Uncommon Core 2.0

Hasu and Jon bring on Ansgar and Caspar from the Ethereum Foundation to discuss the ETH staking endgame.    Ansgar and Caspar recently published two controversial research posts which included a proposal to change Ethereum’s issuance curve. They are concerned that the current ETH staking economics could lead to nearly 100% of ETH being staked, with much of that in LSTs. They propose reducing issuance and targeting a lower stake rate.   We go deep in this episode on PoS economics, liquid staking, restaking, economic security, centralization concerns, and much more. __ Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:25) Possible Changes to ETH Staking?   (00:49) Overview of Current ETH Staking (16:32) LSTs & Staking Rate Increasing         (21:36) Nominal vs Real Yield (23:22) Tax Implications of Staking (27:57) Staking Demand & External Revenue (35:33) Stake Ratio Targeting (36:21) Is 100% Staking Bad? (40:05) Can ETH LSTs be Money? (55:24) Would Any Changes Make a Difference? (01:04:05) Stake Targeting (01:10:20) Will Targeting Centralize Validators? (01:22:53) Fiat Money Parallels          (01:25:16) MEV & Restaking Revenue           (01:30:52) Electra Proposal to Change Issuance (01:46:01) Security Budget & Economic Security       (01:53:40) Validator Set Quality          (01:55:10) Incentives to Maximize Validator Decentralization (02:19:00) PoS vs PoW Political Complexity __ Twitter: Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb Uncommon Core 2.0 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz Ansgar - https://twitter.com/adietrichs Caspar - https://twitter.com/casparschwa __ Referenced Materials: Endgame Staking Economics: A Case for Targeting - https://ethresear.ch/t/endgame-staking-economics-a-case-for-targeting/18751 Electra: Issuance Curve Adjustment Proposal - https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/electra-issuance-curve-adjustment-proposal/18825 Properties of issuance level: consensus incentives and variability across potential reward curves - https://ethresear.ch/t/properties-of-issuance-level-consensus-incentives-and-variability-across-potential-reward-curves/18448 __ Disclaimer: The material and information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and are not the views of any entity or other person with whom the speaker is affiliated, including, without limitation, DBA Crypto, LLC. The “DBA Crypto” name and all forms thereof are the sole property of its owner, and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.

Hasu and Jon catchup on what’s new in the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) and SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) worlds. For the EVM, Ethereum has pushed vertical scaling efforts to other chains. This includes Monad, who is building a new EVM L1 with fundamental optimizations to improve scalability. For the SVM, the Solana ecosystem continues to gain momentum across the board. Meanwhile, Eclipse is gearing up to launch their SVM Ethereum L2. DBA is an investor in Eclipse Laboratories, Inc. and SOL. Jon has material personal investments in SOL, JitoSOL, ETH, stETH, and TIA. Hasu has material personal investments in ETH and Monad. __ Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:25) Catch up (00:56) VM Performance Improvements (02:32) Solana & Eclipse (04:26) DA vs Execution Bottlenecks (05:53) Rollups & Parallel Execution (07:10) Breakpoint (08:29) Solana & Eclipse – Competitive or Complementary? (12:48) Ethereum & Solana Funds (13:33) DBA Research Club (15:01) What is a VM? (16:33) Optimistic Parallel Execution vs. Access Lists (23:45) Solana Resource Pricing (25:03) Local Fee Markets (30:48) Liveness Failures (31:58) A Bottleneck vs. *The* Bottleneck (35:39) State Growth (41:29) Weak Statelessness (45:33) State Expiry & State Rent (51:10) Solana Un-merklizes State (51:55) Client Level Optimizations (53:45) Optimizations for New vs. Old Chains (57:17) Will Everyone Converge? (01:00:36) Outro __ Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb Uncommon Core 2.0 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz Ethereum - https://twitter.com/ethereum Solana - https://twitter.com/solana Eclipse - https://twitter.com/EclipseFND Monad - https://twitter.com/monad_xyz __ Disclaimer: The material and information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and are not the views of any entity or other person with whom the speaker is affiliated, including, without limitation, DBA Crypto, LLC. The “DBA Crypto” name and all forms thereof are the sole property of its owner, and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.

