Can Ethereum rise again? Interpret the core values ​​of Ethereum

Source: Daoshuo Blockchain

During this period, whether it is the comments at the end of our article or the discussion on Twitter, concerns about the future of Ethereum are a topic of great concern to many holders.

As for the future of Ethereum, my judgment criteria are still the same:

-Whether we are pursuing decentralization as much as possible in terms of operations (note that it is "operations" rather than "development and leadership")

- Do you have a strong and trustworthy team?

- Whether there is a strong community and ecology

So use these standards to evaluate the current Ethereum. Has it been weakened?

There is a good article on Twitter (@sdcrypto123), and the main points expressed basically represent my views. In addition, this article also mentioned some issues that I have never noticed before.

The link to this article is at the end of the article.

Today I would like to share with you some of the ideas and details in this article.

“I still don’t feel that the Ethereum community has done anything absolutely wrong. Ethereum has put a lot of development energy/community support into decentralization, censorship resistance, and privacy. In the short term, everyone feels that it is not important. , but once security problems occur in other chains or a group is controlled by a consortium and is not neutral enough, everyone will look back and lament the importance of decentralization and censorship resistance."

This point of view is one that I 100% agree with and have no doubt about in the entire article, and it is a point of view that I have firmly believed in for so many years.

If we believe that the predecessors of the crypto ecosystem have devoted countless efforts and even their lives to enable future generations and us to have such a world in which the evil, censorship and interference of centralized institutions are eliminated as much as possible, then in the creation of Satoshi Nakamoto After Bitcoin, so far only Ethereum is insisting on moving in this direction.

In the latest Ethereum plan, Vitalik proposed lowering the threshold for verification nodes and further decentralizing verification---Ethereum never compromises on decentralization. This is my biggest gratification and most important thing. core concerns.

Decentralization and resistance to censorship cannot be shaken at all for the main chain (L1). Only in this way can we ensure that the platform is neutral and neutral enough--no matter whether they are good people or bad people, they can be equal. , use this platform without distinction.

Layer 2 expansion (L2), Layer 3 expansion (L3) or even multi-layer expansion may not require this. They can be centralized and even have censorship capabilities (of course, it would be better if they could also be decentralized). The reason why they can do this is because the main chain they rely on is sufficiently decentralized.

"Trust does not mean trusting that it will not make mistakes and fall behind; trust means trusting that it will have a strong ability to correct mistakes after falling behind and making mistakes, and trusting that it has a very strong core value that can lead it to continue to move forward patiently, long-term, and tenaciously. . Values ​​are very imaginary, but without values, it is easy to give up on principles and continuous development at critical moments. It is difficult to make money as the core factor for a project to continue to progress and move forward, because there will always be something better to make money. Appear"

This perspective sums up values ​​very well.

Every person, every project, and every company will encounter some darkest moment in the process of development. At that moment, there was no experience to draw from, no external force to turn to, and no resources to utilize. At that time, the path and direction to choose depended on values.

Values ​​can give people a sixth sense in the darkest moments, allow us to penetrate the fog, penetrate the darkness, and see the light. They can allow us to withstand pressure, reject temptation, and move in the right direction.

Vitalik has never wavered in its values. In the past development, no matter what interference, doubts, and temptations there were from the outside world, he always insisted on decentralization and resistance to censorship. Because of this, I believe in him and believe in the future of Ethereum.

I hope that Vitalik and even the future Ethereum team can still adhere to this value and maintain this original intention in the future.

“The approaches of Uniswap and Jupiter are completely opposite. When animal coins became popular in 2021, they hid/blocked various Memecoins in the token search list, but Jupiter actively guided them, and even made the first one in the Solana ecosystem. A Memecoin with multiple participants, called Wen”

"You can also see the difference in the wallet. Phantom actively adds the popular Memecoins every day to the list or arranges them in the swap that comes with it, while the Little Fox is hidden and needs to be added by yourself. At the same time, it is not conspicuous anywhere. Tips on the most popular tokens on the current network”

I was quite surprised to see this detail.

Before, I didn’t know that Uniswap and Little Fox deliberately concealed and suppressed meme coins in their apps.

While I’m not crazy about meme coins, I’m not opposed to them either. I have participated in many meme coins myself, because I can feel the joy and pleasure in the process of participating.

So I’m open to meme coins.

During this round of market conditions, I often have a question in my mind:

Why are so many meme coins issued on Solana instead of the Ethereum ecosystem?

If Ethereum’s high fees are not suitable for meme coins, then many Ethereum’s L2 fees are low enough now. Why are there no meme coins that are even slightly famous in the ecosystem?

If the details described above are true, then DEX and wallets, which are the main battlefields of meme coins, have deliberately blocked and suppressed them, and their actions have destroyed the "censorship resistance" feature.

In my opinion, the core of decentralization and censorship resistance are:

The tool itself is neutral and can be used by both good and bad people. What needs to be punished is the bad people who use tools to do evil, rather than deciding whether to give him tools based on subjective judgments in advance whether a person is good or bad.

The actions of Uniswap and Little Fox to deliberately suppress meme coins are as unreasonable and ridiculous as the U.S. Department of Commerce’s arrogant blacklisting of addresses related to Tornado Cash.

Fortunately, the U.S. judicial system has curbed the U.S. government's unreasonable behavior.

A centralized world can do this, and I believe a decentralized world is better equipped to do this.

These details also illustrate from another aspect how important it is for us to insist on decentralization.

If an ecosystem has censorship APPs, it must also need censorship-resistant APPs. Censorship APPs cannot be allowed to monopolize the development of the ecosystem, and users must be given free choice.

Only when users have the right to choose can ecological development be dynamic and creative.

If only one choice is allowed in an ecology, such an ecology will eventually become rigid.

From another perspective, in the encryption ecosystem, it is precisely because of the competition of multiple blockchains, the “decentralization” of this ecosystem, and the popularity of Solana on meme coins that we can see There is such censorship and suppression of core projects in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The above are some of the main points of this article.

In addition to this article, some of Vitalik’s controversial tweets and discussions about the Ethereum Foundation are also circulating on the Internet.

I believe Vitalik and his team can solve these problems.

After all, the problems presented by this round of Ethereum’s malaise are much easier to solve than the DAO incident in 2016.

Going back to the three criteria I listed above, I think there is no problem with Ethereum’s decentralization for the time being. The team and ecology are currently affected to some extent, but there is still a chance to recover.

I still believe that this young founder can lead his team and lead Ethereum out of the current predicament and solve the problems encountered in its development.

I believe he can "Make Ethereum Great Again".

Reference links:

https://x.com/sdcrypto123/status/1882048078938869803