of the universe, their concentration of power and fragility is, is not really working out in, in, in, in, in life, if you will, right? So Ethereum is that technological

• 37:16Speaker 01

  experiment that the universe is running, that very much corresponds to the findings that the humanity has, their insights, the humanity has developed over a long time about what works and what doesn't, right? Because, and there are many different aspects to this, but even like if you compare Ethereum to Bitcoin, right? Like again, Bitcoin is very strong, it's trying to be very strong and simple, right? And there is a lot of power in simplicity and this confidence, like we're perfect, never going to change, this is it. And you know, it's amazing, like this attracts a lot of like people who wants to feel this energy of confidence and safety and whatnot.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  But life, life will never be safe, you know, like, you know, and any kind of like, one analogy I'll give it to you, right? Many people, one aspect of a human journey is like, many people start with victim. So you know, here's me, I'm weak, I'm small, the universe is doing stuff to me. Then people move on to this achiever position, like, oh no, I can do stuff, I can be disciplined, I can achieve stuff, I can be strong. And it's an awesome phase, but it's by far not the final phase. Because however strong you are, end up.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  You know, there will be storms in life that will mess you up, you know? People close to you will get sick and die, things will happen, you will lose money, whatever, right? So being strong and just trying to resist everything is a very limited strategy. You know, like a long term, it always breaks, right? So Ethereum is a different kind of experiment, if you will, for me. It's more reflective of what life has found, uh, actually works kind of long term. It's a much softer, open and resilient system, the system that keeps evolving, right? Like talking about monetary policy, talking about so many other things, right? And, and those systems there, uh, I think longer term will prove themselves to be much more aligned

• 39:18Speaker 01

  with how the flow of life unfolds, right? So can I, those are very long answer, right? But you know, if I try to summarize it, right? So spirituality, that investigation of what life is, what we are,

• 39:36Speaker 01

  eventually leads us to see their interconnectedness of things and you know, their fluidity, their openness of all the systems, right? And, and for me, Ethereum is very much aligned with what we as humanity, as the universe, have been kind of finding over this millennium of existence.

• 39:57David Hoffman?

  Are you familiar with the political compass?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  I'm not.

• 40:02David Hoffman?

  So you have, it's like a, it's four quadrants.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, the, the.

• 40:05David Hoffman?

  Yeah, yeah, left, right, authoritarian, libertarian. I want, I want to run this idea by you and see if it resonates. To me, Bitcoin is, has a specific point somewhere on the political compass. And like where it actually is on the political compass is, is not, not the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm trying to make is that it actually has one specific point. You can like point to it as like Bitcoin has the political leanings of, of this. And it's right here on the, on the political compass.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:33David Hoffman?

  To me, Ethereum is the landscape of the political compass. And it can be built to reflect anything that humans value. And we can, as humanity, we can push it towards a side of the political compass that we desire. And it can also optimize for different parts on the political compass. And so when you tell me like Ethereum is supposed to be this like more. Abstract level updating protocol that reflects the people that compose it. I see a landscape that humans can come and tinker with and experiment with. And like you said, we've been experimenting with authoritarianism for the past few hundred years. It's both worked and not worked.

• 41:15David Hoffman?

  We are now like for the past hundred years, we've been experimenting with like democracy, or maybe a little bit longer than that, and that has its drawbacks. And now we have this like Ethereum thing, which is like this technocratic, like political fabric thing that allows different people to do different things on it. And if that thing works, if that experiment works, then it exists as an application on Ethereum. How does that like illustration land with you?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like that, right? You know, and also in that model that you described, that's it's also borderless, right? Which is fascinating because for the first time in their life, people, you know, the democracy again, one of their key limitation of that is like you end up with this polarity. It's like, okay, this guy is good. And then, you know, this half of people are pissed off and no, our guy has won. Now, you know, this half of people has pissed off. Imagine that if it could have been different, that, you know, let's say that this guy has elected, then everybody who has opposed them, well, they can fork their own country, right? And they can run forward with their own experiment and whatever, right? That's not possible in a existing model of what countries are, right?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  But Ethereum creates this kind of environment when we can experiment with much more fluid models, right? And back to kind of what you have described as, you know, about the political compass model, right? So yes, Ethereum, if you will, it develop, you know,

• 42:42Speaker 01

  every time we humans will like models, we develop models, right? And we build the model, we say, cause stuff is here, right? And it's fine, it's a lot of fun, it's interesting. But the thing is like every model will eventually break down because it will not be able to embed everything, right? You know, you work on all of this physics and then quantum mechanics, you develop quantum mechanics thing like, oh man, you know, things are totally different than, you know, what we the way we're thinking about them and In a similar fashion, like we had this political compass model, but then Ethereum's model is more inclusive. Okay, let's take all of this and like, actually you can be in many all of these points at the same at the same time, right? So it's a very different model. And it's actually quite similar to, well,

