The State of Ethereum 2.0 - report from Kyokan and Ameen Soleimani

Magicians Primordial Soup
,
1

This is a repost from a few days ago, a report summarising a series of interviews with ETH 2.0 implementation teams. There is a ton of great info in there, here are the high level takeaways:

  • Implementation Teams are Committed, But Funding Is A Concern

  • The Spec Continues To Churn, But It’s Getting Better

  • Implementation Teams Do Not Push Back Against Researchers

  • The Definition Of Done Varies From Team To Team

  • What Comes After Ethereum 2.0 Is Unclear For Implementers

  • There Is No Ethereum 2.0 Lead

  • Ethereum 2.0’s Narrative Is Controlled By People Outside The R&D Process

OPEN QUESTIONS:

  • What Does The Community Expect?

  • Were Implementers Consulted When Designing The Rollout?

  • Would Making Danny Ryan Official “Ethereum 2.0 Lead” Help?

RECOMMENDATIONS

  • Include “Product Context” In Public-Facing Media

  • Provide Clear Avenues For Continued Funding

  • Rigorously Define And Enforce A Formal Standards Process

CONCLUSION:

Kyokan, with funding from Moloch and others, is positioned to provide support for the ETH 2.0 effort in the following ways:

  • Prepare reports and analysis, like this one, to inform the community of ETH 2.0 progress

  • Evaluate the internal processes of the ETH 2.0 R&D effort

  • Help develop organizational structure as needed

  • Assist in coordinating standards across teams

  • Help plan the development roadmap

  • Provide launch coordination and prepare clients for production release

  • Help with developer recruitment

Moloch is positioned to provide support for the ETH 2.0 effort as follows:

  • Provide additional funding for ETH 2.0 teams

  • Funding key hires to provide cross-team support

  • Funding open-source tools (e.g. testing) to help 2.0 development

Definitely read the full thing and share your thoughts! @ameensol @lrettig @djrtwo @mikerah @paulhauner @boris @vbuterin

3 Likes
2

Cross-linking the Reddit thread here.

This is a really valuable report and a much-needed (quasi-) third party look at eth2. I definitely agree with several of the assessments:

  • we need much more sustainable long-term funding
  • embracing existing standards processes is probably a good idea - we discussed this quite a bit as part of the eth1x discussions with some folks at ConsenSys that have experience developing standards
  • the core team doesn’t have control of the public narrative and hasn’t really made much effort to do so - although this indictment is valid of Ethereum in general, not just eth2
  • the eth2 roadmap is developing well, but it will take longer than many realize for eth2 to reach a state where it’s usable from the perspective of most developers and users. According to Justin it’s 2021 - and that may be a best case scenario. Lots of the details from phase 2 onwards are still very hazy.

One of my takeaways is that, while we should do everything we can to continue to support eth2 research and development, in parallel we should be reinvesting in today’s network (“eth1x”) for a few reasons:

  • as an insurance policy in case eth2 is further delayed or things go wrong
  • as a source of ideas, innovation, and experience that can flow into and benefit eth2
  • to reduce time pressure on the eth2 roadmap
  • to increase the value of the eth brand and increase value flowing into the ecosystem, which benefits eth2 as well
  • to explore moonshot ideas that could be promising, such as (one random example) anchoring polkadot’s substrate in eth base-layer security
  • to improve governance and project management

I explored a few more ideas in this thread.

2 Likes