Bankless - Superphiz | Layer Zero

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you have an ether and you want it to be valuable, then you have to act in ways that bring value to the network. Welcome to Layer Zero. Layer Zero is a podcast of unscripted conversations with the people that make up the Ethereum community. Crypto is built by code but is composed of people. And each individual member of the crypto community has their own story to tell. Cyberpunks 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.

Starting point is 00:00:31 Today on Layer Zero, I'm talking with Superfiz. And Superfiz is a community of a number of different parts of the Ethereum community, the R-Eath Finance subreddit, the Rocket Pool community, the ETH-Pool community, the ETH-Staking community. He's just fascinated by ETH-Staking. And so I would call him an ETH-Staking expert, although he probably wouldn't like that expert title. He's just a community member through and through and living and breathing and dying for decentralized protocols. And Superfiz is worried at this present moment. He calls Ethereum under attack.

Starting point is 00:01:02 And so what is Ethereum under attack by? This is the conversation of liquid staking derivatives, which has been a very significant conversation in the Ethereum space lately, and how liquid staking derivatives, things like tokenized staked eth tokens, like staked eth from Lido, R.E. from Rocket Pool. We talk about the conversation of how liquid staking derivatives might come to centralize Ethereum and what we can do about that. And so this is a, you guys are looking to learn more about that conversation.

Starting point is 00:01:34 This is a great place to get started. We also talk about other things, like how Superfiz got started with Bitcoin. Even before getting into Ethereum, we got started with Bitcoin. And how he felt that the Bitcoin community let him down and the lessons that he has learned from that era of his life and how he has applied that forward to Ethereum. So I hope you guys enjoy this fantastic interview with Superfiz from Rocket Pool, from ETH Finance, from the e-stakers right after we get to some of these fantastic sponsors that make the show possible. Rocket Pool is your friendly decentralized Ethereum staking protocol.

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Starting point is 00:04:10 To get your first crypto-collateralized loan, get started at AVE.com, that's A-A-A-B-E-D-com, and also check out the AVE protocol governance forums to see what more than 100,000 Dow members are all robbing about. dot ave.com. What's up Superface? How's it going? How are you, David? Good, really good, man. The R-Eath finance and Rocket Pool communities are really stoked for to have you on here, which makes me stoked. Yeah, so, I mean, those are my people. I, um, I, um, that's where I live. I've been, I've been an R-Ethierium or an R-Eth finance guy for, you know, since day one and ETH trader before that and Eith mining before that and Ethereum before that.

Starting point is 00:04:57 So, you know, I really feel comfortable with those communities and I'm really glad that they like me. Does it matter? It does. I mean, it's important. Before we, we were talking about the show before this, but before we go any further, are you sweating, bro? Yeah, so I make no secret. Like, I do this, this regimen. Like, I have, like, peak phys performance.

Starting point is 00:05:22 Because normally, you know, I'm a slug. And so if I know I'm going to do something like this, if it's like a launch call or if it's an opportunity to speak, then like maybe a couple hours before I'll take a nap and then I'll get up and go for a really hard run. And then I will snag the forbidden coffee. And it kind of lets me like be my favorite self. So this is you're going to get my favorite self, I hope. So you're telling me that this is what peak performance looks like? Yeah. It's sad.

Starting point is 00:06:00 Like this is all. Like you think, I know, right? Like, like, oh, so my, I have a goal that I'm not going to use foul language during a recording. Because I've learned the value of family-friendly media. Like, I really want this to be something that, that anyone can, can play anywhere and feel comfortable playing with it. So I'm, I was going to make a joke and say, I'm not going to say. Right. I definitely got in trouble for having a potty mouth on the weekly roll-up. So now I try and keep it contained, but sometimes I let it out regardless.

Starting point is 00:06:34 All right. So, Phiz, I went to the ETH finance subreddit where you basically live as far as I can tell and told them that you're coming on bankless, and so they should drop some questions. So I got a bunch of questions from your friends and family over at Eith Finance. And so I also have my own questions, but I kind of want to start with theirs. So this first one, I think, is also the question I would have asked anyways, coming from Mazwanos. What drives you to be so involved in Ethereum's decentralization? I've been a part of failed networks. I've been a part of other L-1s that allowed themselves to be captured or followed the wrong goals or drank their own Kool-Aid and sold out on their core principles.

Starting point is 00:07:23 And as someone who's been involved with Ethereum for a long time, I've gone to this place where I don't want that to happen to Ethereum. I want Ethereum to survive, and it's something that I'm willing to put energy into. It's that valuable to me. So whatever it takes, like whatever I need to do to organize, of the community to empower people, to educate people, then I'm going to do what I can to help Ethereum be successful. What L-1s were you a part of before you became part of the Ethereum community?

Starting point is 00:07:59 I affectionately call it Blockstream coin or grandpa. I'm one of those people, I don't like to give too much name credit to things that I'm not deeply involved with or aligned with. but you know there was another cryptocurrency i think it was founded in about 2008 or 2009 and uh is it proof of work it was all the range for a while it was it is it's a proof of work chain i think it still exists i'm not really sure i haven't heard much about it lately really slow block times yeah but you know i love these types have you heard of this one i loved that network um but i realized first that the community was the community wasn't always sour the

Starting point is 00:08:44 community became sour and the chain became captured by people who were not aligned with the decentralization ethos. I mourn the loss of that project. It's funny, a lot of people don't even know it's dead, but I mourn the loss of it. And I like Ethereum enough that I don't, I don't want to stand by and let the same thing happen again. Were you on the subreddit during the early days of said particular chain where a lot of that like because like it went through a fork in the road where it could have stayed community aligned or it could have gotten captured by schmachshmim. I actually have I have a a post that I absolutely love. It's from it's from the time that I left that kind of recounted there are like 16 events that led up to I love you guys

Starting point is 00:09:37 but I'm leaving. And, you know, I was a careful observer, the same way that I'm involved with Ethereum. And there were just so many atrocities, such a sour community. You know, it's not, it went beyond moderating and it got into shaping an agenda, shaping a narrative. that I it's just so unhealthy. Siops, would you say sciops? Absolutely. It could have been avoided.

Starting point is 00:10:19 It didn't have to, that chain could be healthy and vibrant. It could be a good partner chain for Ethereum today. But right now, it's essentially a shell of its former self and the only people who still who still hold it in high regard or the people who don't know the reality behind it. Is there a future of Ethereum where Ethereum becomes the chain that you shall not name and how do we prevent that from happening?

Starting point is 00:10:52 You know, I feel like I have a close enough relationship with Ethereum. God, what is this? Like, I'm dating Ethereum now. I'll never, Etherium will never be the chain that I don't mention. But I do hope that it never becomes a cautionary tale.

Starting point is 00:11:10 There's a reason I was excited to be on your show today, and it's to draw attention to the fact that, or better or worse, Ethereum is under attack right now. The beacon chain is under attack, and it's a thing we don't want to talk about. People know me as a happy guy. They think, oh, Fiz just wants to sing kumbaya all day long. but we're under attack and I'm not the kind of guy who is going to say

Starting point is 00:11:39 you know these are the attackers everybody get them I don't subscribe to that I think the attackers in this case are probably non-malicious I think that they are probably they they see themselves as responsible actors on the network but the role of the community in these cases is is really to stand up for the network and say, wait, stop. This is not what's supposed to happen. And some of the things I want to talk about today are the responsibility of the community of layer one, I'm sorry, of layer zero, to stepping up and fighting for the network if they believe it's something they want to be around in 20 years,

Starting point is 00:12:27 because I want it to be around 20 years. I think a way to put a name on the attacker is to call us attacker Moloch. Like it seems like it's a Moloch attack, right? It is. It's a failure of coordination and it's a failure of, it's intact on poor human incentives. And for those that don't know, the Moloch reference, Molok is basically the god of human coordination failures. There's some articles on bankless in a previous podcast.

