A comprehensive review of the projects and tracks that Ethereum founder Vitalik often "likes"

Written by: Terry

As one of the areas where influence is monetized the fastest, for ordinary retail investors deep in the Web3 world, being able to pay attention to the product-selling tweets of various Alpha bloggers and KOLs in a timely manner has almost become an essential skill for tracking the code of wealth.

So who is the most influential "sales promoter" in today's crypto world?

The following KOL sales effect chart may not be rigorous, but it is accurate to put Vitalik Buterin in a unique position - as the absolute decision-maker of the Ethereum ecosystem, although Vitalik rarely directly "sells goods", every "open" or "hidden" word and action will have a great driving effect on the market.

The recent surge in ENS due to Vitalik’s comments is a typical example.Therefore, this article aims to review the development and current status of the projects/technical directions that Vitalik has promoted in the past, and try to summarize the reasons behind them and how they have influenced and shaped the Ethereum we see today.

The obvious preference for ENS

It is no exaggeration to say that Vitalik "favors" ENS.

He once publicly stated in an interview: "The Ethereum Domain Name Service ENS is the most successful non-financial Ethereum application to date."

As we all know,ENS, launched in 2017Ethereum Name Service, is a distributed domain name service based on Ethereum. Through a unique bidding mechanism, any user can register one (or more) domain names with the name ".eth"The Ethereum domain name ends with ".

In simple terms, ENS can map your long and hard-to-remember Ethereum address starting with 0x to a custom short address, such as satoshi.eth, vitalik.eth, etc.In this case, in the case of ENS supportwalletIn the , users no longer need to copy and paste long addresses, they can directly use ENS domain names to bind variouscryptocurrencyaddress, and receivecryptocurrencyof payment.

Vitalik’s Twitter account nickname has always been “vitalik.eth”, which is equivalent to a long-term free advertisement for ENS, and also indirectly shows his support for ENS.

Since the first half of this year, Vitalik has directly participated in the promotion of ENS on several occasions, which has had a strong and visible impact on the price trend of ENS in the secondary market:

First, on January 3, Vitalik forwarded ENS’s layer2 data analysis solution and posted “All L2 should all be run on the CCIP parser so that we can directly L2 Register, update and read ENS subdomains on it. ENS is very important and it needs to be affordable." ENS then rose by more than 30% in 5 minutes, breaking through 12 USDT.

而 5 月 21 日，Vitalik 与 ENS 更是再度上演了一起颇为戏剧性的「力挺」戏码——起因是 Vitalik 在与他人关于排序器&意图的探讨中，举例他对跨 L2 标准 / 基础设施的看法，其中着重强调了「Token 转移、ENS、智能contractwalletThree key changes (for individuals and organizations):

We need an open decentralized protocol for quickly transferring assets from one L2 to another and integrating it into the default send page of the wallet.contractKey changes to wallets are easy to implement on L1, but difficult on L2. Light clients, basic reliability, and proof systems are also more complex on L1.Safety / Decentralization is far from enough on L2.

Overall, since January 3, ENS has risen from $8 to a high of $30, an increase of nearly 300%.

What else did Vitalik “shout”?

In addition to ENS, Vitalik has a long list of projects/technical directions that he has promoted in the past.

Plasma

The first is naturally Plasma. As Vitalik’s most respected Ethereum expansion solution, it is rarely mentioned nowadays, and even most new users have never heard of it.

In August 2017, Vitalik and Joseph Poon jointly released the original idea of Plasma - an off-chain expansion solution.Essentially, it takes data and computation (except deposits, withdrawals, and Merkle roots) off the Ethereum main chain and executes them off-chain.At the same time, some key operating status data is regularly stored on the main chain to ensure the finalSafetysex.

不过由于 Plasma 无法解决数据扣留问题，也不利于把contract状态迁移到 L1，所以最终被以 Rollup 为代表的以太坊扩容新路线所取代Nowadays, Rollup, which is as numerous as crucian carp, has almost become the only mainstream option for Ethereum expansion.