• 43:28Speaker 01

  again, the model of a human development, the human mind, you know, you have, we constantly try to develop models and we have all models, but then the world doesn't feed all models and then we struggle like, no, things should be different, you know, we know how it is well, but the universe doesn't care. It's like, you know, fuck you, you know, this is how the way things are. And then eventually we develop models that kind of more inclusive, right? So for me, again, Ethereum is very much aligned with that overall movement in the universe that's okay. We develop more and more inclusive models of of the world, they're more all encompassing.

• 44:03David Hoffman?

  That's that's fascinating. As as someone who has experienced communist Russia, and then you moved to, to I believe, Canada, which is, you know, very, very different.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:13David Hoffman?

  How how do you think this, the Ethereum will unfold upon the world using this like perspective, right? This perspective of new organizational, new organization systems like in the sky? How is how is the people of the world going to behave differently if it, if they all, if we all become organized by Ethereum more than our nation state?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I really, there are many dimensions to this, like one of the dimensions which I really love is an aspect of any human anywhere in the world can get involved in the world economy, right? And you know, nobody can censor their access to information, nobody can censor their ability to contribute to participating in the economy, right? And you know, again, it's not ideal and many states will try to do that, but eventually they will fail, you know, that's what we see. So that's kind of one aspect of this.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  I had another thought which kind of slipped my mind about this, but yeah, I guess that's going to one of their key considerations for me.

• 45:19David Hoffman?

  Absolutely. Um, when did you move to, uh, you did move to Canada, you from Russia to Canada, right? When did that happen?

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, twenty one years ago.

• 45:28David Hoffman?

  Twenty one, okay. Oh, so and you moved with Vitalik and Vitalik must have been really, really young.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was, uh, six.

• 45:36David Hoffman?

  Okay, so he did most of his growing up in Canada?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Pretty much, yeah.

• 45:40David Hoffman?

  Yeah. Do you, do you see any, I mean, it probably came through, through you if at all, but do you see any sort of like the fact that, you know, Vitalik was born in communist Russia for six years of his life and then, and then moved to Canada? Do you see any of the fact that he was born in communist Russia, like, uh, part of his person today?

• 46:01Speaker 01

  I don't think so, because again, like, uh, uh, by the time he left, he never even attended any kind of, uh, you know, kindergarten or any kind of public institutions. So his environment was really family, you know, his mom, myself, their parents of his mom, they made a huge impact on him. Um, so it was really just family environment that kind of shaped him there. And then when he moved here and he started going to kindergarten and then to school and all of that. So, uh, so society, uh, he was never really exposed to what Russia, Soviet Union is, yeah.

• 46:39David Hoffman?

  Okay. What, uh,

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Except for indirectly, you know, obviously, you know, through people around.

• 46:45David Hoffman?

  Sure, right, right. Um, one thing that's been, uh, fascinating for me to, uh, to watch is, and I, I don't really know Vitalik all that well. Like I've, you know, interviewed him a number of times, but it's, it's a very different dynamic than just hanging out with a person. But, but one thing I've noticed is that like his social, like tactiness has gotten like really, really sharp in the last like few years. Like, uh, people used to think Vitalik was kind of like this socially awkward kid. But, but he's actually, I think, can make some of the most witty, like jokes and has some of just like the, the best like social skills I've seen in, in the crypto space. Have you, have you followed? How, how do you, how have you seen like Vitalik kind of like develop this, this whole like social side of him?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  It was really interesting to watch that, right? Because also, there were many different... It's a nonlinear process, right? And, you know, he really expanded that when he went to high school, right? And then, in his, in the last, whatever it is, now six, seven years of his life, that is a theorem that also has been changing, right? Because, again, we human beings, we constantly learn as we interact with the environment. And also, like, my perspective of him is obviously different, because also, I know that, I mean, he has an amazing sense of humor, and we will laugh at the same kind of stupid jokes. We already know it was him on the stupid jokes, if you will.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  But he was, obviously, in the environment of family and friends, he's much more open and relaxed, because also partially to, due to his sensitivity, right, to people's energies and emotions and stuff like that. And he's known that when he's in a public environment, and, you know, his mind gets so much, you know, input, and can be very stressful for him, you know? And when, when you're stressed, then kind of your mind takes over, and you become kind of more constricted or whatever, right? But, you know, again, we constantly learn, right? And, you know, as you, as our systems get used to being in those environments more and more, they kind of stop going into this kind of fight of light mode,

• 48:56Speaker 01

  and eventually, then kind of more of our natural energies, they, they come out more and more. And I think this is kind of what you're seeing, right? So, I'm saying that kind of what you are seeing, like, I've seen this, you know, that's the Vitalik I know, but, and I'm happy that, that people get to know more and more of all of those awesome sides of him.