Starting point is 00:12:54 But it's basically symbolized in the sense that like if everyone agrees to do this one thing and abide by this one shared standard, you actually increase the incentive to defect from that. And ultimately, because that one person or one entity can defect, it makes the whole thing break down. So it's superfiz to say that, like, for the newer listener or for the people that just haven't dove as deep into the world of crypto or don't have the long history,

Starting point is 00:13:22 to say that the aforementioned chain, who it's the most obvious chain, I'm just going to play into the game of not mentioned it, but it's the most obvious chain for those that haven't gotten it yet. To say that that chain is broken, and then also to say Ethereum is under attack is like really strong language. So before we go into the details of just like how to save Ethereum from a Moloch attack, why just use, like, why lean into just this whole like very bold statements of just like the OGG chain is dead? Ethereum is under attack. Like these are big words.

Starting point is 00:13:58 Yeah. You know, I'm not here on your show to get views. I'm not trying to sell a message. I am a harbinger. I'm like, I'm sharing the message as I see it on the chain. Or actually as I see it in the community, to be honest, because this is not a chain message. This is a community message.

Starting point is 00:14:23 In regard to block stream chain, you know, that's a personal choice. I take full credit for my attitudes toward that chain. It's a chain relationship that I had that I separated from. But when it comes to Ethereum, it's not my message. It's not, hey, everybody, Superphiz is doing this thing. I work hard to listen and represent the needs of the beacon chain. I don't know, I call myself the Beacon Chain Community Health Consultant.

Starting point is 00:14:58 I take that seriously. And so I am the guy like literally looking at the chain every day and saying, what are we doing right and what's not working? The job of the developers, of the researchers, they're building the tip of the spear. And I'm sort of here in the background looking at over at everything, looking at the community and saying, how are we doing? And we've reached this point where we have meandered into a crisis. And if we don't take community action to correct the crisis, then I sincerely believe that it,

Starting point is 00:15:51 I don't think it's going to be the end of the chain, but if Molok-Crosses, crosses over 33%. I think that we will see I think we'll see some effects. I think that rational sellers will look at or rational participants will look at other chains. I think that we'll have set a precedent

Starting point is 00:16:15 that it's okay to try to monopolize the network. But yeah, as you say, it's a, failure of coordination. It's something that we can avoid. It's something that now is the right time for us to fight for what's right. Okay, so let's go ahead and make things explicit because I think people from the rocket pool and people from our ETH finance communities definitely know what you're talking about, but I think many others might not. What's at stake here? What do we need to fix?

Starting point is 00:16:47 What's going wrong? So the essential issue is the beacon chain runs on validators. And validators represent a 32 ether deposit in the chain, and then a responsibility to validate the beacon chain at regular intervals. And so people mostly know staking as a form of making essentially passive income on the beacon chain. Beacon chain being the next iteration of the proof of state chain for Ethereum. It's what we're moving to around August, hopefully. The beacon chain is future Ethereum. That's right. And it is essentially eminent at this point.

Starting point is 00:17:32 And so on the speaking chain, we have about 300,000 validators. And ideally, these validators represent individuals. So maybe I run a validator in my home. Maybe you run in one in your home. Our friends have them. and we are decentralizeding and supporting the network. But what happens is people, I guess, I don't mean, it's an unkind way, people seek a herd mentality. They look for an easier way to do things.

Starting point is 00:18:04 They say, you know, I don't want to run the hard work on my own, or I don't have 32 ether, or it's too much work, but here's an easier way to do it. If I give my ether to these people, even Rockpool, if I give my money to Rocky Pool, they'll stake on my behalf, and I don't have to worry as much, but I'm still getting paid. And that mental transaction is sort of where things break down, because I think as ether holders, if we value our ether, if we value the future of the network, we have this deep responsibility to be good stewards of our ether. And so if we're just value extractive, and we're like, hey, how much can I make from

Starting point is 00:18:47 this, then we're going to give our ether anywhere and it doesn't matter. But if we take the health of the network seriously, we're going to look around and say, what is the landscape of validating? How can I use my ether to defend, support, protect, and enhance the network? And so ideally, when you're staking any ether, if you're staking, you know, one-tenth of an ether, you're going to look at all the providers and you're going to say, you know, I don't have 32 ether, but I want mistake. So there are these, you know, one, two, three providers. And you're going to find, if you do that, that one of these providers right now has about 32.45% of the validators. That's essentially 100,000 validators or a third of the network. If they cross over one third of the network,

Starting point is 00:19:39 they then have the ability as a governor to censor the network. They can prevent finalization. They can say, we're going to hold the network hostage until you do what we want. From the flip side of that, this entity, I don't believe they're evil. So I don't think that they intend to do that.

Starting point is 00:20:04 I think that they see themselves as the benevolent leader. Like, we're shepherding the network. We're trying to take care of everyone. There are so many people who want to deposit and make returns on their ether. We're just trying to. help them do that. But the flaw in that logic is that staking on the beacon chain isn't inherently

Starting point is 00:20:27 about making money. It's inherently about securing the chain. And if you put that financial goal ahead of the responsibility, then you have this kind of mutilated or mutated incentive profile. And so the Molok attack here is coming from, hey, I'm going to let everyone else run their own nodes and I'm just going to delegate my ETH to somebody else. And so this is the classic Moloch trap

Starting point is 00:20:59 where, well, if everyone delegates their eth to someone else, then basically we all burn the system down in the first place. And so only a very few or a small percentage of people can safely delegate. delegate their eth to others to stake on the network. And it needs to be significantly smaller than those that are actually staking their nodes

Starting point is 00:21:20 and staking their eth and running their nodes at home. And so that proportion of like independent node runners versus delegators needs to be strong in the independent node runner sides. And so part of the reason why you're saying you don't think they're evil is that, look, this could be anyone, right? Like we could solve this problem on this particular staking as a service platform. But then just like Molok that as we use on bankless so many times, before, like, you don't actually kill Molok.

Starting point is 00:21:45 You end up just pushing him elsewhere. And so it couldn't turn into, like, a whackamol problem where, well, if people continue to delegate their ETH rather than run their nodes, like, you're just pushing Moloch in a different direction. So, like, we can hit every single staking as a service provider on the head and say, well, no, like, clamp down on this. And then it just goes to another one. And then we do it again.

Starting point is 00:22:05 We actually haven't solved the problem, which is why you reference layer zero and why I think I see a we are layer zero piece of sheet of paper in your background. If that's what I'm reading correctly, it's a little bit of three. I'm not sure if that camera angle can get it. But yeah, a friend of mine is like, hey, I want to sponsor your layer zero work. If you'll put this up, I'll send sponsorship your way. And I was like, that's, that's like a win, win, win, win, yeah, let's do it. I truly feel like layer one is not the base of the chain.

Starting point is 00:22:40 I get this thing, I get DMs like, Fizz, you're wasting your time. None of this matter. As a matter of fact, when I first advertised myself as the Beacon Chain Community Health Consultant, leaders in Ethereum sort of discounted me. They're like, the community is cool, but you guys are really just a bunch of people hanging around in a forum. And I know differently. I know that layer zero is a formidable army. We are the farmers who go about our daily work until our network is threatened.

