Ethereum
Analysis of the EthPrague fireside chat by Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood
The meeting revealed how far the two men have come from their origins as blockchain founders and… [+] opinion leaders
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Ten years after Ethereum co-founders holed up in Switzerland to launch the OG smart contracts platform, two of them came together again in a rare joint public appearance at the recent EthPrague event. Given Gavin Wood’s early breakup from the Ethereum project, after which he left to launch Polkadot, this was always going to be an intriguing meeting. There has certainly been enough evidence of rivalry between projects over the years. However, the EthPrague meeting was compelling, not because of any visible conflict between the two men, but because of what it revealed about the journey the two men had taken since their origins as founders blockchain and opinion leaders.
It is worth remembering that Polkadot has been conceived to overcome what Wood perceived as problems with Ethereum. These ranged from the practical – scalability and fees – to the more nuanced, around the challenges of decentralized governance. However, much of what Wood shared during the interview with Buterin hinted at his evolving thinking on these topics.
Wood opened the discussion with an unusually candid statement from a founder – that his thinking has changed. Polkadot’s multi-chain architecture was designed to be more scalable by separating application activity from security and consensus using a sharded structure. However, Wood believes this model has led to what he calls “persistent state fragmentation” across the system, since each parachain or rollup does not necessarily communicate with others except through the security layer .
A new one launched Polkadot initiative, named JAM, brings the scalability of rollup to the consensus layer, effectively reducing fragmentation and unifying activity within a single chain. However, the technical aspects are perhaps less striking than the fact that Wood is quite open about the journey he’s taken as a developer and founder. This conference also highlights that while public blockchain projects are operational systems supporting assets worth billions, the processes and operations behind them are often still at the cutting edge of pioneering technologies.
The conversation didn’t become less introspective. At this point, it’s worth praising the ETH Prague moderator for keeping the line of questions at a high level, as this is where both are at their best, debating the most difficult issues in the blockchain. One question focused on the challenges of community building, positing the idea that conflict is a necessary element to progress in blockchain development and drawing on examples such as the Ethereum hard fork which led to Ethereum Classic.
On this topic, Wood acknowledged with humility that Ethereum’s relatively moderate approach to governance has been a key factor in building its large and vibrant community. However, the main challenge is that a large community inhibits agile decision-making – a challenge he was keen to avoid when designing Polkadot.
This discussion is as old as technology itself, and the debate primarily focused on the concepts of on-chain and off-chain governance. Proponents of the former have argued that while the “code is law” approach can be restrictive, it is less complicated than off-chain voting, which can lead to factions and, ultimately, forks.
In this regard, both men appear to be more comfortable with the idea that neither approach necessarily trumps the other.
For his part, Wood was less opinionated on the need for a base layer to upgrade itself, while Buterin expressed interest in more formalized public signaling methods for governance of Ethereum – a development that could become more urgent depending on recent discoveries from Galaxy Digital regarding potential centralization in Etheruem’s decision-making.
This shift in mentality reflects a more mature, relaxed and democratic approach than the often binary and polarizing arguments that became characteristic of blockchain’s early years. If these two thought leaders at the forefront of technological development can unite around topics that were previously points of contention, it bodes well for the future of the industry.