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

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

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Tarun Chitra, CEO and Co-Founder of Gauntlet

Max Resnick, Lead economist at Anza

Unchained:

Ethereum Ecosystem Shifts Toward User Focus

Ethereum Developers Vote EOF Out of Fusaka Hard Fork

Vitalik Buterin Proposes Replacing Ethereum Virtual Machine

The Block:

Vitalik and new Ethereum Foundation co-executive directors outline updated board structure, mission

Vitalik Buterin- and StarkWare-backed Kakarot reveals alternative Ethereum ZK stack, targeting real-time STARK proofs on Layer 1 by end of 2025

CoinDesk: Ethereum Could Supercharge Transaction Speed to 2,000 TPS Thanks to Bold New Proposal

Simplifying the L1 by Vitalik Buterin

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👨‍🏫 24:09 Why Max feels Vitalik’s proposals focus on outdated technology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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