Vitalik's new article: It's time to "align" the entire Ethereum ecosystem

Written by:Vitalik Buterin

Compiled by: Scof, ChainCatcher

In the Ethereum ecosystem, one of the most important governance challenges is balance - or more precisely, integrating decentralization and cooperation. The advantage of this ecosystem is that there are a wide range of individuals and organizations - client teams, researchers, second-layer network teams, application developers, localCommunitygroups — all working towards their own vision of what Ethereum could become. The main challenge is to ensure that all projects work together to build one Ethereum ecosystem, rather than 138 incompatible fiefdoms.

To address this challenge, many in the Ethereum ecosystem have proposed the concept of "Ethereum consistency". This may include value consistency (e.g., open source, minimal centralization, support for public goods), technical consistency (e.g., working with ecosystem-wide standards), and economic consistency (e.g., using ETH as aToken). However, the concept has historically been poorly defined, which creates the risk of social manipulation: if consistency means having the right friends, then consistency as a concept fails.

To address this, I think we should make the concept of consistency clearer by breaking it down into specific properties that can be represented by specific metrics. Everyone's list will be different, and metrics will inevitably change over time. However, I think we have some solid starting points.

• Open source – This is valuable for two reasons: (i) the code can be reviewed to ensureSafety, and more importantly (ii) reduce the risk of proprietary lock-in and allow third parties to make improvements without permission. Not every part of every application needs to be fully open source, but the core infrastructure components that the ecosystem depends on definitely should be. The gold standards here are the FSF Free Software Definition and the OSI Open Source Definition.

• Open Standards – Strive to achieve interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem and build on open standards, both existing (e.g., ERC-20, ERC-1271…) and under development (e.g., Account Abstraction, Cross-chain L2 Transfers, L1 and L2 light client proofs, the upcoming address format standard). If you want to introduce a new feature that is not well served by an existing standard, work with others to write a new ERC. Applications andwalletCan be rated based on the number of ERCs they are compatible with.

• Decentralization andSafety性 – 避免信任点，最小化审查漏洞，并最小化对集中式基础设施的依赖。自然度量标准是 (i)The walkaway test：如果你的团队和服务器明天消失，你的应用程序还能使用吗，以及 (ii) 内部攻击测试：如果你的团队本身试图攻击系统，会破坏多少，你会造成多大的伤害？一个重要的形式化是 L2beat 汇总阶段。

• Positive-Sum: 1) Ethereum-oriented – The success of the project should benefit the entire EthereumCommunityBenefit (e.g., ETH holders, Ethereum users), even if they are not part of the project’s own ecosystem. Specific examples include using ETH asToken(thereby contributing to its network effect), contributions to open source technology, and commitments to invest a certain percentage ofToken2) For the wider world – Ethereum aims to make the world a freer, more open place, enabling new forms of ownership and cooperation, and contributing positively to the major challenges facing humanity. Does your project do this? Examples include applications that bring sustainable value to a wider audience (e.g., financial inclusion), donating a percentage to public goods outside of Ethereum, and building projects with a role beyond Ethereum.cryptocurrencypractical technologies (e.g., financing mechanisms, general-purpose computersSafety), these techniques are actually used in these environments.

Ethereum node map, source ethernodes.org

Obviously, the above criteria are not applicable to every project.wallet, decentralized social media applications, etc., the applicable indicators will be very different. Different indicators may also change in priority: two years ago, it was acceptable for Rollup to use "training wheels" because it was still in the "early stages"; today, we need to reach at least the first stage as soon as possible. Today, the most obvious positive-sum indicator is a commitment to donate a certain percentage of tokens, and more and more projects are doing this; in the future, we can also find indicators that make other aspects of positivity clear.

My ideal goal would be to see more entities like L2beat pop up to track how well individual projects are meeting the above criteria as well as other community-proposed ones. Projects should not be competing to make the right friends, but rather to align as closely as possible based on clear and understandable standards. The Ethereum Foundation should keep some distance in this regard: we fund L2beat, but we shouldn’t be L2beat. Creating the next L2beat is itself a permissionless process.

This will also provide a clearer path for the Ethereum Foundation and other organizations (and individuals) who wish to support and participate in the ecosystem while remaining neutral to decide which projects to support and use. Each organization and individual can use their own judgment to determine which standards they care most about and deploy them.Xiaobai NavigationProjects are selected based on which ones best meet these criteria. This makes it easier for the Ethereum Foundation and everyone else to be part of the incentives that bring projects closer together.

Meritocracy can only be achieved if the definition of "merit" is clear; otherwise, you have a (potentially exclusionary and zero-sum) social game. The best solution to the concern of "who will supervise the supervisors" is not to pin all hopes on attempts to ensure that all influential people are angels, but through tried and tested techniques such as decentralization. "Dashboard organizations" like L2beat, block explorers, and other ecosystem monitors are excellent examples of this principle at work in the Ethereum ecosystem today. If we can do more to make different aspects of consistency clearer while not concentrating on a single "supervisor", we can make this concept more effective, as well as fair and inclusive, as the Ethereum ecosystem strives for.

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