• 49:19David Hoffman?

  So, when Vitalik was traveling the world in like 2013, 2014, trying to get support for this Ethereum thing, as a parent, like, what, did you think that it was crazy at the time? Or like, what were your thoughts about like, your, your son, like, traveling around the world? Like, because there's the number of times I've heard of stories of people talking about how like, Yeah, Vitalik pitched me this Ethereum thing. I wish I had invested, but I didn't. And he like slept on the floor of the Bitcoin Embassy. Like it's all these, these, these stories keep on cropping up. So as a parent, before we all knew what Ethereum was, that it was going to be this massively successful thing. What was it like to watch your son like fly, fly around the world and trying to garner support for this, like, you know, unprecedented project?

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's. You know, when he came home and he said, you know what, guys, I'm thinking of dropping out of the university. It was actually interesting that, you know, all three of us, you know, me, his mom and his stepmom, you know, he lived with me and his stepmom, if you will, my second wife. We were all excited for him because we, we felt that, okay, you know what, Vitalik will keep learning and, you know, his future will be bright no matter what. But also I'm a big believer in that, you know, academic environment is awesome for academic knowledge.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  But, you know, life is so much more than, than knowledge, right? And I was excited for him to actually be exposed to so much more stuff, right? And then he traveled and he was writing this long emails to, to us, who's updates. And it was really fascinating to kind of watch his journey unfold and, you know, him doing all these different things. And then staying in this anarchist commune and Calafu in Spain and whatnot. And, and I was really excited for him to get exposure to that, right? Because again, we're humans, we grow in a certain environment and we, you know, that becomes our baseline. And we think, okay, you know what, like, we expect everybody to be more or less the same, right?

• 51:22Speaker 01

  And Candace is pretty well off and it's a pretty open, you know, peaceful, polite society and whatnot, right? But the world is different. There was a lot of poverty, there was a lot of other stuff. So I was really excited for him to kind of get more exposure to all of these different aspects of the world. And, and he did, right? You know, when he was writing in his email updates, like, oh, you know what? And here we sometimes get one meal a day. Oh, yeah. And you know, the only fruit that accessible to me is lemons. Oh, yeah. And you know, we have to sleep on this mattress on the floor. It's like, oh, that's really cool. Right?

• 52:02Speaker 01

  So you know that actually, life is not just, you know, sleeping in this comfortable bed and a comfortable place and a comfortable country. There are many other ways that people exist and let's be, let's like knowing that and also knowing that you yourself can exist in many different environments is really important, right? So, yeah, that was exciting to see that. And I mean, I also have to say that at the time, like, I wish I I would have died, I could have dived more into what he was involved, but I was busy building my own businesses and things like that, right? So can I was watching on site was what was happening and I, and I still remember, you know, how he showed to me

• 52:46Speaker 01

  uh, his uh, first version or whatever version of the white paper, I believe it was uh, October twenty thirteen and it was really cool to kind of read through this like, oh, this feels like something really big.

• 52:57David Hoffman?

  Mm hmm. Right. So did you, did you, when Vitalik was doing this tour to get like, you know, Ethereum support? How, when you were paying attention to it, how much was it like you following your kid around the world and just seeing those updates versus you understanding that this Ethereum thing is about to be massive? Did you even at all know how big Ethereum was going to be or had any sort of inclination as to like what the magnitude of it?

• 53:23Speaker 01

  No clue. I had no clue. I mean, it felt to me like a pretty exciting initiative project, if you will, and I was also trying to kind of uh, impart, if you will, my thinking, oh, hey, you guys, you can organize in this way and how do you communicate? How do you do this and that? Um, and Vitalik was not really receptive to that. And like, you know what? I totally understand that as a young adult, he has to go his own way, right? Like, you know, and, and for me, I ended up also kind of Learning a lot from watching this whole initiative unfold because again as an entrepreneur, right, and I was for most of my life and career was more exposed to more hierarchical

• 54:06Speaker 01

  structures, right, and only in the last whatever five years of my life and business career can I really got exposed to and we actually transformed our business into a non-hierarchical structure, right. So for me to kind of watch how things are done in this very fluid, very much open source community was fascinating, right. It's, I didn't have that strong reaction. I think it was Fred Wilson who was berating Vitalik that, no, you should be kind of moving fast and hiring this, right. But that's not, it's like, you know, it's how you try to evaluate fish if you tell them, hey, guys, you suck because you cannot climb a tree. Okay, but you, you know, and a monkey can, well, can, can a monkey swim in the ocean,

• 54:49Speaker 01

  right. So for me to kind of watch that and learn from, from that and getting to appreciate their very different, you know, actually that their approach, the structure of the community is have to correspond to the structure, the concept, the thinking behind the initiative that you're doing, right. So because of what they were doing, the way they were doing that actually was, if you will, a much better match for this than some kind of like hierarchical structure, you know, rigid, rigid structure, kind of trying to move this forward as, as fast as possible and whatnot.

