polynya

@polynya

127 Following

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I haven't been following, any recommendations?

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My armchair showerthought is some of those upgrades should be delivered incrementally, sooner, like SSF, though I'm out of touch

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Beam Chain is basically the "zkEthereum" endgame I hoped for and wrote about in 2021, that plus the data layer and zkEVM upgrades. Back then, I had expected something like "about a decade", albeit delivered incrementally. So, anything sooner than early 2030s sounds like a win for Ethereum's Endgame. The one thing I'd like to see is what I called an "Enshrined zkEVM bridge" (a standardized in-protocol bridge for all "Type 0" zkEVM rollups) though maybe that's more suited for the EL, idk

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Sorry to disappoint!

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My favourite invention in crypto is Uniswap range orders. Most crypto apps are alternatives to stuff that have existed, but Uniswap range orders are largely unique, offers a great way to scale in and out of positions, and earn while you're doing it! That and ZKPs as a broader category, of course.

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As some of you have noticed, a big theme on this Farcaster profile is objectivity vs. subjectivity The human experience is extremely complex, multi-faceted, diverse, and thus deeply subjective Financialization is an attempt to dumb some things down into objective numbers. For some things, like capital allocation, exchange of goods, it works brilliantly. Blockchains are exclusively the domain of the strictly objective. But for almost everything else, forcing subjective matters into objective outputs leads to potentially catastrophic outcomes, and the root cause is plutocracy - determining governance by wealth, to the worst-case scenario, truth itself. I don't need to tell how that's peak dystopia and an affront to humanity. Fuck "info finance" with a bag of stale scrotums

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"Info finance" is pretty emblematic of financialisation gone too far to become outright dystopian It's happening, there's no turning back, but I'll personally avoid it like the plague

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Sadly, a lot of crypto people are like this, though yes, few say it out loud. I know from all the hate I got for merely saying "racist memecoins are bad"

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Over the last decade or so I've been commenting on crypto (different pseudonyms) I've noticed a very clear pattern - the reaction to my content is directly proportional to how bullish the audience perceives them to be for their bags. That makes me appreciate the few who react positively even if I'm being critical.

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Sure, we're all here to see ethereum thrive! But the magnitude and confidence, as you put it, is really important. It dictates what ethereum is good for, and where it is harmful. We've had so much toxic outcomes in crypto, we must do better. To say "governance" is inaccurate, however, to say "accounting in governance" - yes!

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Finally, of course I'm being extra harsh because for too long too many people have made all sorts of grandiose claims about blockchains which are completely detached from reality. Your writing is much closer to the reality, of course, which is why it's a good place for me to critique. I don't think we need any great stories, just understand the few usecases where blockchains are uniquely good, thanks to strict global consensus, and continue better understanding them and improving them. Indeed, the Ethereum whitepaper did this well a decade ago, and I'd like to see more like that.

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If we consider from first principles, a user sending a transaction to a blockchain is trusting that a majority of few thousand computers will come to consensus on including their transaction, alongwith an ordered list of others. There's no guarantee or "confidence in the future" that the transaction will be included, and indeed, some transactions are not, and in some cases, consensus is not achieved. But looking at the history of the specific blockchain, the user can gauge some probability of the transaction being included in the future. Once the transaction is executed, it'll be forgotten after a period of time (~18 days for L2s today, X days for L1 after expiry mechanisms from The Purge is introduced). The objective parts of "governance" or "law" - basically, accounting, are the easy bits. I would have no problems at all if you mentioned that specifically, or some of the awesome things enabled by blockchains - ETH as a SoV, stablecoins, collateralized borrowing etc. We need to be more honest and precise.

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Interesting take! Yeah, the modern world is extremely complex, and keeps getting more complex. The complexity does bring many rewards, so I don't think dumbing things down is a solution. The best outcome is to master said complexity, but yeah, some things may be too complicated in the short term

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A couple of years ago, I identified two main usecases for blockchains: objective money/finance and objective identity However, over time, I've warmed to the idea that objective identity does not actually require strict global consensus. A less strict, loosely ordered global consensus may be adequate Really, it's only money that requires strict consensus, or anything else of *temporal* economic value While identity does have economic value, it is in most cases non-temporal in nature, and can hence be achieved better with loosely ordered alternatives to blockchains

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That was the entire point, to your example, you can't do a an organisation or a legal system on blockchains. The only thing it can replace is the accounting (including stakeholder votes) - which is indeed a great usecase for strict global consensus.

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Haven't really thought about it, kind of just thought oracles are the interface between the objective and subjective worlds, and yes, improving by ZKfying them are the way to go I guess maybe a long way down the line, as AI develops to be more general, it can replace the whole blockchain+oracles apparatus to be directly more subjective

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To be clear, Ethereum is extremely valuable in usecases where strict global consensus is required - autonomous store-of-value, "dumb" contracts like basic DeFi, objective identity registries, but it's also important to understand this so that we can focus on these usecases where it makes a difference, and not waste time where it cannot. We have wasted billions of dollars and countless person-hours on these diversions because of a poor understanding of strict global consensus.

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Though well-written and inspirational, I believe this post fundamentally misunderstands Ethereum and blockchains. Ethereum's distinctive property is objective, strict global consensus, and absolutely nothing else. It's great for usecases that require strict global consensus, but it's impossible for everything else, because Ethereum cannot parse any subjectivity or rough consensus at all. As such, while money, contracts, governance, identity, law are presented as examples, Ethereum can only parse very, very limited forms of the above, where it's objective. In some cases, like governance or law, it's almost entirely subjective with negligible scope for Ethereum to help. 99.99% of economics, institutions and the like are deeply human and subjective, which Ethereum or blockchains in general cannot interpret at all. Indeed, we've seen many a times how forcing subjectivity into objective code has led to many disastrous outcomes in crypto. (Contd...)

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The reason why "DAOs" require traditional governance is because blockchains can only do strict global consensus The assumption is you need a token to organise said governance, but this is not true. Indeed, some DAOs would be much better off following the worker cooperative or consumer cooperative model, rather than the public company model, with democratic voting and vetos for checks and balances (instead of being controlled by few whales, as it is for almost all crypto projects now - not just not decentralized, but very centralized. VCAOs, if you will, pun intended) Yeah, I get it, token gambling is crypto's big usecase, but it doesn't have to be. Building the best possible protocol to attract the most users might not be such a bad idea for the long term

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(Should have mentioned MEV specifically - that needs to tend towards zero obviously)

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