Episode 280: Devconnect 2025 with Nixo Rokish

Guest

Nixo Rokish

Panelists

Eriol Fox | Victory Brown

Show Notes

In this live episode of Sustain from Devconnect in Buenos Aires, host Eriol Fox and
co-host Victory Brown sit down with Nixo Rokish, Protocol Support Lead at the
Ethereum Foundation, to unpack how Ethereum’s deeply decentralized governance
actually works in practice. They dive into the nuts and bolts of coordinating 100+
core contributors across 11+ client teams, why neutral facilitation is crucial, how
Ethereum’s upgrade and EIP process avoids “single maintainer” failure modes, and
what lessons other open source projects can steal to make their own governance
more sustainable. The episode concludes with Nixo promoting the EthStaker
project focused on decentralized staking. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:38] Nixo explains Ethereum as a rare example of truly decentralized
governance and she describes the Protocol Coordination team.

[00:02:25] Why does this governance model matter for sustainability? Nixo says
most projects rely on 1-2 key people and if they leave, the project can stall or die.

[00:04:09] Eriol asks if anyone resists this decentralized, community-led
governance model. Nixo says active participants are mostly enthusiastic about
the process and the main friction from VCs wanting more control and social
media “ship faster” pressure.

[00:05:51] Eriol talks about money and influence entering open source projects
and Nixo shares that core devs are motivated by building systems for many
people, not concentrating profit.

[00:08:00] Nixo walks through the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) process.

[00:11:38] Victory asks how they manage consensus with so many people and
companies involved. Nixo explains 11+ client times, only one is within EF, other
are independent companies/nonprofits.

[00:13:36] Eriol reacts to how impressive it is that devs can reach consensus via
facilitation and asks Nixo for advice for smaller open source projects that want to
adopt similar practices. Her key advice is to have a neutral facilitator.

[00:16:13] Nixo shares where you can find her on the internet and she spotlights a
project she used to work at called, EthStaker.

Links

• podcast@sustainoss.org
• richard@sustainoss.org
• SustainOSS Discourse
• SustainOSS Mastodon
• SustainOSS Bluesky
• SustainOSS LinkedIn
• Open Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)
• Richard Littauer Socials
• Eriol Fox X
• Victory Brown X
• Nixo Rokish X
• Devconnect-Buenos Aires, Argentina 2025, 17-22 November
• Ethereum
• Ethereum Foundation
• Institute of Forecasting & Planning
• EthStaker

Credits

• Produced by Richard Littauer
• Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
• Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound
• Logistical support by Tina Arboleda from Digital Savvies

Special Guest: Nixo Rokish.

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