Author: Bankless
On May 7th, Ethereum completed the Pectra network upgrade, opening a new chapter in ecosystem development. Taking this opportunity, the new joint executive directors of the Ethereum Foundation, Tamas Stanczak and Shay Wong, were interviewed by Bankless to elaborate on their thoughts and determination to drive change.
In the past, the community has criticized the Ethereum Foundation for its execution speed, communication methods, and continuous token selling. In this interview, the two directly responded to these concerns:
They provided direct explanations for community doubts, including the necessity of "token selling".
Detailed elaboration on the three strategic focuses: "expanding L1, expanding Blobs, and improving user experience".
Clearly outlined the technical development path from Pectra to Fusaka (expected in autumn), and then to the Amsterdam upgrade next year.
Planned to elevate hard forks to a 6-month cycle, and proposed long-term expansion goals, such as 100-fold expansion within four years.
Below is a partial excerpt from the interview, compiled by Plain Blockchain:
Tomasz Stanczak: A product-centered mindset is the foundation for achieving our three goals (expanding L1, expanding Blobs, improving UX). It means constantly thinking: Why are we making this change? Who is it for? And involving users in co-design. At the same time, we must adhere to core values and quality standards.
For example, when considering EOF or L1 expansion, we must ask: What impact does this have on decentralization? Which users will be affected? What are their opinions? We need to restructure ACD meetings to include product discussions. Developer experience (DevX) is also part of user experience. We need to provide clear roadmaps and support for builders. For instance, what happens after a hackathon? What happens on Monday the next day? Will they start building on Ethereum? Do they feel Ethereum is a product that provides answers, clear explanations on how to build, which technology to choose, who can help, and how to obtain funding?
Q7: Do you have any specific ideas about success metrics?
Tomasz Stanczak: Not all metrics are finalized. We need to implement goals for teams and create internal dashboards. For L1 expansion, we have preliminary targets: 3x this year, 10x total next year. Dankrad proposed an exponential roadmap of 100x in four years.
This process involves: first reviewing all clients, then making changes to the execution and consensus layers through EIPs, and finally accelerating primarily through ZK technology in the next three to four years. This 100x goal will become the anchor for organizing research and development. We will go to each research team and ask: How does your work serve this 100x goal? Is it serving the first, second, third, or fourth year?
Q8: The community sometimes has unrealistic expectations of the Ethereum Foundation. What are things the Ethereum Foundation actually does not do or are beyond its scope?
Shay Wong: One controversial aspect is selling ETH. The community expects us to hold, but we must sell to operate and fund. Secondly, for the most core things that only EF can do, we will be more hands-on, allocating internal resources. But for other levels of things, such as certain business expansions, we are more inclined to support through funding. The EF's role is more of a coordinator, helping people find the right resources in the ecosystem.
Tomasz Stanczak: The Ethereum Foundation should intervene when something is missing in the ecosystem, but usually by helping the corresponding organization emerge and grow. We do not play the role of coordinator or owner. For example, communication with Wall Street or governments, the foundation certainly does not want to coordinate these efforts, but we want to be able to answer questions and provide expertise, rather than possibly avoiding interaction as in the past. We are not the owners of the Ethereum protocol and do not act as owners.
In engineering, we have the Geth team, which is important for research, but we do not build consensus clients. We avoid directly building applications or infrastructure because the ecosystem can do it better. In business development, we want to play a more active "helper" role: connecting applications, clients, talent, and research results. The foundation is often the first point of contact for many participants. Instead of just providing funding each time, we prefer to actively help founders solve specific problems they face early on. A big part of Ethereum is about creating networks, and creating social layer networks is something the foundation can do very well. In marketing, we focus on communication and clarity, not advertising.
Q9: Regarding specific roadmaps and pace, what are the plans for upcoming hard forks?
Tomasz Stanczak: We plan to accelerate the hard fork pace to about once every six months. The next one is Pectra, which includes significant improvements in account abstraction and user experience through changes like EIP-3074 (SFS 102), in addition to staking-related Max Effective Balance changes. We are currently fully testing to ensure safety.
After Pectra is deployed, we will immediately launch the development network for the next hard fork, Fusaka, targeting release in September or October this year, with the key being to ensure no delays. There will also be a large gathering of core developers and researchers to accelerate goals.
The subsequent hard fork is Amsterdam, planned to be completed before the end of next year, which will include acceleration of L1 expansion. Some L1 expansion work is already starting, some not requiring hard forks, and some requiring EIPs. Meanwhile, the ecosystem development department led by Jane Smith is restructuring processes to better serve builders' needs in tokenization, RWA, etc. ACD meetings are also being adjusted to accommodate faster delivery rhythms and involve application developers earlier.
Article link: https://www.hellobtc.com/kp/du/05/5843.html
Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/bgVI--ajna1ZlP80SxtCaQ