• 55:29David Hoffman?

  I, I remember just seeing you walk by at ETH Denver, I think 2020, but it might have been 2019. And I, I, you were walking, who I can only presume was Vitalik's mom, I'm, I'm assuming. And I just had this, this moment, it's like, oh, that's like, that's Vitalik's parents at this ETH Denver conference, which is this massive, like, yeah, 6,000 person conference that is all completely here because of this Ethereum thing. And like, I completely uprooted my life because of Ethereum and I know Anthony Cisano uprooted his life because of Ethereum. Ethereum. Do you ever like, what is that like to like witness and think about when you're at these conferences?

• 56:11David Hoffman?

  And like, everyone is here because of this, like, you know, this white paper that your kid like went on a journey around the world with to help promote? And then just garnered enough support to turn this into a massive ecosystem like this must be a crazy perspective to have.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really fascinating to kind of watch that. It's like this huge organism, you know, you, you observe in like how it was kind of, you have the privilege of seeing and having this close access. So like, oh, it's like this, just a single cell. And you know, now it's a little bit more and now it's this little amber and now it's kind of growing and now it's like becoming this, you know, huge enormous, very powerful organism that is evolving and starting to affect, you know, so much of the society. So it's just, uh, and yeah, Denver, I love that. I think that's like for me, it's a, uh, probably my most, uh, favorite event in this space. And you know, the organizers are doing such an awesome job. I've been there a few times and definitely coming back.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  So yeah, for me, just kind of watching that, this, this is like in the, with a huge fascination, if you will, the, uh, and gratitude and appreciation for, oh, wow, this is, uh, this whole thing is unfolding, right? You know, um, for me, it's like part of the nature, part of the universe. So one really fun and enormous aspect of this, uh, again, that I had the privilege to be kind of able to watch closely.

• 57:37David Hoffman?

  Are you ever, uh, fearful for Vitalik's safety?

• 57:43Speaker 01

  I'm not fearful. Uh, stuff happens, right? And, uh,

• 57:51Speaker 01

  I don't mean to sound callous, but me being fearful for his safety will not help his safety at all, right? And, uh, like, it can be difficult. And I still recall, uh, I think it was four years ago when I was coming back from, uh, I was on this, uh, retreat in Europe and I was coming back and just on the day later that I was coming back and I just flew from Europe and, uh, this, uh, piece of fake news was published that Vitalik was, you know,

• 58:23David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  dead in a car accident. And I'm like, okay, that was pretty intense kind of to like observe that. And you know, I was not too scared because something about this article didn't quite kind of feel right to me. And then eventually after I was able to reach kind of Vitalik in Asia and actually before that, when I was actually able to do some Google searches and find some stuff about this. But it was still scary, right? And you know, but again, this is life, right? And the end of the day, uh, fears, we human beings will experience fear. And the only answer to that is like, of course, we will try to do what is possible. And I know that Vitalik is a smart guy.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  And when we talk, uh, he shares some of the ways that kind of he's trying to stay safe. And I can I try to mention to him some of the tips and ideas. And you know, when the conference was in Mexico, kind of, we we're trying to be mindful of that. But then end of the day, you take the precautions, you take the actions. The fear might still be there. So all you can do is just to face that fear and keep moving forward. Right? And for me is, uh, uh, looking at Ethereum now, right? Uh, I can, you know, Vitalik has always been very focused on not being not kind of like Ethereum having less and less, uh, dependence on him as a single kind of human being as a linchpin.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  And I think that has changed a lot, you know, since the beginning of Ethereum. And it'll keep changing, right? There are all these amazing people doing all of this really cool things from communication to development to foundation and this and you guys, you know, all of this, right? So really this mechanism is much less dependent on him. So, uh, while I hope and wish for Vitalik's long health and whatnot, also, uh, for me, it's very gratifying to see that Ethereum community is much and much less dependent on that particular human being.

• 1:00:22David Hoffman?

  Totally. Question for you. Uh, oh, I guess you're on my podcast, so these are all questions for you. But, uh, how how often do you check the ETH price?

