The Impossibility of Decentralization

We couldn’t miss EthCC 6 and we got to sit down with Vitalik Buterin to discuss hot topics from the Ethereum ecosystem: MEV, staking derivatives, privacy, decentralisation and future interoperability. Ethereum’s merge to proof-of-stake brought with it the emergence of liquid staking derivatives (LSD). Similarly to mining pools in proof-of-work consensus models, staking pools could pose a risk to Ethereum’s decentralisation. In terms of privacy preserving solutions, the advances in zero knowledge research were a big breakthrough, especially as EVM-compatibility became possible. Maximal extractable value (MEV) remains a pressing matter, but hopes are that the upcoming proposer-builder separation (PBS) will alleviate it.

Topics covered in this episode:

• EthCC 6 updates and development across Ethereum’s ecosystem
• MEV and proposer-builder separation (PBS)
• Liquid staking derivatives (LSD), governance and decentralisation
• Privacy
• ZK proofs and decentralised identifiers (DID)
• Ecosystem interoperability
• Cross-chain bridge security
• Conclusions

Episode links:

• Vitalik Buterin
• Ethereum Foundation on Twitter
• EthCC on Twitter

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture, Friederike Ernst & Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/505