Ethereum Gave Away Too Much for Too Long. Will Its Pivot Be Enough? - Ep. 829

25 snips

May 6, 2025

Guest

Max Resnick

Guest

Tarun Chitra

Tarun Chitra, CEO of Gauntlet, and Max Resnick, Lead economist at Anza, dive deep into Ethereum's struggles and its attempts to pivot. They discuss whether the recent gas limit increase could be a game changer and analyze what went wrong with Ethereum's economics. Max outlines the single most crucial change Ethereum must make, while debating its chances against Layer 2 solutions. The conversation raises concerns about whether these changes come too late in the game, and what they would prioritize if in charge of Ethereum.

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INSIGHT

Ethereum's Economics Gave Too Much

Ethereum gave away over 90% of its usage fees to rollups, essentially providing services for free.
This economic model hindered network growth and the pivot is about reclaiming value to improve the network.

INSIGHT

Ethereum's Lost User Experience Edge

Ethereum failed to improve user experience while competitors like Solana advanced significantly.
The pivot back to improving the base layer signals a correction after initial poor execution with L2 scaling.

INSIGHT

Gas Limit Increase Is Key Pivot

Increasing Ethereum's gas limit drastically marks a significant pivot to scaling the base layer.
This challenges previous dogma that small incremental increases were necessary for network health.

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After years of underperformance, Ethereum is trying to change course, from scaling the layer 1 to potentially dumping the EVM. In this episode, Tarun Chitra and Max Resnick break down each of these new changes, analyzing the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Is this a reset that can save Ethereum’s market position and price? Or has the protocol given away too much for too long?

They dive into:

Whether the gas limit increase changes everything
What went wrong with Ethereum’s economics and solo staking politics
Max’s view on “the single most important” change Ethereum needs to make
How ETH could claw back value from layer 2s
What Max would do if he ran Ethereum
Whether this pivot is too little, too late

Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com

Bitwise https://bitwiseinvestments.com/ciomemo

Tarun Chitra, CEO and Co-Founder of Gauntlet
Max Resnick, Lead economist at Anza

Unchained:

The Block:

Timestamps:

👋 0:00 Introduction
🛠️ 2:05 Why Ethereum had to pivot and what triggered the urgency
📈 7:16 Why raising the gas limit could actually be a big deal
💻 9:12 Whether Ethereum devs are too idealistic
⚡ 19:02 How Solana managed to outperform Ethereum at the base layer
👨‍🏫 24:09 Why Max feels Vitalik’s proposals focus on outdated technology
🔧 27:57 The growing gap between Ethereum research and its execution clients
👍 35:02 The ONE thing Max thinks Ethereum is doing well
⚖️ 40:38 Did “credible neutrality” push Ethereum down the wrong path?
🌀 48:23 Will the new Ethereum R1 rollup succeed?
🔀 52:53 What the new updates mean for layer 2s and their value proposition
📉 1:02:58 Whether ETH is finally due for a price reversal
🎯 1:09:12 Why Ethereum should take a page from Trump’s strategy playbook

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