Starting point is 00:23:27 And then we take up arms and we defend our network. And so I can allow people to not understand the strength of layer zero. until there's an attack. And when there's an attack, that's when, you know, it's time to summon everyone and say, hey, guys. Hey, you know, people who are using this service and you didn't know that you were harming the network. It's time to activate. Let's wake up. Let's take responsibility for our actions.

Starting point is 00:24:01 Let's come together. Let's protect the network. And then when we're done, we can move on to something else. So it's a very, very important to indoctrinate like a culture of node running in every single decentralized chain. And so is that the solution that you are looking for is you are just looking to change the culture around node running in Ethereum? Or are there like other also other solutions towards solving this whole like no one should ever cross 33.3% of stake supply? One of my favorite things about being superfiz is I don't have to know all the answers. I get to look you or anyone in the eye and say, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:24:46 And I'm okay with that because it's not my job to know the answers. So, you know, the way that I envision the network is, to be honest, it's things like schools and hospitals and local community governments, setting up validators and running nodes to sort. support local infrastructure. I see it as individuals running nodes at home. I see, I see for people who don't have 32 ether, they're using, you're going to, you've heard this a thousand times, trustless, decentralized, open source, and permissionless providers like rocket pool. Not just rocket pool. It's the first. But we need, we need 10 rocket pulls. And that gives, you know, people, the opportunity who's, you know, like I only have 0.01Eth, but I want to fight for our network. How do I do this? And then you, you participate in one of these staking solutions that

Starting point is 00:25:47 promotes network decentralization. So I've said this before, but I see, I see staking on the Ethereum network as a thin layer of validators around the world. And right now, what we have are a few very concentrated regions. It's something we can work. I want to point out eithsunshine.com developed by Hanny Ambu. It's a decentralization dashboard that sort of, it doesn't paint a pretty picture, but it definitely lays out the work ahead of us. So the image that I'm kind of getting my head is that there's all these taking as a service provider

Starting point is 00:26:32 and there's also many more working that have not been like that haven't been released yet. Some like are in beta. Some are just kind of working behind the scenes. Then there are ones that are live. And it kind of reminds me of like the whole curve wars thing where the curve wars are like trying to bribe people to join their side, right? To join their governance weight or just like direct the curve emissions towards their pool. Right.

Starting point is 00:26:59 And so like the curve wars are trying to fight over. the emissions of CRV. And then the staking as a service providers are trying to fight over their share of staking rewards. And every single staking as a service provider takes their fee, right? And so if they have more TVL, more assets under management under their pool, they get a larger fee structure. And that's the bull case for, that's a bull case for every single taking as a service provider. And this is keeping Ethereum decentralized versus like competition, right? Bitcoiners love to think Bitcoiners love to say that Bitcoin is always decentralized because even the biggest proof-of-work winers will ultimately decay, just because that's what proof-of-work hardware does. And I don't

Starting point is 00:27:44 really buy into that. But you could kind of allude to the same thing going with Ethereum security where just like the best proof-of-stake security provider will win, the one with the most uptimes, the one with the cheapest fees, they will attract the most TVL. And then they win because of competition. But what doesn't win is the Ethereum chain. The staking as a service provider wins, but what loses is the whole staking as a service chain or the whole Ethereum chain in the first place. Because if one proof of stake provider wins the race, in the same way where CVX, a convex finance, won the curve wars, and now it's basically a convex finance wars, if that happened in Ethereum and just like staking as a service provider, ABC, wins the

Starting point is 00:28:31 East Saking game, Ethereum as a whole entire ecosystem loses. And now we don't really have a game to play anymore. So that is where that metaphor breaks down. Fizz, is this even possible? How do we prevent? Like, is this an even possible future to prevent? Yeah. So, you know, what you said makes so much sense.

Starting point is 00:28:50 Because if you think about the most efficient design to run Ethereum validators, it's putting them all in one place. Let's centralize them. Let's find. make a database. That's right. Yeah. And the funny thing is, as obviously incorrect as that seems, people tend toward it. People tend toward that herd mentality. So it's definitely possible for us to work through layer zero, to coordinate to further decentralize the network. It's something that will have to continue doing forever. I get so many comments from people who say,

Starting point is 00:29:30 is. How long are we going to have to do this? Forever. It's never going to end. We don't, we don't develop a piece of software and upload it to GitHub and suddenly the network is decentralized. Decentralization is the role and responsibility of holders. If you have an ether and you want it to be valuable, then you have to act in ways that bring value to the network. And so I think this will bring me to my second question from the ETH finance community. And I'll lead into it with this. Bitcoiners like to say that don't trust, verify, or basically just remove all human governance and just replace with math.

Starting point is 00:30:15 For example, everything that we can replace with math should be replaced with math. And if you're telling me that, like, we're going to have to fight this layer zero fight forever. That sounds like an uphill battle. And one of the reasons why this crypto world works is that we've actually been able to replace uphill battles of the old world and replace them with downhill battles of the new world. And so Logris the Bard, his first question is, how can we economically incentivize a 22% soft cap of any given staking network? What incentives can be marshaled to incentivize staking networks to voluntarily cap themselves? What economic penalties can be applied to staking networks who grow too large? Any thoughts on these questions?

Starting point is 00:30:52 Yeah, I have a great thought. Logre is six times smarter than I am, so I can't wait to see what he comes up with. Like, you know, David, I let myself not have all the answers. I'm not some shaman who's like laying out the path forward for everyone. I'm a member of the community who recognizes that we have an opportunity for growth. And so I don't want people to look at me for the answers. I don't want to be a leader. I want to be a part of a movement that makes Ethereum stronger.

Starting point is 00:31:32 So when someone like Logri asks a question, you know, hey, Fis, what do I do? I am literally going to say, I don't know, Logree, what do we do? Because there are so many people in the community who know hundreds of times more than I do. I'm a school psychologist. Like, I'm a counselor. I don't know, I don't know crap about economic structures. I know how communities work. I know how to, how to de-escalate conflict between middle schoolers really well.

Starting point is 00:32:08 But when you get into complex economic concepts or developer concepts, then I'm very okay saying there are other people in the community who are more able. to address those questions than I am. It's funny because I responded that. It wasn't a joke. Like, I'm okay being normal. I can normalize who I am. I don't have to have all the answers.

Starting point is 00:32:34 And so, okay, so you're really leading into, you are just like sounding the horn. You're the Paul Revere who are saying, the British are coming, the British are coming, but you're not necessarily, you don't actually know, like, how to strategize an army here, other than just to say, I don't even want to be Paul Revere.

Starting point is 00:32:47 I, I, I'm doing a job that has to be done. I'm doing something that I wish someone else would do. I don't want to do this. I want to trade NFTs and lose money on them. But when... I got a question on that later, actually. When I see a network that I value in trouble, then I'm going to give everything I have

Starting point is 00:33:19 as a counselor to save it. And I don't want to be Paul Revere. I want to just be a participant in a larger thing. Okay, so let me play devil's advocate for a second. And so in the 2021, we saw this growth of just like anti-Eath maxis in the crypto world. I'll name some names, even though you don't have to, like the Salana communities, the Avalanche communities, the formerly Terra communities, there's a newsletter out there that is titled, or it's not in the title, but it's like in the tagline as to why you subscribe, it's

Starting point is 00:34:02 titled no-Eath-Mexis. And so like there's this growing cohort of just like no-Ethmaxis out there. And ironically, the guy who runs that newsletter got the idea from me on our Kobe podcast. And I was like, other people need to make other content for other ETHs. ecosystems, not bank, not come crying a bankless. That's why we don't talk about you guys. Anyways, I'm off on a side track. The point is, is that, like, all of those, like, don't be ETH maxis, don't be a Bitcoin maxi, like, line. I'm willing to bet all of my Eith that as soon as, like, that one particular community, whatever that one community is, like, were to flip Ethereum in market cap, they would just become, like, the new maxis, right?