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Every day a bunch of times, yeah.

• 1:00:36David Hoffman?

  Every day.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Right, like when it goes down, they're like, oh, my God, it's painful, right? But not so much for like, uh, what it is, it's like.

• 1:00:45David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Cause also you can see that when the price goes down, then a lot of people that come into it affects their mood and whatnot. On the other hand, also, as you have watched in the last whatever long time is that when their prices frothing and goes up, then there's a lot of kind of noise in the space and all kinds of people get attracted, you know, when it goes down, there are still lots of passionate people building stuff, right? So I know that by itself, it doesn't mean anything. This is just kind of.

• 1:01:15David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  One of the fun little things you can look at. Well, still as a human being, when it goes up, it's like, yeah, you know, for me, it's more like, uh, it's not about the price itself, but for me, if you will, it's an indicator. Is the world is finally understanding their enormity of what is happening? Are they finally appreciating this, right? And when the price goes up, like, yeah, the world is finally appreciating what is being done, what is being built. When it goes down, it's like, yeah, hey, guys, you know, can you not really get what has happened, you know, so kind of that kind of vibe.

• 1:01:48David Hoffman?

  How's weightlifting going?

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Uh, very poorly since.

• 1:01:52David Hoffman?

  No.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Meaning that, you know, all the gyms have been closed in Toronto for like.

• 1:01:57David Hoffman?

  I thought, I thought you had a, a gym outside, outside of wherever you live.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, I have a friend, you know, who has a gym and sometimes I was able to attend his place and they have some kettlebells. But actually, my number one exercise for the last year and a half has been walking. So, and you know, that's Vitalik's favorite exercise too, so.

• 1:02:17David Hoffman?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, at some point, a couple of weeks into COVID, I just realized that I had nothing left other than to wa- just go walk. Uh, and so, so much, so much of my day was like working on bankless for the first like two thirds of the day. And then I would just like immediately just like start walking and, and not really know where I was going. And that was my exercise during COVID too. What, what kind of lifts do you like to do? You, you like to do compound lifts, right?

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  I'm a big believer in free weights, you know, just because again, I've been training, you know, I grew up, my natural makeup is the same as Vitalix, kind of being tall and very thin. And as a, I was this nerdy little kid who was bullied and they're like, oh, I want to get bigger. So kind of, I found this outlet for, for myself. So I've been exercising since I was 17. And over this time, I've learned that free weights are kind of the best versus all the fancy machines. And kind of heavy free weights, all the basic lifts like squats, deadlifts, you know.

• 1:03:25David Hoffman?

  What's your max squat?

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  I have a record somewhere. I don't frankly recall that.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  Like maybe 350 pounds, I think.

• 1:03:38David Hoffman?

  Oh, 350? Oh, that's pretty good, dude. That's way more than I've ever gotten to. I'm pretty sure for what is right, for what is where the Danny Ryan's record, I think, is right around 300. So you're beating Danny Ryan. So who in the, in the Ethereum world do you like, quote unquote, hang out with? Like, do you, do you have like group chats that you're in? Cause like everyone who's deep in Ethereum, they got Telegram groups they're in, they're got Discord channels they're in. Are you part of that world?

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  No, I'm not. Like in general, I find, like, I, I try to avoid group chats because there's so much noise. And I kind of prefer one-on-one conversations. They can be pretty quick. They can go very deeply, but for me, that's kind of preference when you can really connect with one person. And sometimes it can be, you connect with them once or twice a year, but it's a real human deep connection, not like some superficial noisy thing. It's like, you know, even in my last business that I sold, we use Slack as a communication tool. And I was always like, you know what, guys? I don't want to be in that because a lot of this is just short-term noise.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  And kind of my mind tends to work more longer term, kind of slower strategic thinking, if you will.

• 1:04:53David Hoffman?

  So the world of 2020 has been a very chaotic, tumultuous place. What are you paying attention to in the macro world? That's like outside of crypto and Ethereum and Bitcoin. Are you someone that consumes the news and pays attention to what's going on in the macro world?

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  I try not to, like, you know, and actually about 20 years ago, I stopped watching the news, right? And I never kind of, I don't have a TV or cable, stuff like that. I have a TV for watching movies, but I never watch like actual TV programming, right? And that's been very peaceful for me. And I also know that, well, I mean, Twitter is kind of my current preferred social media hangout place. And I know that whatever is important, then that will be mentioned and, you know, I'll kind of know what's happening. Just because of my historical roots, you know, part of me, I'm still watching the events

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  unfolding in Russia and around Russia, like in Belarus, and it's some crazy stuff there, right? But generally speaking, my main interests, if you will, in life is, and beyond the basics of being human, you know, end of the day, there is nothing more important than that. But, you know, the crypto space, decentralized tech space, it resonates with me a lot. And then, if you will, this whole spirituality space, but I would not even call that spirituality for me specifically personally, like non-duality is kind of like, this is what resonates with me the most. So kind of thinking about that stuff, thinking about crypto stuff, and then just, you know,

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  living the human life, you know, supporting my kids, my friends, you know, being involved in some business initiatives and stuff like that. I do a fair bit of like mentoring and coaching and sometimes business matters, sometimes it's really like helping people figure out that question is like, what is God? What is love? What is happiness?

