Ramifications of Decentralizing the Sequencer Willy Nilly

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Decentralizing the sequencer in a completely permissionless and trustless manner, like Ethereum validators, is a difficult problem. However, roll-ups can make more trade-offs and have a smaller set of trusted sequencers that are governed and can be removed if they act maliciously. This is because roll-ups already inherit the censorship resistance from Ethereum. It is not necessary for most roll-ups to achieve the same level of decentralization as Ethereum validators. In the current state of roll-ups, it is not practical to have a large number of sequencers running the network and it would be economically inefficient. Additionally, roll-ups value fast confirmations and private mempools, so making these public would not be acceptable. The solution lies in having a governance-controlled set of trusted sequencers who run private mempools and are monitored for malicious behavior. If a sequencer acts out, they can be removed from the network.

In this episode, we explore Jon’s journey into crypto and our mutual passion for research and the writing process. We then give an overview over the key areas of crypto infrastructure today. Finally, we zoom into rollup decentralization roadmaps, and Jon shares a controversial new thesis about sequencer decentralization.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(02:42) Interview start

(03:44) Jon's work week

(08:04) ChatGPT & writing

(10:57) Jon's start in crypto

(14:45) How to pick things to work on

(17:08) Outsider's perspective on crypto

(19:05) Jon's research process

(22:00) Jon's proudest moment in crypto

(23:06) Crypto Infrastructure overview

(29:58) Why crypto infrastructure is interesting

(35:57) Rollup decentralization overview

(42:44) Challenges decentralizing the sequencer

(47:46) Ethereum vs Cosmos approach to governance & decentralization

(53:35) User ability to opt out

(56:37) Staking vs. governance deciding sequencers

(01:08:31) L3s

(01:13:34) Superchain

(01:16:38) Summary of rollup decentralization

(01:21:08) Outro

Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl

Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb

UCC2 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz

Website - https://ucc2.xyz

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