Starting point is 00:34:44 They would become the new Avalanche Maxis. And so applying, and just because, like, any underdog is like, don't be a maximumless, except our chain. And then as soon as they're the upper dog, as soon as they're on top, they're just turned into the new maxis, right? And so, like, it's really just a strategy of where you are in the dominance, in the dominance stack, right?

Starting point is 00:35:04 And so rocket pool being, having lesser TVL than the alternative staking pools, do you believe that the rocket pool community has it in them to, if they were the ones that were at 32% of the stake and the RPL token was like 10x the price and they're all like super wealthy and happy. Do you think they would also be ready to sound the alarm and cut back against their own interests, right?

Starting point is 00:35:32 Like does the rocket pool community have the layer zero to protect Ethereum? In some ways, I feel like it's a loaded question because, you know, I'm a member of the Rocket Bowl community, and I've spent a lot of time in my own way cultivating that community to hold what I consider to be the highest interest of Ethereum. And so I know that many leaders in the Rocket Pool community have committed to my suggestion of 22% capping. And then Vitalik followed that with a 15% cap. I also note, Stakewise has voluntarily offered to cap at 22%. I think it's easier when you're the underdog to say, if we get that big, yes. Because, you know, it's sort of, it's a feather in your cap. It's a promotional.

Starting point is 00:36:27 It's harder for that community who is already there to say, okay, we'll turn it off. We'll stop taking money, sure. But Rocket Pool, in my mind, is aligned with the, fundamental ethos of Ethereum. It is decentralized permissionless. I don't want to say those things over again because it sounds so packaged. But it's one of those things where I align with a community because they're doing Ethereum the way that I believe Ethereum should be done. And if they reach that threshold, if they didn't throttle, then I would walk away.

Starting point is 00:37:16 In the same way, honestly, that I would have to look for other, I don't think another chain exists. But if Ethereum was captured, I would say, God, I hope something else comes along. I hope something else is better. Can I circle back to this maxi conversation? Sure. we've entered this this culture where we've sort of become an anti-maxi culture and you know I'm even hesitant to call myself an eth maxi but but I am right now if something changes in Ethereum then I may become a maxi for another chain but what I

Starting point is 00:38:03 really like to see are people who have who have a wallet balance that is that is really based on one chain. If you're a Solano Maxi or an Algorand Maxi, Cardano, like, believe something and work to make that better. And when you believe that that thing has failed, look for something else. But what I don't have a lot of respect for are people who maybe play the top 10 on Coin Gecko.

Starting point is 00:38:37 these people aren't committed to any technology. They're just trying to make money. They're not trying to improve any ecosystem. They're not trying to make things better for anyone. They're just trying to extract value where they can. So I'm really okay with, you know, I don't really agree with people who buy in, you know, to some of the alt-layer ones.

Starting point is 00:39:05 But fine, pick one. make it better develop it grow it improve it compete that's it's a pet peeve of mine that that I have to be ashamed to be an ethmaxi but I'm not Ethereum is is the future right now and I hope it stays that way and if it's not the future then I'm going to go somewhere else and support another project

Starting point is 00:39:29 so forever ago I want you to check my thinking on this forever go on bank lists not that long ago it was like six or seven months ago, maybe less actually. I wrote a pool about, like, an intro, I wrote an article on bank list titled like something about like the case for decentralized taking answer service providers.

Starting point is 00:39:48 And it's basically all about rocket pool. And the framing that I took was just like, first we had tokens on Ethereum, then we had a need to swap tokens. So we made Ether Delta, and that got replaced by Uniswap, use off as much better. And all of a sudden,

Starting point is 00:40:06 Ethereum solves its own problem of like liquidity. Now, not only do we, we don't even actually technically need to depend on external centralized exchanges at this point for liquidity ether. The ether liquidity actually can come from internal to the network. So that's a really cool problem, a really cool problem to solve. It's just like, yo, we can actually have our own liquidity environment for ether, the asset. And that's really important for the security of the network. We need ether to be liquid. And the pitch was also about, well, Rocket Pool is just like an app layer thing on Ethereum that can solve its own like centralization issues where instead of staking with Coinbase, you can just stake with Rocket Pool. And it's an app layer solution to some of

Starting point is 00:40:46 its own centralization problems. And like in theory, which will never actually be proven out in practice, uh, if Rocket Pool was somehow bug and exploit free, like it could just like absorb 100% of the stake. And it could just be, it could be the dominant staking as a service providers. Why am I wrong here? It's governance centralization. It is that rocket pull exists as a layer on top of the staking network. And as much as you can say that they exert a tiny little bit of authority, any authority at that governance layer is a risk.

Starting point is 00:41:29 And I want to talk about two reasons it's a risk. The first reason is not likely, but it is essentially Rocket Pool saying, hey, guys, we have found a way to make more money. All we have to do is censor these transactions. So in our installer, we're just, we're going to, you know, update this file. It's no big deal. Everyone run it. And because, you know, everyone who is subscribed to Rocket Pool,

Starting point is 00:41:58 is, you know, they're incentivized to maintain that relationship, that governance relationship with Rocket Pool. And so they're very likely to do those things without questioning. And so that's an unlikely risk, but the fact that it exists leads to the second risk. And the second risk is its governance capture. It is that entities around the world who might be interested in, using Ethereum, look at the network and they see this artificial governance layer that controls the beacon chain and they say, I'm not comfortable putting my business on that chain because of the potential for one governor to control the network. And that's where the real risk is. It's not

Starting point is 00:42:50 that they'll actually ever do anything. It's that third parties, nation states, corporations, will examine the chain and they'll say, this is not a decentralized network. This is a network run by two operators. I'm sorry, let me call them entities, two entities. And at that point, none of us know that. Like, we may not even be aware of it. But what happens is five, eight, ten years down the road.

Starting point is 00:43:17 The network is stagnant, and we're trying to figure out what happened. Like, why didn't we explode? Why didn't things grow? Why didn't we get adopted? because we've turned a blind eye to our own weaknesses. And that's the thing that I really want to encourage us to avoid. Were those two entities, Dave and Darren? Is that who you're referring to?

Starting point is 00:43:38 Okay. I was thinking, well, I'm not even going to say what I was thinking. But I just, no comment. Okay. I'm like, I'm just going to dig the whole deeper. Okay. So yeah, upon asking that question, then like Ethereum has done a very good job making sure it doesn't have token governance, right?

Starting point is 00:44:02 It's not Tezos where the actual asset is on-chain governance. There's explicit no governance baked into ether. And so if RocketPoll just takes all the supply, even if it is maximally decentralized, it's distributing all the nodes, it still produces on-chain governance in a roundabout way via the RPL token. So we don't like that. So we definitely need multiple taking as a service providers to compete for all of this, but not have one dominate.

Starting point is 00:44:28 So I was talking to Hazu a while ago about why he supported the dominant current staking as a service provider. And his answer was that like, well, the alternative is really just centralized exchanges. And so even a compromised alternative is better than if just like, imagine if Coinbase had like 32% of the stake

Starting point is 00:44:52 that the current dominant player has and then also you add it on the current amount that Coinbase has, then we're beyond 32% we're in somewhere probably in like the 40% or something. And that gets really scary. And that leans into right exactly what you're talking about. We're like, oh, sweet, this is called Ethereum, but it's actually Coinbase chain.

