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

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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: 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19:02 How Solana managed to outperform Ethereum at the base layer 👨‍🏫 24:09 Why Max feels Vitalik’s proposals focus on outdated technology 🔧 27:57 The growing gap between Ethereum research and its execution clients 👍 35:02 The ONE thing Max thinks Ethereum is doing well ⚖️ 40:38 Did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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I mean, one thing you could do is just blacklist all the L2s, just like hard forked out all the L2 contracts
0:05.3	and just say you're not allowed to post these anymore.
0:07.6	I don't really understand why you would not do that.
0:10.8	If you're like, if you would took over Ethereum today as a company, this is what you would do.
0:14.3	We just say like, hey, your guys are not posting to us anymore.
0:18.1	You're not using us anymore.
0:19.1	We're not doing disalignment games.
0:23.3	We're going to freeze all the assets.
0:24.9	You have to pay us to get them out.
0:27.6	And let's do a hard reset.
0:30.1	And that would probably be a good idea.
0:32.4	But of course, it will not do that.
0:34.0	That would be very bad for E because they did that. But that's what you would do if you were a company that inherited the situation.
0:42.5	Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained. You're a no hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host,
0:47.0	Laura Shin. Every episode, we're featuring your comments. Today, we have a comment responding to my
0:51.8	recent interview with Sam Kessler about the move scandal.
0:55.3	On YouTube, Doom Guy VR says, quote, I'm tired of how scammy this industry is.
1:00.3	The fact remains, way too many unsavory elements got early into crypto.
1:04.4	While its idealistic values have always been important, we've had to carry the baggage of shitty people along.
1:09.3	This is what made BTC Maxis far too
1:11.8	extremist in the other direction. If you want to hear your comment on a future episode, write a
1:16.2	review of the podcast overall or leave a comment on our video on YouTube, Farcaster, or X. This is the May
	...

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