Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, and Martin Köppelmann, co-founder of Gnosis, dive into the evolution and challenges facing Ethereum. They debate the merits of native versus based rollups and discuss Ethereum's potential shift to maintenance mode. Justin shares his optimism for scaling pre-confirmations, while Martin critiques Ethereum's focus on developers. The conversation also tackles fragmentation issues and the implications for Ethereum's status in a landscape increasingly dominated by rivals like Solana.
01:26:30
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
insights INSIGHT
Ethereum's Two-Track Approach
Ethereum's Layer 1 prioritizes security and competes with Bitcoin for moneyness.
Layer 2s focus on growth and compete with Solana for user acquisition and activity.
insights INSIGHT
Ethereum's Fragmentation Problem
Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions are becoming isolated, hindering composability and network effects.
This fragmentation creates varying prices and interest rates for the same token across different rollups.
insights INSIGHT
Base Rollups vs. Native Rollups
Base rollups inherit Ethereum's security but have slower transaction speeds.
Native rollups offer faster speeds and easier EVM compatibility but require more complex technology.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze
Laura Shin
The Cryptopians delves into the story of idealists, technologists, and opportunists fighting to bring cryptocurrency to the masses. The book focuses on the founding of Ethereum by Vitalik Buterin and the subsequent crypto fever it created. It introduces readers to larger-than-life characters such as Buterin, Charles Hoskinson, and Joe Lubin, highlighting the personal and professional conflicts that shaped the early days of Ethereum. The narrative explores the booms, busts, and internecine wars within the crypto world, revealing it as a deeply personal struggle to influence the coming revolution in money, culture, and power.
Ethereum has been left behind in this bull market. As rivals like Solana gain ground in metrics such as speed, cost, and developer mindshare, questions are being raised about whether Ethereum’s reliance on Layer 2 solutions is the right path forward—or if it needs a more fundamental redesign.
In this episode, Martin Köppelmann, co-founder of Gnosis, and Justin Drake, researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, discuss the trade-offs of native and based rollups, execution capacity, and Ethereum’s ability to maintain its dominance. They debate how Ethereum should address fragmentation across rollups, whether ETH has strayed from its ultrasound money narrative, and whether its deliberate pace of innovation could make it vulnerable in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Whose ideas will lead Ethereum out of this dark forest?
Show highlights:
03:10 Why Justin is so optimistic about pre confirmations and Ethereum scaling its throughput
06:15 Whether Ethereum could reach “maintenance mode” within 5 years
08:20 Whether Ethereum can solve the problem of fragmentation
20:21 The difference between based rollups and native rollups
25:29 Why Martin believes that Ethereum is not building for developers
34:21 What real-time proving is and why it is relevant
37:46 How programmable native rollups could have different business models from Ethereum but the same security
44:51 Why most assets on L2s might not actually be secured by Ethereum
50:24 Whether Ethereum’s consensus layer might see a “clean slate” redesign with the Beam Chain
58:59 Whether Ethereum’s slow pace of change could leave it vulnerable to competition
01:06:55 How Ethereum's shift to rollups and blob data has reshaped its ultrasound money narrative by transforming the primary sources of fee burn
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
Unchained 