Starting point is 00:45:09 We don't really want that. And so having semi-decentralized staking as a service providers is a mitigation against that. And so that was his argument. And rather than just, I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off. Rather than having one semi-decentralized provider, Really, we're better off with a lot of providers. A lot of providers who we can ensure are not colluding.

Starting point is 00:45:33 So, you know, one entity will say, if we're not running all of the validators, then Coinbase will. Well, do you know what? The moment that Coinbase gets to 32.45% of the network, or maybe it's, you know, someone in Reddit was like, well, what if, you know, Microsoft is just going to take over the chain anyway? Well, the moment Microsoft crosses a threshold, and I'm in awe of the 15% threshold that Vitalik suggested. But the moment we get to that point, that's when the community needs to say,

Starting point is 00:46:11 stop, you're crossing a line. That is where layer zero comes in. So, you know, for this one entity to say, if we're not doing it, someone else will, that's fine. let someone else do it because we'll deal with them as well. We will approach them the same way that we've addressed you. And that is how we enact governance as a community.

Starting point is 00:46:36 Is social shaming at the layer zero level the most, the strongest tool in the tool belt? I don't want to call it shaming. I don't want to do shaming. I'm not a shamer. I'm not anti anyone. I am pro beacon chain. So my goal for our community is to rise to a high standard and promote the beacon chain. I'm not here to shame anyone.

Starting point is 00:47:04 I appreciate the work of those entities who have developed staking solutions to allow people to participate in the network. I'm not here to shame them. I'm here to promote the health of the beacon chain. You said that you were in awe about Vitalx 15%. Why is the 15% such a crazy number? You know, I think it's something we all believed in the beginning. I love, it was a devcon, I believe, where Vitalik is on stage saying, you know, you'll be able to validate on Ethereum from a laptop.

Starting point is 00:47:38 I was taken by that. I believed that. I subscribed to it. I still subscribe to it. And so that led me to believe that the beacon chain will be comprised of, you know, hundreds of thousands of people. staking from their homes on laptops. When that didn't unfold, kind of as we expected,

Starting point is 00:48:00 you know, we're all asking ourselves the question, what level of centralization of entity governance is acceptable? And so, you know, I, as FIS, I chose 22% because it requires, so 22% meaning one entity, cannot prevent finalization. It requires more than three entities to change finalization. So that seemed like a safe number.

Starting point is 00:48:33 I floated it around, thought about it, got some feedback on it, and it felt right to me. So the community level then is 22%. Everyone was silent on that. And, you know, not everyone. the Ethereum researchers were silent on that. And it leads me to think, you know, Fizz, are you on the right track?

Starting point is 00:48:57 Are you doing, are you following the right direction? And then, you know, a few weeks after that, Danny tweeted, you know, 33% is an attack. And I'm like, okay, well, maybe my gauge was a little off. maybe somehow 22% is okay, but 33%. That's when we, that's what we need to draw the line. And I sort of even went beyond that, and I realized that 33% is a developer kind of limit where the community will kick in at 22.

Starting point is 00:49:33 And then Vitalik, with his 15% message, because, you know, Vitalik is here for decentralization. He's serious. He's not, he's not, he's not, looking for any of the other, um, centralized distributed networks that we could have created. I don't, I love what Anthony Sassano says about not being a cult of personality. I'm not a cult of personality for Vitalik, but I have a heck of a lot of respect for him. Um, and I align with his dream for a truly decentralized, a theory.

Starting point is 00:50:16 network. And when Vitalik says at 15%, you should begin throttling your operation, raising prices, changing things to dissuade more deposits, I realize, you know, this is the right way. We're on the right track. The community is doing the right thing by encouraging further decentralization. 15% makes sense to me if like we're talking about thresholds here where like if two entities had 15% they still wouldn't get to the 33.3% required to prevent finalization. And so it goes from just like just from one entity at 22% to two entities at 15% are required. So from a threshold standpoint, that that certainly makes sense.

Starting point is 00:51:09 And while it's not baked into the actual protocol itself, in producing, and this isn't what Vitalik wasn't promoting that either. He was saying it should be part of the community like status quo should be part of the layer zero he was basically referring to that if you are running as a service provider, you should start

Starting point is 00:51:27 price gouging. He used the words price gouging. Which makes sense to me because like you get to balance if you're super successful and if you have a monopoly as a monopoly you get to raise prices. Like you get to start to price gouge. And so this seems to naturally fit while we were talking about like one half of the equation earlier where there seems to be a convergence on one dominant winner in the Saking as a service business because the best service will win out, there's the other side of that where just like, well, if you are the one that's winning, you also get to increase your prices and you get to be the most lucrative. And so in theory, it'll make your token price go up a lot, but it'll make your ETH share supply go down a lot, which is kind of like good. That's pretty good. That's a good outcome. I was impressed.

Starting point is 00:52:12 You know, we use the tools we have available, and the tool that I have available is community. Vitalik understands economics in a way that I will never understand it. And to hear him suggest an economic solution to something that other people are suggesting should be a protocol solution, it's really elegant. We have this kind of tiered approach, and it gives entities an opportunity to, continue profiting, to continue lucrative profiting, to continue being highly engaged in the network, and to still be good network citizens. Like, that's really what we want to be,

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Starting point is 00:55:42 play that game. And so you were talking about, and also our kids' kids' kids and our kids' kids' kids, and earlier you were talking about putting monetary incentives ahead of responsibility. And if everyone puts monetary incentives ahead of responsibility, then we remove the ability for our kids to play this game. Because we put money in front of responsibility, what happens as a result is that, well, the network becomes corrupted and then it stops being the network that we all wanted to be. And then no longer can our kids play in this fun times land, which is JPEGs and DFI and staking, which is Ethereum. And so like the word like responsibility of like has always like struck out as this like, if you don't know what to do in the world,

Starting point is 00:56:28 you find something that you can be responsible for. And then that gives you like the long term iterative game because like you're promoting the ability to make sure that that game is continued to be able to be played by yourself and then also by others. Yeah, I wholly subscribe to that. Like I, um, I, I work sometimes to diminish my, my perspectives of responsibility on the chain because, uh, so many of, so many people who would argue with me say, you know, it's about financial incentives. Stop talking about responsibility.

Starting point is 00:57:03 Um, I, I don't subscribe to that. I have a responsibility to the chain, to steward it, to help it be healthy, to steward the community. For me, and I hope for others, this extends beyond financial incentives and into dreams for the future. Like, I don't think of Ethereum as a financial chain anymore. I think of Ethereum as the foundational layer for our shared future. And I don't know what that shared future is going to look like yet. I think that decentralized society is going to be a big part of it. But I'm so excited about the future of what Ethereum can be

Starting point is 00:57:52 that I'm done worrying about how much money I'm going to make. and I'm more focused on how I can steward this growth into something that benefits humanity. It's a better goal for all of us. Right. You said, I'm done thinking about how much money I can make, but then you said what you said, but in my mind, I hear how much value can we create for others. Like, I'm done getting mine. Other people still need to get theirs,

Starting point is 00:58:23 and we need to make sure that the maximum amount of value can be created for others to be shared. You know, I don't want to be disingenuous. I rely on Ethereum for money. I want to be financially successful. I'm not above that. But within that, there's so much potential, so much opportunity to give back. You know what it leads to is being a value extractor versus adding value.