• 1:07:00David Hoffman?

  And so when you're just hanging out in your own time, on your own terms, where does your mind wander off to? Where does it go?

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  It's really, I would say, kind of this whole question of what am I? What this consciousness says, you know, that's there. And it's a question that is, it's impossible to figure out, if you will, analytically. But that's kind of one of their topics that really, if you will, the most complicated topic for any human to dive into and then the topic where you can never kind of dream to find their precise eventual answer, but that gives me, that's a lot of fun for me to explore on myself and sometimes, you know, also with some close friends.

• 1:07:50David Hoffman?

  Hmm, a- as you've gone down the path of trying to answer the unanswerable question of what am I, how has that, how has that changed how you act in the world?

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  It really, if you will, as we go down that road and we realize that, that the infinite nature of a human being was all of the different parts, you know, because typically a human being lives with that story about themselves. I am this and I have these reactions, maybe I'm shy, maybe I'm this, maybe I'm that, right? And there are, there are lots of judgments in that, you know, like this is the way I am and this is the way it should be, all kinds of stuff. But when has there, this whole thinking judgment gets replaced by the process of, you know, being curious and sensitive to what is, then you realize, oh yeah, I, me is a human which

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  has this side and that side and this and you know, like I have my curiosity and I have this and I have this like desire to know and then I have this desire to be perceived as knowledgeable. And the, and the fun thing is like, you know, those aspects of ourselves that we don't quite like, I mean, we try to resist and we kind of, we either don't see them or we like, I have to fix this, this is the wrong part of me. The more we resist those parts of ourselves, the more kind of they're, you know, we've been stuck in them. But when we eventually, if you will, surrender to them like, oh yeah, so here's me, here's kind of like stuff that is going through me and you know, whether I like it or not. They actually kind of dissolve and if you will, more natural energies of a human being

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  coming to play and you know, they're the same for all human beings, you know, love, compassion and joy and having fun and playing and trying to create and trying to support other human beings, you know, they all foundational. It's just like, you know, when our mind is stopped interfering and trying to also like, oh, I don't like to be this way. Well, you are this way, maybe kind of your sexual human being, maybe you're a human being who kind of wants to feel important, whatever it is, right? Whatever we try to deny will kind of keep being this, you know, compulsive side of you, but when you stop denying that, then it just kind of parts of life that flow through you.

• 1:10:09David Hoffman?

  Mm hmm. The, there, the, there's a thought in the world of like mindfulness and meditation, maybe it's one of the more like sci fi crazy thoughts, but like, if everyone starts doing this, we can all start to like kind of break down the, the borders between humans and, and like minds can kind of mesh a little bit because if you can maximally understand who you are, you can actually like start to dissociate from yourself. It's like, oh, I am a human and I'm standing next to another human and like if you can just have like maximum levels of just empathy and uh separation from who you are as an individual, you can start to like, kind of like,

• 1:10:51David Hoffman?

  uh, where am I trying to go with this? Um, there, there's this concept of like a universal consciousness, right? Like a universal being, like so some people, some people call this god.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Concept, that's kind of my, if you will, understanding of what we are, right? And uh, this evolution of human mind and this investigation of what we are, again, human mind is basically a collection of models and one of the most important models that we have is model of ourselves, right? And kind of we're constantly trying to build better models, right? And then realize, oh, here's me, but then I'm affected by this and you know, this becomes part of my model and actually at some point, there are borders that your mind has created about here's me and here's not me, that border actually becomes very diffuse and kind of when that model of yourselves becomes very enmeshed with their model of what the rest of this, that's kind of,

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  that's uh, that's a natural progression, if you will, of human consciousness. So that's exactly kind of, uh, again, like, was that model of? Self and the universe, then it makes much more sense to like things that kind of when you're supporting somebody like that's all part of this whole interconnected global whole. It's not like you're doing this because you want to be good, but it's like, okay. We are this and we own all of this together.

• 1:12:14David Hoffman?

  How did but how does that isn't that kind of very similar to what communism is trying to achieve?

