Building the Infinite Garden - The Daily Gwei #507
The properties Ethereum requires to reshape the world.
Ethereum and crypto more broadly are on a path to usher in a paradigm shift in how humans interact with each-other and how we scale our institutions. We obviously want this paradigm shift to be a positive one and for that to happen there are a bunch of key properties that need to be baked into the base layers of the crypto-networks that we are building.
I want to break down each of those properties I listed in my tweet above and touch on the importance of them. Decentralization probably doesn’t need much insight here as you’re all aware of why it matters so much. It’s also easy to see why we want more transparency in the world (especially in finance) with many recent examples of centralized finance (CeFi) services falling apart and we only knew about their months and years of troubles after the fact. With DeFi, we can know if something is amiss as quickly as in real time.
Decentralization and transparency enables auditability which in the context of blockchains is the ability to “check the chain” yourself and audit the financials of a DeFi project. Adjacent to this is the ability to verify this audit by running something like a full Ethereum node and checking your information (that you may have sourced from third parties) against it. These 2 properties alone are an absolutely massive step up over the existing system and when you really think about it, can potentially lead to the removal of an astounding amount of middlemen, regulations and bureaucracy.
Composability is one of the best features blockchains give us because it lets everything talk to eachother and allows us to scale up what we can do with decentralized networks. Think about all the composability within DeFi today - you can trade USDC for ETH on Uniswap, put that ETH into a liquid staking provider like Rocket Pool, use that rETH as collateral on Maker and then borrow DAI against it to put into a yield aggregator. Now imagine trying to do something like this in traditional finance - yeah, good luck with that!
And finally we have neutrality and the freedom that comes with that. I think there are only 2 crypto-networks that could be considered credibly neutral and free today - Bitcoin and Ethereum - with there being no real close third. Both of these networks are extremely censorship-resistant, allow anyone to interact with and build on them, do not favor any centralized entity or group of entities and are very resistant to any changes that would compromise on any of its core properties.
All of the above properties come together to give us Ethereum - the absolute best shot we have of achieving a truly decentralized future that actually improves the world. I don’t think we’re there yet - not even very close - but Ethereum has been on the right track since genesis and shows no signs of deviating from its core mission and values - and that’s what excites me most.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.