Starting point is 00:59:01 And my personal philosophy for anything that I engage with is to add more value than I extract. I think if every Ethereum, and I'm not talking about people who think they're investing, they're really just extracting value. If every real Ethereum worked to add more value than they extract, they would find that they would grow old happy because they would watch the fruition of Ethereum

Starting point is 00:59:33 it would become something that that's beyond their wildest dreams and their financial needs would be met as well. How do you see, how do you do you think about like the similarities between what you do with being a psychological counselor for kids

Starting point is 00:59:52 in a middle school with what you do with the beacon chain? Can you parse out that those parallels? Yeah. You know, so much of it, middle school is where I learned to build consensus. It's like, so consensus really is, in my mind,

Starting point is 01:00:12 it is first polling and listening. Like, what are the different interests here at the table? And then it's kind of like distilling that to, let's find one principle, one principle we can all agree on. And then instead of dumping that on the table, you go to individuals and you say, Hey, David, I have this idea. I just wanted to run it past you.

Starting point is 01:00:33 And I see if you can get buy-in. Can I get buy-in with you? Hey, David, you know, I'm thinking about, you know, let's host six merge calls. Is that something you're interested in? Do you want to do that? Hey, do you want to do that? Great. Oh, so you get that buying with individuals.

Starting point is 01:00:53 And then once you have that buying with individuals, you go back to the. the group. And you say, hey, everyone, I've been thinking about this. What do you guys think? And so I polled everyone. I had individual conversations with the majority of the people, and then I put it out for public view. And that to me, that's the consensus building that I learned from honestly dealing with seventh graders who like to fight about everything. Like, that's how it works. Isn't that just politics? Maybe. I don't, I would, I could. I, I would, I could. could never imagine myself as a politician. You know what?

Starting point is 01:01:30 No. Politics tend to be self-serving. Every politician that I'm aware of, I don't trust many politicians. They're all thinking, what's my piece of the pie in this? What? Where's my slice at?

Starting point is 01:01:51 Okay, never mind. Is that just governance in that case? Yes. Because like politics is like this. uh layer this gamified layer on top of governance where like we should be talking about just like instead of we use the word politics when we talk about what's happening on capital hill when we should be using the word governance like politics is like the game of chess that people play around governance uh yeah so i i've grown away from the idea of of governance and i'm

Starting point is 01:02:19 much i'm much more comfortable with the idea of consensus because governance governance is a game in many ways. And I'm not playing games. I'm looking for ideas that people can gravitate toward. Maybe, you know, that, if you took a pure definition of governance, it would probably be ideas that people can gravitate toward.

Starting point is 01:02:46 But the word has been, it's been through so, so much that it now carries baggage. and it's it's kind of a less pure word. But consensus is still a reflection of ideas that people can gravitate toward. So going back to some of the questions from the R.Eath finance community,

Starting point is 01:03:10 and this one's about bankless, just another position. Oh, wow, great name. She goes, to hit David Hoffman, you, David Hoffman, that's me, between the eyes with love, what should bankless be doing to better support decentralization?

Starting point is 01:03:27 Are you asking me? Yeah. Yeah, that was you. This is great. Like, you know, we've had some rounds, right? The thing that you can do to better support decentralization is encourage people to stake from home first. If they can stake from home, have them stake from home. Bankless, you've developed, David, you guys have an awesome network.

Starting point is 01:03:54 I'm in awe of bankless. Congratulations. You can use that network to train people and help people get staking in their home if they have 32 ether. You can also support minority staking solutions. Obviously, we've talked a lot about rocket pool. I don't promote rocket pool because I'm pumping bags. I promote rocket pool because it's currently the most healthy way to stake on the network. If Rocket Pool reaches 15%, and that's based on Vitalik's number, then I'm going to definitely steer toward another solution.

Starting point is 01:04:34 But right now, Rocket Pool is a solution where anyone with 16 Ether can stake, and then anybody with, you know, you can use Uniswap or whatever to also stake through Rocket Pool. I think Bankless has, Bankless is the most powerful platform in Ethereum. You are the most powerful educator in Ethereum. That gives you a tremendous responsibility to get this good message out, like how to be a good network steward. I think one of the reasons why we haven't totally leaned into that because we don't have any technical person on bank lists. And so explaining the technical stuff kind of gets away from us.

Starting point is 01:05:21 And so especially when we are onboarding so many people, we're like, oh, yeah, you can stake your ETH with this, like, staking as a service provider. And then all the Bikwinners are like, that's just delegated proof of stake with extra steps. But, like, which is also a little bit of the vibe that's going on here is just like, it is delegated proof of stake

Starting point is 01:05:38 if you choose the largest staking provider. And so, like, maybe there's, like, some tiers to talk about this. And I do stake ETH on a node that's not at my home. And so I don't do it with a delegated, staking as a service provider, delegated it to someone. He's a good man, too.

Starting point is 01:05:58 Love that guy. And so, like, maybe the tears go is, like, you, you, uh, stake, stake your Eth at home with your own node, with your own Eth. Uh, then you find, or then, if next best thing is find a friend, uh, stake it with them. Next best thing is find the most minorities taking as a service providers. And then beyond that, maybe is part, stop where you have to stop recommending anything. Um, how would you agree with that, that, like, uh, degree of, of help.

Starting point is 01:06:26 Yeah, that's good. I see two roles there. And I may, this may be an oblique response to your question. But while your base, bankless Dow may not be technically savvy enough to support all of the users, they are technically savvy enough to create content. And a lot of times you can have one technical user. create content that can be reused for thousands of non-technical users to benefit from it. And so that is one way.

Starting point is 01:07:09 The next way is really just continuing that education of helping people understand the responsibility that comes with staking. And so, yeah, staking from home, staking with a minority client. resisting, really just thinking through what does decentralization mean, looking at resources like eithershine.com and saying, it's tough for me to look at eithershine.com. Have you looked at it? It shows we have something like 54% network health. I like, it, it, it, I like, I like, I like, it, uh, I like to see success, you know, like, uh, but. But by seeing our weakness, by acknowledging our weakness, it gives us a place to grow from it.

Starting point is 01:08:04 And that's a platform we can share. All right. So it sounds like I need to put a bounty out for a technical explanation. But also, it's been a while since I've spun up a node. And so maybe I should do a 20-22 version of this. And I'll turn that into a video. But then also, if I could get some help from the bankless style, that would be great. Because I know you got some technical gigabrains in there.

Starting point is 01:08:28 Supervis, are there any other topics or conversation you want to get to before I want to to some more fun personal conversations? Well, you know, I want to ask, I wanted to give you the mantle of realizing that bankless is in a unique position to influence the future of Ethereum. And I think you know that. That's why it's so important that you maximize the opportunity to build this layer zero, to decentralize Ethereum.