Hasu and Jon bring on Mike Neuder (Ethereum Foundation) and Chris Hager (Flashbots) to discuss the design philosophy of proposer-builder separation (PBS). They first dive into the past and present implementations of PBS, including MEV-Geth and MEV-Boost on Ethereum. Then they discuss the future of PBS - whether PBS should be enshrined, protocol-enforced proposer commitments (PEPC), PBS on L2s, how to prevent censorship, and more.  __ Timestamps: (00:00) Intro  (01:12) What is PBS? (05:37) The History of PBS (08:43) MEV-Boost (10:18) Block Production in Proof-of-Work  (11:31) Benefits of PBS (14:17) PBS Makes Based Rollups Viable (16:21) PEPC & Proposer Complexity (17:46) Other Builder Services (19:49) PBS & Regulation (22:48) Regulation & Encrypted Mempools (24:38) Division of Labor is Inevitable (26:15) Risks of PBS (29:03) Development of COre Protocol Software (33:31) PEPC, POB, & Alternatives to PBS (41:53) Decentralization vs. Usefulness Tradeoff (46:30) State of PBS in MEV-Boost (50:51) Optimistic Relays (52:09) Enshrined PBS (ePBS)  (55:55) PBS on L2 (58:47) PEPC (01:05:25) Proposer Commitments & User Intents  (01:09:03) Concluding Remarks (01:11:05) Recap (01:12:06) PEPC, PEPC-Boost, & MEV-Boost+ (01:18:44) PBS From First Principles (01:21:41) PBS is a Philosophy, Not an Implementation (01:25:44) To Enshrine, Or Not to Enshrine? (01:35:12) In-protocol vs. Out-of-protocol Development & Funding (01:50:16) Censorship & Proposer Agency (01:58:15) Outro & Disclaimer __ Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb Uncommon Core 2.0 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz Mike Neuder - https://twitter.com/mikeneuder Chris Hager - https://twitter.com/metachris __ Relays in a post-ePBS world - https://ethresear.ch/t/relays-in-a-post-epbs-world/16278 No free lunch – a new inclusion list design - https://ethresear.ch/t/no-free-lunch-a-new-inclusion-list-design/16389 Payload-timeliness committee (PTC) – an ePBS design - https://ethresear.ch/t/payload-timeliness-committee-ptc-an-epbs-design/16054 Notes on Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) - https://barnabe.substack.com/p/pbs PEPC FAQ - https://efdn.notion.site/PEPC-FAQ-0787ba2f77e14efba771ff2d903d67e4#41230925420345af84f31b50d806b8ed PEPC Open Problems - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12kpwAXbZqUA0fu2HnZKSesVwO31ICbgIiacHd0EQ_fk/edit#slide=id.g2401d3821ec_1_0 PBS Guild Proposal [v3 WIP] - https://collective.flashbots.net/t/pbs-guild-proposal-v3-wip/2223 MEV-Boost+/++ - https://www.blog.eigenlayer.xyz/censorship-resistance-with-restaking/ __ Disclaimer: The material and information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and are not the views of any entity or other person with whom the speaker is affiliated, including, without limitation, DBA Crypto, LLC. The “DBA Crypto” name and all forms thereof are the sole property of its owner, and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.

In this episode, we explore Jon’s journey into crypto and our mutual passion for research and the writing process. We then give an overview over the key areas of crypto infrastructure today. Finally, we zoom into rollup decentralization roadmaps, and Jon shares a controversial new thesis about sequencer decentralization. __ Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:42) Interview start (03:44) Jon's work week (08:04) ChatGPT & writing (10:57) Jon's start in crypto (14:45) How to pick things to work on (17:08) Outsider's perspective on crypto (19:05) Jon's research process (22:00) Jon's proudest moment in crypto (23:06) Crypto Infrastructure overview (29:58) Why crypto infrastructure is interesting (35:57) Rollup decentralization overview (42:44) Challenges decentralizing the sequencer (47:46) Ethereum vs Cosmos approach to governance & decentralization (53:35) User ability to opt out (56:37) Staking vs. governance deciding sequencers (01:08:31) L3s (01:13:34) Superchain (01:16:38) Summary of rollup decentralization (01:21:08) Outro __ Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb UCC2 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz Website - https://ucc2.xyz __ Disclaimer: The material and information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and are not the views of any entity or other person with whom the speaker is affiliated, including, without limitation, DBA Crypto, LLC. The “DBA Crypto” name and all forms thereof are the sole property of its owner, and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.