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  Not as far as I understand that, right? And communism is really like one aspect of communism is trying to deny individuality and capitalism and whatnot. Capitalism is bad, individualism is bad, but you see in my mind, any kind of initiative, any kind of attempt of trying to move forward by denying something like this is bad, we will do something good. It doesn't work, you know.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  And actually Ethereum was not built from the energy, you know, there are some bad stuff. We're going to build something that's going to fix stuff. It's more like oh wow, let's, this sounds like an interesting idea. It's very complicated. Probably will not even work, but if we can make it work, wow, look at this exciting possibilities, right? So it's a very different energy when you're trying to oppose something like, you know, down with capitalism, down with this and that, like from that energy, like actually that perpetuates conflict, right? But you know, from the energy of like moving forward like, oh, let's have fun. Let's try to create, let's try to create more joy for ourselves and others, right? There is much, it's much, much more powerful and the communism is not that communism is really built very much on

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  denial and violence, you know, those are bad and and also simplistic answers, you know?

• 1:13:41David Hoffman?

  Sure. And I completely take your point. And at some point like the, and at a very early point, this metaphor breaks down. But I think you can take my point in the sense that well communism is trying to break down the barriers between the people that compose the system, right? Like we are all the same. We are all in this together. We are one unified party. Trying to go for one. Unified goal. And so, so to me, like, and to your point, absolutely, the way that communism manifests in the real world, it has to do that by like denying and violence and coercion and totalitarianism. But the goals are kind of the same. And so like, you know, spirituality and mindfulness and meditation is all trying to break down the borders between humans.

• 1:14:24David Hoffman?

  But I think it's also fascinating that like, kind of communism is trying to also do that inside of its own domain.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, I see your point. And you know, the way to think about this is like, as we develop more sensitivity and we have this deeper model of what we are, but this structure within ourselves, you know, the ego that kind of still kind of is constantly trying to like, come up with like, no, this is me, I'm separate, I'm in control, I know. So it constantly kind of absorbs, you know, takes over all of our learning about this stuff. And that's why a lot of people who go into spirituality, they end up like with this new huge spiritual ego, like, no, this is the right way. It's like, you should not be eating meat, you should be meditating, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And you know, I have this, I have this wonderful state and this is why I'm so much better than you are, right?

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  And the same with communism, like, maybe the original concept was good. I like, it's hard for me to kind of the communism that I studied, I did not feel that in there, but maybe because it was kind of perverted, because also if you, even if you look into Christianity, right? The Christian religion is, I see this as a really mostly violent bullshit versus their original insights of the founder, kind of their amazing, you know, insight into what humanity is, right? So like, again, the ego immediately comes into play and this concept of gets perverted immediately, right? So, so that's kind of what I'm seeing.

• 1:15:56David Hoffman?

  Do you see Ethereum as like a possible vehicle to march towards universal consciousness?

• 1:16:06David Hoffman?

  Is that a crazy question?

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  I don't really see that connection. It's it's an awesome technological tool, you know, and also it's a foundational platform for humans to pour like minded to connect and do all of this stuff. And again, universal consciousness, it's not something that you do or you build or whatever. Again, like as soon as you think that this is some kind of result you achieve, that's already again, like your your ego has taken over because the ego wants to to know it wants to do it wants to move forward. But in fact, the more you recognize that this is kind of what life is, what is the actual reality, then from this perspective, then you can keep moving forward and building stuff and having fun.

• 1:16:52David Hoffman?

  So the the reason why I ask is because there's inherent like dynamic on Ethereum where like you are 100% enabled to become your own individual, right? Like you have your own Ethereum address. You can have your own E N S name. You can have your own N F T avatar. You are your own individual. But if you define your but if individual individuality becomes defined by like your address on Ethereum or your just like footprint on Ethereum. Well, now, if if that if Ethereum becomes maximally successful and defines the whole if if the fabric of Ethereum just blankets the whole globe, well, now all humans are defining who they are on top of the same universal fabric. And so it's individual individuality, which is expressed on the same

• 1:17:36David Hoffman?

  in the same protocol and in the same social layer, right? And so to me that

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  Interconnects all of us. Yes, sure.

• 1:17:44David Hoffman?

  Yeah. And so that and so like may maybe asking like, oh, can Ethereum get make us universally consciousness conscious is an absolutely insane question. But like, to me, it seems to be like we're actually taking a step there towards universal cooperation, which maybe is a necessary step to turn into whatever crazy like thing that we can achieve when all of humanity gets on the same page for the first time ever.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  And one other way you can think about this is actually there.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  The energy of Ethereum is this kind of open, all-inclusive, evolving network. Very much resonates with people whose own perception of the world is already like, you know, not like it's me versus the universe, but it's like it's me and I'm part of this universe. So those kind of people, they get attracted to Ethereum and you know, that's kind of just alignment of that kind of uh realizations happening in specific individuals versus like kind of biggest scale systems supporting that, you know, realization unfolding at a faster pace, if you will.