Starting point is 01:09:03 And I think you get it. Yeah, I think you're right. We totally get it. I think the fight that we've been fighting over the last year is, is less about, like, internal problems. Because I do think that Ethereum has this, like, fantastic autoimmune system. And so when there is an internal problem, there hasn't been an internal problem that Ethereum hasn't solved yet. And so that's kind of why I haven't put too much thought and energy into this. particular part of Ethereum's history. Because like in the future, hopefully in the future,

Starting point is 01:09:38 like a year from now, two years from now, this is just one of many problems that Ethereum was faced with and then solved. Like Ethereum is yet to be trumped by a problem. And it comes from the layer zero. It comes from like this autoimmune response that we have when as a community, we actually do care about this stuff. Like we actually do care about promoting decentralization. Of all communities out there, like it's one of the few communities that actually gets it. Right. And I don't have to explain why we need decentralization and to illustrate to people that decentralization also really just means corruption resistance and we would like to have like uncorruptible systems. And so like the fight that we've been fighting for the mostly through 2021 is like trying to resist

Starting point is 01:10:21 against centralized chains because that was the the it wasn't really the more centralized taking as a service providers that were the real threat to Ethereum. It was like narrative attacks from centralized chains. Like you think it's bad if some like centralized service provider only has a handful of nodes. Well, what about an entire chain? And so a lot of people were talking about like, oh, well, it's this chain that's like going to be the new thing. And it's going to get this, this chain is going to be the thing that kills Ethereum. And so like that's been our fight for like the last 18 months or so, maybe a little bit less than that. And frankly, like, it was absolutely exhausting. And just like going up against these communities while token, well,

Starting point is 01:11:02 the token price is going up and up and up is just like you you're going against it feels like an immovable object which is bankless about decentralization going against an unstoppable force which is like sole avax terra price Luna price going up into the moon right and like it it sucks for a really long time dude uh and like finally like we're actually able to like kind of cash in on some of that like credibility for actually like uh we called it promoting like not necessarily like trying to say like hey like this terror thing not necessarily sustainable guys should be careful um uh and so like that that was our big fight is like not necessarily internal ethereum strifes because like i said like ethereum has done a fantastic job like

Starting point is 01:11:47 never really has like left a big problem go unsolved and so we've kind of especially when like our most of our community is it's not necessarily like why won't you talk about rocket pool it's like why aren't you talking about my centralized l1 and so like teaching about like decentralization from the external standpoint to get them into the Ethereum community in the first place has kind of been like bankless's fight for the last like year or so. And so for like the rocket pool community that's out there, it's like, why aren't you guys caring about the health of the network? It's like, yo, we care about the health of the industry. Like, it's you guys. It's you guys that care about the health of the network because we'll pass

Starting point is 01:12:22 a baton on to you guys. That's really honorable. I couldn't have articulated your fight unless you described it to me and now that you've described it to me, even though, you know, I catch a lot of bank lists. I, you know, I don't listen every day, but I love the roll-ups and I love, you know, so much of your work. But I couldn't have articulated your battle like you just did. And when you, when you, you know, like, this is the thing I've been working on for 18 months. This is kind of where I'm at, you're pretty successful. It's pretty impressive. I have the same kind of like, you know, I worked on client or consistent layer client diversity. That, it was a successful, a successful initiative. You know, the current initiative is the entity size debate. Like,

Starting point is 01:13:16 that for me, I hope it, I hope it doesn't take a long time. Like, it does get exhausting, like being the person who's beating the drum about one thing that you know needs to, to get done. And then I would say the next initiative for layer zero is the execution layer diversity. And it's interesting, I believe ETH researchers are ready to do execution layer diversity now. But I don't believe we can successfully fight on all of those fronts at once. And so the sooner we get the entity size thing worked out, the next Monday, I'm going to say, all right, guys, let's do execution layer diversity. And I'm not sure how many people could articulate those initiatives that I know the same way that I don't know how many people could articulate

Starting point is 01:14:15 the initiatives that you're working on. But they're there. They're really real things. Right. And as we go into the bear market, like it does present us with an opportunity to reflect on like, all right, what are the next big problems that we have to tackle? Because more or less, the crypto industry and every single chain, and especially Ethereum, being the biggest chain with the most to lose, has to, like, turn in face and be like, all right, what's the next big problem? What's the next big problem? What's the next big, big problem?

Starting point is 01:14:42 And then ultimately, it's going to be like that for like years. And it has been like that for years ever since Genesis. Slowly those problems get like longer in time and not as a big of a deal. but like we're still not anywhere close to the end of this whole thing. And so, but as we're going into the bear market and like a lot of the energy has evaporated out of the alternative layer one space, mainly because the tokens are down bad. Like it does actually give a moment to like look more internally rather than externally.

Starting point is 01:15:12 I think like looking externally is for bull markets. Looking internally is for bare markets. And so like I do think that this is a moment to like self, turn in, turn away from the external world and more towards and addressing the problems for the internal world. So I do take the point that like now is definitely the time for like bankless to start beating the drum about decentralization in a different direction. So I do definitely do take that point. I do. So I have to acknowledge, um, I took a long position on ether because I'm so, it's how press did it to me. So I, maybe I should blame you.

Starting point is 01:15:52 Dude, during that podcast, I opened up my Gemini app and I just like two X my daily, My daily price. I pay price. Can I tell you? I was on a multi-day travel listening to Hal Press. I stopped at a gas station, turned on my mobile hotspot, went to DefiSaver, and leveraged long because... And now, you know, probably not smartfiz,

Starting point is 01:16:19 but it was just so compelling. Like, I... Like, how do you hear that and not just... want to risk your position. But what I was going to say? I took an ETH chain that we shall not name short position. So not in dollar terms, but like put ETH in compound, borrowed the asset that shall not be named,

Starting point is 01:16:42 sold the asset for ETH, and then put more ether compound. So I'm like longing the ratio. Like capital efficient way to trade the ratio and then, but also not be exposed to like macro markets, which is a nice thing to not be. be exposed to at the moment. Yeah. My, uh, this is where, again, uh, you know, I, I normalize being normal. I'm not an, I'm not great with economics. So I, I don't allow myself to attempt

Starting point is 01:17:09 those, uh, those arbitrages, but I'm, I'm always impressed. Oh, I just, I just listen to other people and like, well, he's smart and bullish. So I will follow that. Are you familiar with this, uh, the low green, um, he has a name for this, because it's, it's on his tokenomics explained. It's the low-greed double something. But it's, it's, so I want you to look it up, and I'm sure you'll, you know, commenters will, will point it up because it's, it's really interesting, but I'm like, I could, I could never pull that off. Like, I, I don't even know what buttons to click to make that happen, but I don't know. You'll have to check that out, though. It's really impressive. One of the things I was trying to get to a minute ago, and I got it,

Starting point is 01:17:52 drilled my own self. No, I did. I did. I did. it. I did it. I think that we're likely to view, oh, I, Hal Press did it. I blame Hal for everything. I think we're likely to view what we consider to be the incoming bear market as an L1 cleansing. I would kind of like to think of it as a big L1 cleansing. And I, there's going to be, I call it the bear market wash cycle. Well, you know, there's going to be something new after this, and I don't know what it's going to be. But we always have, after these manias, you know, we have an L1 mania.

Starting point is 01:18:38 We had an ICO mania. We had an NFT mania. There's going to be another mania. And I'm just curious, like, after we move past L1s, after we're proof of stake, I'm excited to just see the next mania unfold. It'll be fun. Yeah. It always happens.

Starting point is 01:18:59 I remember going through the bear market of 2018 to 2020 thinking like, oh, everyone talks about how crypto goes in cycles. And so like, sweet, there will just be another cycle. And then I thought, well, if everyone's saying that there's another cycle, isn't that like the crowded trade? Like, if that's the consensus bet, I thought markets do the things that people don't expect them to do. And everyone thinks that another cycle's coming.

Starting point is 01:19:20 So maybe it's another cycle's not coming. And then another cycle totally came. And now I'm on the, like, now that we're one more cycle beyond that, I'm like, oh, you know, there's how big is the crypto world? Like, it's still only like 1% of like global population that are in like the crypto world. And so like we could have like three more cycles for as far as I can tell. And so like it could actually just keep on playing out consensus over consensus until like the cycles do actually disappear. And it's just like up only but modestly. for a very long time. I love the predictability of these cycles. Like even my wife who has zero interest in an ether, she's like, you know, I've said, you know, hey, we're going to tighten up a little bit because there's a bear coming. And it's going to be a few years.

