Kevin (@zen_llama) is a former Apple (AirPods) and Solana Labs (Core) engineer. Kevin joins Sal & Dave in bringing his unique insight as a protocol engineer with experience across multiple blockchain ecosystems (ETH, Solana, Monad, and others) to provide a concrete explanation into why these different approaches exist and how they differ. Some interesting topics we discuss include: the key components of a blockchain, why multithreading matters for scalability in blockchains, Ethereum vs EVM Chain vs non-EVM Chain (like Solana), the advantages of scaling the EVM, how L2s differ from monolithic EVM chains (like Monad), and how Ethereum could one day be a multithreaded execution environment. While this is a longer and more technical episode than usual, there are tons of nuggets throughout our interview from the perspective of an engineer who’s been “chewing glass” for years.
(1:16) - The issues with the scalability trilemma
(6:53) - Blockchains from first principles
(15:17) - The value add of blockchains
(22:03) - The flywheel effect
(26:40) - Design choices for blockchains
(29:57) - Storing blockchain history
(42:06) - Bandwidth as a bottleneck
(45:52) - Consensus and time to finality
(1:02:04) - Separation of state and data
(1:11:02) - Solana’s Runtime V2
(1:16:03) - Where Monad sits on the spectrum
(1:21:00) - Modular Vs Monolithic
(1:30:56) - Competition of a modular stack
(1:35:57) - Which chain will win
(1:42:53) - Why Solana posts votes on-chain
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Podcast Resources
Follow Sal: https://twitter.com/sal_coin
Follow Dave: https://twitter.com/SolBeachBum
Follow Unlayered: https://twitter.com/UnlayeredPod
Subscribe on Apple: http://apple.co/3VyBSWI
Subscribe on Spotify: http://spoti.fi/42q03J2
Subscribe on Google: https://tinyurl.com/5dwn2476
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Episode Resources
Follow Kevin : https://twitter.com/Zen_Llama
Vitalik’s Endgame Blogpost : https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/06/endgame.html