• 1:18:46David Hoffman?

  Mm hmm. One thing I think I find fascinating, and I brought this up earlier in the show is like Vitalik, who you know, co-creator of Ethereum, did a very large, you know, role in actually bootstrapping this thing, made a bunch of friends that are like-minded as people do. They make, they find like-minded friends, they surround themselves with people that think and value similar things. And I, and I think of the people that I know Vitalik to hang out with, like I said, Carl Flourish and the people working on optimism and other, you know, all the cryptographers, they all kind of have Vitalik's like similar vibe, right? And so there's this, in the deep Ethereum community, the people that like write the code and do the research and development and you know, work at the EF, they all kind

• 1:19:31David Hoffman?

  of have these same values, similar values, because they're all a bunch of friends. And to me, I, I kind of see Ethereum as this technological layer for this group of people that have very clear values to export those, those values to the rest of the world. I think Ethereum is actually a way for like, um, for the, these deep Ethereum community members who, uh, you know, largely have surrounded Vitalik and the other core members of Ethereum, and they are, are instantiating values when they write like the optimistic rollups, they are choosing specific design choices which have specific values that are associated with them. And now that these design choices are being adopted by the broader Ethereum community,

• 1:20:15David Hoffman?

  these values are being exported to everyone that touches Ethereum. And so I kind of think like this, the relationship that you have as Vitalik's father, you know, one of two parents. And then that, well, that's just the nature and now that's, that's the nurture. But then there's also the nature size of Vitalik's own person defined by the environment. But still regardless, like you have had this influence in actually determining the code that we all touch on the internet and that is a, a, a layer of values that we are all now embedded upon. And so I kind of think the, the long-term legacy of Ethereum is to all get all humans on the same value system and that value system is Ethereum.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  It's interesting, right? Because also one of their values of the system that Ethereum is, is being inclusive, being open to people who have somewhat different values and then also having a dialogue, right? And then it means that in our convention, there are people, we welcome people who have some values who some people might be scared of. Like for example, sexual energy is a very strong energy. Very few people can have good connection with that, right? And then somebody like me, who is an awesome guy, right? Then some people like get scared, oh, you know, what is he doing? Like, you know, whatever, right? Or let's say the recent hoopla about sushi not, you know, being prioritized

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  lower than uniswap in optimism. So now we apparently have some disagreement about values. So, but the value of the community, the overarching value is that let's, it's in the open, try to reconcile them and dialogue and move forward, right? So that's really interesting, right? So the value, if you will, of authoritarian systems, then the system kind of tries to become more black and white. And you, I can see that in Russia, for example, you know, government and Putin is good or it's bad and it's becoming very black and white. And you know, for me, I really see that as extremely black. And then in Ethereum, it's like, yeah, you know, we have people with all kinds of

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  values and desires and tendencies, but then still our foundational thing is like, you know, how can we still?

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  Understand and accept them, right? And for me, it's a very important aspect of also what being a human is, being a human and all compassion toward ourselves, doing toward all the sides that we don't might not like in ourselves. Like, oh, I should not be this impulsive, or I should be, you know, more kind of whatever it is, right? But well, I am what I am, right? Kind of as a community, as we can, we don't have to deny all these different people with different opinions and somewhat different values. But as long as like, there is a hierarchy, if you will, right? And again, there at the very low level of this hierarchy is this openness and inclusiveness, right? And for me, that's really kind of the most important aspect of Ethereum community.

• 1:23:12David Hoffman?

  Yeah. And I think as you get closer and closer to the core of the Ethereum community, down, down to like the layer zero, if you will, you'll find that the one of the core values that people have is to value other people's values. And that sort of like iterativeness is kind of how there's some sort of like relationship between Ethereum and the infinity that keeps on coming up in all these different brandings. Dmitry, thank you for coming on Layer Zero and being the first guest. I've had a fantastic time just talking about all these different subjects with you.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was really cool conversation. Yeah. And thank you for, you know, the privilege of being the first guest. And it's really awesome. And I'm looking forward to kind of meeting up in person, you know, the next Ethereum conference.

• 1:23:57David Hoffman?

  Well, like you said, ETH Denver is also my Ethereum favorite Ethereum conference. And so if it's not before then, then at ETH Denver, I will see you there.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  Sounds good.

• 1:24:07David Hoffman?

  All right.

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  Take care.

• 1:24:10David Hoffman?

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• 1:24:51David Hoffman?

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