Starting point is 01:20:10 It's no big deal. And, you know, her response is, well, so it's going to go back up. Just tell me how long it's going to be. And I'm like, well, that's the, part I don't know, but I love that... Well, Hal Press says. Yeah, call Hal.

Starting point is 01:20:26 God, I hope that dude's right, because I've never been... So he's... Anyway, we could talk about Hal Press. Just such high signal with such common sense like...

Starting point is 01:20:43 Again, I listen to a lot of investors speak and it just doesn't resonate with me, but so much of what said, especially with the concept of trying to, of supply trying to suppress the price rather than push it up, I'm like, damn, that really, that's right, right? Right. Right. You mentioned your wife. Does your wife feel like she shares you with Ethereum? No. My wife feels like Ethereum owns me and she gets to borrow me for, she will say

Starting point is 01:21:17 how much do I even listen for meals she's like you you come out for meals so it is it's a balance that I really need to work on I think it's a balance like balancing a crypto and all of our lives is like something

Starting point is 01:21:34 I think everyone resonates with so you're not alone in that fight brother it's hilarious because I'm I'm always like but honey I'm working on this thing right now it's a big deal to me it's really important I'm you know so it was just the CLR grants round. I'm like, you know, this grants round is going to be over in three days, and then I'll be back. And she's like, do you hear yourself? And I'm like,

Starting point is 01:21:54 I'll be back in three days. She's like, you said that two weeks ago, and you said it three weeks before that. And you're still gone. And I'm like, ah. So yeah, it, it is maybe one of my, one of my biggest weaknesses, something I would love to get right. Yeah, no, I've had the same fight. It's just like Ethereum is so rich. There's so many interesting people to talk about, to talk about so many interesting things with. So, no, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure every single person I've had on this podcast is probably, it's like, oh, yeah, that sounds about right. The other, the other personal question I have, sorry, yeah? The other personal question I have is where did superfits come from?

Starting point is 01:22:35 It's, it's not all that exciting. I have this buddy. So this guy called Corey was soda pop fizz on AOL Instant Messenger back in like 1995. And then a buddy of mine, Vendorf, set up a server called Fizz as a short, because, you know, he was like, hey, I need a name. And then I used that server very often. And when I was fishing for, you know, I need a, there was, I've cycled through thousands, probably a hundred usernames. and that was just the flavor of the day. I didn't know that Super Fizz would like catch on. It's so funny,

Starting point is 01:23:19 like I can still log into my old like other community accounts and they're fun. But Super Fizz is my committed personality now. Does a Rocket Pool slash ETH finance community know your actual name? You know, it's not a secret. But I, because this is what I do, like I am Fizz more than I am

Starting point is 01:23:47 my IRL persona. The alternative. Yeah. Yeah. So in this weird way, I have become more comfortable being Fizz than hearing my real name spoken. And I know that's odd. You know, there was a transition period, but I'm more likely to respond

Starting point is 01:24:07 to being called Fizz than my real name. interesting have you ever accidentally like in real life introduce yourself hey i'm i'm super fizz no we don't real life um it's the correct answer yeah we we're uh we're very still very covid careful uh even though uh you know it is what it is um so uh we i i haven't met a lot of new people in real life uh in a while i'm really looking for we have a three-year-old who isn't vaccinated yet. And so when he gets vaccinated, I look forward to getting out my world again. Yeah, and I'll see you, uh, DevCon. Maybe. PbD. All right. One last question for you before.

Starting point is 01:24:52 Bogota did not go over well. Fair enough. Here's a, here's a question which I've kind of refraised from a, Richard G. Richard D. What's your favorite thing to do with $13,000? dollars. The stoner cat's train. And it's so funny, like, you know, I think of myself as an amalgam or maybe like an archetype of an Ethereum community member. And I think that Ethereum community members should play with a protocol. Like, we should play.

Starting point is 01:25:34 And he's referencing stoner cats. And there's a Jonathan Mann song-a-day man song about the stoner cat's debacle where, you know, I was just screwing around and I wanted a stoner cat. So I went to Metamask and just set the gas to some crazy number. And I burned five-Eath in gas on a failed transaction for a stoner cat, which if you look, not even, what is it, like two weeks ago, we had that land sale. Yeah. And people paid, yeah, yeah. People paid like tens of ETH for gas for that, and it was nothing. But we just, we weren't there yet. It wasn't normal yet. And you'd never, did you end up getting refunded? They give money back? They did. And I actually, so there are two sides to that. Jonathan Mann's song, I guess I ended up with that song and then Eith account. bought that song, E-T-H-A-C-C-T, bought that song for me for 5.82 Eth, and he holds it now.

Starting point is 01:26:45 And then I got a refund from StonerCats, but I didn't feel comfortable like getting a double rebate. So I donated that to HodlerCon, which is, you know, the trip to Hawaii as their seed money. So I, again, HodlerCon, the trip to Hawaii, I'm so sad that I can't go to that. going to be awesome. You can't go? Vaccinations can't fly. Our son can't fly. And so, you know, we stick together and we'll have another trip in two years.

Starting point is 01:27:23 Well, you'll just have to recruit someone to carry around an iPad so you can come on, come around on the iPad. Yeah, I know, right? It's, you know, a thing that people don't know, I don't always manifest. and my online interactions, but my family is my priority. And I love that. I've chosen that. I'm always going to put my family above Ethereum. And other Ethereum, they think they're first in my life.

Starting point is 01:27:54 And I love them. Like, they're my family. They're my online family. But at the end of the day, my family is my priority. And I love that. I love my family relationship, my family dynamic. and you guys are just my second family. Well, you're the most dad-looking guest I've had on this show.

Starting point is 01:28:17 So it's very, very appropriate. Wait, is that a compliment? I don't know what that was. Thanks. I don't know if it's a compliment or it's on either. It's just like you look like a dad. Awesome. Superfiz.

Starting point is 01:28:31 Any last topics you want to touch on before we wrap this up? I have loved. syncing up with you. I love what you're doing with bankless. I love, you know, our community is so valuable. I don't, it's not, it's not the number. It has nothing to do with the number, but the Ethereum community is so rich and vibrant. And a lot of that is due to what bankless does. And so I love you guys for that. So thanks for, thanks for your, contributions. No, thanks, my man.

Starting point is 01:29:11 I like to say it's like all bankless is doing is reverberating Ethereum values louder to the rest of the world. So it's not like we invented anything new. I mean, we invented the bankless brand and made some good podcast

Starting point is 01:29:24 and some good articles. But basically, it's just a tool for amplifying Ethereum values. And so at the end of the day, it's all layer zero. Yeah. Do you know the neat thing is there's no other bankless?

Starting point is 01:29:36 You know, like, every time someone says, anytime someone's critical of bankless, I'm like, could you do that? Why don't you do that? We need more of that. Why don't you do that? I will subscribe if you do that. And they get quiet really quickly because the energy and skill that you put into this is so

Starting point is 01:29:59 unparalleled that, you know, there's nothing else like it. And thanks, my man. Part of the reasons why I joke that there's no other bankless is just because anytime we come up with another podcast idea, we just take it and run with it. And so we end up putting like five podcasts out a week and five newsletters a week, yeah. Awesome, man.

Starting point is 01:30:22 Well, Fiz, thank you for coming on and sharing your brain on Layers-0. It was so great to hang out with you, David. Thank you. Thanks, man.

Bankless - Superphiz | Layer Zero

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