However, it is worth noting that since Rollup is extremely dependent on the data availability on the main chain, and Plasma completely bypasses the data availability problem and greatly reduces transaction fees, its popularity has begun to recover again. At the end of last year, Vitalik Buterin published articles such as "Exit games for EVM validiums: the return of Plasma".Think of Plasma as a way to increase chain scalability using proofs of validity like zkSync and StarkNet.

This has also led to a re-examination of Plasma’s ability to minimize data availability limitations, and it is expected that Plasma may once again play an important role in improving the performance of the Ethereum network in the future.

RAI

In the field of stablecoins, Vitalik once wrote a special article to explain his views on the design of stablecoins.And believe that they can basically be divided into three different categories: centralized stablecoins,DAO 治理的现实世界资产支持的稳定币，以及治理最小化的加密货币支持的稳定币。

The first two are USDT/USDC and DAI As the representative, the third category he specifically introduced RAI model, arguing that RAI avoids all connections to non-cryptocurrency financial systems, making it more difficult to attack.

Later, Vitalik also expressed his belief in public events that the rise of RAI could solve the problem of Lido dominating the LSD ecosystem.I think that “RAI’s radical governance may not need to go all the way. CommunityMore active governance to support staked ETH, and intentionally accept only non-dominant forms of staked ETH, would be enough.”

However, as of the time of writing, on-chain data shows that the total supply of RAI is only 1.65 million, and its share in stablecoins is almost negligible.

SIWE, POAP, SBT

In the Web3 world, how do you prove who you are?

Vitalik once wrote that ENS and other platforms help build an ecosystem around identity because "BlockchainValuable for identity applications because of their institution-independent natureIn addition to ENS, SIWE, POAP, and SBT are also considered by Vitalik as key components for building an on-chain identity system:

The Sign In With Ethereum (SIWE) standard allows Web3 users to log in to (traditional) websites based on their on-chain accounts;

POAP is used to issue tokens representing proofs;

Especially through the article "Decentralized Society: Finding the Soul of Web3", Vitalik madeSoulbound Token SBT Gradually entering the field of vision of more people and becoming the actual carrier of Web3 digital identity - SBT can further prove the results while also being able to trace the on-chain traces and record the participation process. At the same time, it has permanent and non-transferable token attributes, which lays the foundation for building a one-to-one complete Web3 identity system.

From this perspective,soul binding The core of Token SBT is to build a native Web3 identity system from scratch for each Web3 user in the Web3 world., so that based on this identity system, Web3 can be expanded more widely to diversified new application scenarios in addition to applications such as DeFi and NFT.

However, as the Web3 social trend subsides, SBT is currently only used as a representative credential of decentralized identity and has not yet seen large-scale on-chain adoption.

DVT

On December 28, 2023, Vitalik published an article discussing how to handle the huge number of signature loads in the Ethereum network without sacrificing decentralization.The corresponding solution mentioned is to use DVT (distributed validator technology) to build a decentralized staking pool.

Since DVT allows multiple nodes to act as an Ethereum PoS validator, it can significantly improveSafetyIn November 2023, Lido actually began trialing the DVT scheme to implement the so-called distributed validator network - powered by Obol Network and SSV Network.

Loopring/Taiko

As one of the early representative projects of the Rollup solution, Vitalik has publicly praised Loopring’s solution many times, for example, recognizing the Loopring protocol in discussions related to transaction performance., it is said that combined with sharding, the horizontal expansion solution divides the Ethereum network into thousands of "islands", and the network's transaction performance can theoretically reach 160,000 transactions per second.

Taiko, who has a close relationship with Loopring and has just launched its mainnet, was also recognized by Vitalik not long ago.——On May 25, Vitalik Buterin, as a block proposer, promoted the first block on the Taiko mainnet and added a note to the block:

"I'm excited to see that Taiko is launching as a based rollup. Ethereum benefits from L2s taking a plurality of different approaches, and I appreciate them being among the first to go in this direction."

Farcaster

In September 2023, Vitalik's X account was hacked and released a phishing link for free ConsenSys' Proto Danksharding commemorative NFT, causing users to lose more than US$690,000.

