Ethereum has many important trade-offs to make in the short term that will shape what the protocol’s end state looks like. To navigate these, it is critical for the community of researchers, core devs, users and builders to come together to discuss these topics, and to improve planning & design through open and organised discussion. As a first step, we plan to experiment with a new Protocol research call.
We hope to derive through our conversations the goals that the network should build towards. We intend to clarify possibilities and trade-offs that recent Ethereum research has uncovered, illuminating the best means to achieve these goals, and create deeper alignment with core development on the path to implementation.
For instance, several key questions face the Ethereum community:
- What is the future of the validator set?
- What are the right steps to scaling the L1?
- What are the right steps to scaling the blobs for L2s?
and many others.
To get us started, we have released a first piece on local building, an important question to ponder on the path to further scaling. Much of the discourse today does not clarify whether local building is a goal of Ethereum, or a means for us to achieve network objectives such as censorship-resistance, security (e.g., safety + liveness), scale or verifiability.
@adietrichs and I will host a pilot first call on April 2nd, 2025, at 14:00 UTC, with a 90 minute duration, on the topic of protocol roles and types of nodes, highlighting local building and validator duties. We also plan to release further async notes, and adjust or create new venues (sync or async) as needed. We are open to agenda suggestions and comments on how this call can best fulfil its purpose.