Strange Beauty - The Daily Gwei #473
There's a certain magic to simplifying complex things.
Most people only know of EIP-1559 as “that thing that burns ETH” but it is so much more than that (as I’ve outlined previously here). In particular, EIP-1559 is a brilliant mechanism that regulates Ethereum blockspace is a hyper-efficient way so that the network doesn’t become bogged down for long periods of time when demand spikes (you’ll know what I mean if you remember the CryptoKitties crisis of late 2017).
This kind of thing happens frequently in the Ethereum ecosystem where a major piece of infrastructure goes live and people mostly just focus on one particular aspect of it. With layer 2’s people focus on trying to game a possible future token airdrop, with DeFi everyone wants to be in the highest-yielding farms, and with NFTs it’s all about being early to something that manages to gain traction. Meanwhile, under all of these surface level things, there lies real industry-altering innovations that only very few people focus on.
Though as I said in my tweet above, there is a certain beauty to things like this where people are getting major benefits out of things that they aren’t even aware of. A real-world analogy would be something like modern air travel - we all get to experience flying on commercial aircraft and it feels like magic but there are so many things going on behind the scenes to even make air travel possible (and keep us all safe). I mean really, this is how the entire world works, the nuances are just much more transparent in the crypto ecosystem!
I do want to note that sometimes people not being aware of certain nuances can be a negative thing. For example, the majority of crypto participants have no idea why Ethereum layer 1’s gas fees are high, they are unaware of Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, and they think that all blockspace is created equal. This leads to perverse narratives being spread about Ethereum and users falling for misleading marketing tactics from competing ecosystems. Throw in the monetary incentives and it becomes a hot mess of bad information and toxicity.
As an educator I’m obviously going to continue explaining the nuances of all the complex topics in Ethereum and as readers (and refuel watchers) I’m sure you’re appreciating my efforts. But sadly, the bad information just spreads so quickly because lots of people have a bias against Ethereum (due to holding tokens of competing ecosystems) - I think this is just something that we’re all going to have to both accept as reality and learn to live with.
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.