Later, Vitalik said on the decentralized social media Farcaster that his Twitter account was indeed attacked by SIM card hijacking, probably because his mobile phone number was exposed when registering Twitter Blue.He also said that he had uninstalled Twitter and joined Farcaster, which can control account recovery through Ethereum addresses.

As of the time of writing, Vitalik has indeed made Farcaster his main social media platform - he has posted more than 10 posts on Farcaster in the past week, but none on X, and the latest one is a reply to an old post on June 11.

The secret battle for Ethereum's "legitimacy" behind the live streaming

Back to the core issue, as a super public figure whose words and deeds have a significant influence on the pan-Ethereum ecosystem and even the entire Web3 world,What are the considerations behind Vitalik’s public promotion of products?

The reason is simple. It is largely for the purpose of maintaining the "orthodoxy" of Ethereum, or ensuring that the development of Ethereum does not go off track or stall, and is committed to charting an ideal future - Ethereum's further decentralization and the realization of the blueprint of Mass Adoption.

Just from the ENS, Plasma, and Taiko mentioned above, we can clearly see a main line to maintain the orthodoxy of Ethereum DA:

First of all, the ENS L2 data analysis solution that Vitaik actively advocated requires that the ENS service extended to each L2 network must adopt the orthodox Ethereum DA., which means that DA must be placed on the Ethereum mainnet, thus excluding L2 that chooses third-party DA platforms such as Celestia.

Since ENS is a key component of the Ethereum identity systemWhen the pan-Ethereum ecosystem realizes the influx of Mass Adoption traffic in the future, it will be a non-financial application and infrastructure that L2 cannot ignore.

Establishing the standard in advance that "if L2 wants to deploy ENS, it must put DA on the Ethereum mainnet" further increases the opportunity cost of L2 choosing a third-party DA, and it has to carefully consider whose overall cost is higher.

Plasma’s intentions are undoubtedly more obvious - in the context of the DA war, it completely avoids the issue of data availability, can greatly reduce transaction fees, especially by combining Plasma with ZK Zero knowledge proofCombined, it just proves Plasma on the main chain Xiaobai NavigationThe validity of the block reduces the reliance on the exit mechanism.

Finally, as the first landing project of Based Rollup, Taiko’s core highlight is to achieve Rollup expansion through L1 sorting.—— Entrust the sorting power (and the derived sorting, MEV and other income) to L1, that is, all sorting andSafetyAll of these features are provided by Ethereum L1, further enhancing the economic attractiveness and competitiveness of the Ethereum mainnet.

Behind all public actions, there are legitimate or illegitimate (private or public) interests. Ethereum and Vitalik are no exception. As early as the third-party DA debate sparked by Celestia, it can be seen that Vitalik is very experienced in struggle.

There is an interesting analogy in the article "On the Impact of Vitalik and Various Roadmaps on Ethereum Governance Process", that is, Vitalik actually plays a substantive "CTO" role in the Ethereum ecosystem to control the giant ship of Ethereum from deviating from the track:

Responsible for guiding the development process of Ethereum to be consistent with the planning direction of each "roadmap", and even has the final say on whether the development direction is in line with the vision of Ethereum.(Regardless of whether he intends to be so "dictatorial").

From this perspective, no matter how people usually make fun of the difference between Vitalik and Satoshi Nakamoto as the top two cryptocurrency/eco-founders, at least Vitalik is a very qualified project founder - he strives to maintain the orthodoxy of Ethereum, and always firmly controls the giant ship of Ethereum to move in the direction he (and some key figures) believe is appropriate, and does not derail or stall in the competition among public chains.

summary

Vitalik is a human being, not a god. As long as you look at it from this perspective, you can clearly see the answers behind all the problems.

For ordinary users like us, it is enough to just remember that Vitalik’s various researches on Ethereum often contain the possibility of leading new hot spots, and be able to keenly smell the main battlefield of future capital struggles that may be hidden therein.

The article comes from the Internet:A comprehensive review of the projects and tracks that Ethereum founder Vitalik often "likes"

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