Ethereum is not suitable for ordinary users.

Compiled & Edited by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guest: Sun Ming, Partner and General Counsel at Distributed Capital, online alias "High-Quality Blue Collar"

Host:

Liu Feng, Partner at BODL Ventures, former Editor-in-Chief of Chain News

Xiong Haojun Jack, Deputy Editor at Rhythm BlockBeats, Host of "Web3 Nameless Talk"

Podcast Source: Web3 101

Original Title: E63 | Ethereum's New Outfit

Broadcast Date: September 22, 2025

Key Points Summary

This episode of the podcast features Ethereum community OG "High-Quality Blue Collar"—the legal agreement drafter behind the legendary investment in Ethereum by Wanxiang ten years ago, who once lost the private key to a wallet containing 8,000 ETH. We review key moments in Ethereum's ten-year development, the changes and constants in Ethereum's technical roadmap and core narrative, discuss Ethereum's core value as a public chain, and address criticisms and misunderstandings regarding the Ethereum Foundation and the Ethereum ecosystem during this cycle.

Highlights of Insights

• Human society greatly needs completely neutral entities, but such things are almost non-existent in reality, so once something like this appears, it becomes extremely scarce.

• Credible neutrality is Ethereum's most unique and valuable trait. Even under political pressure, the Ethereum Foundation insists on a politically neutral stance.

• Earlier this year, on Twitter or other media, some well-known project founders or investment firm founders expressed admiration for Trump, and none were willing to distance themselves from the Trump administration. However, only Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation clearly maintained political neutrality at that time. If even the Ethereum Foundation had said anything to cater to the Trump administration, I would likely have sold all my coins.

• Many people think Trump came to save the crypto world, which seems a bit ridiculous in hindsight.

• Layer 2 is an inevitable future trend. Mainstream commercial institutions need a relatively closed environment to prevent the value they generate from being captured by holders on the mainnet.

• Layer 2 cannot be completely decentralized; it may only become more centralized.

• If all Layer 2s are classified as generic Rollups, there will be a winner-takes-all situation. However, various different Layer 2s may emerge in the future, each with different business scenarios.

• Ethereum is not suitable for ordinary users.

• The mission of the Ethereum Foundation has nothing to do with Wall Street taking over. They primarily have their own technical roadmap to achieve, and price is not very important to them, although the price itself can bring external pressure.

Lost Private Key to Wallet Containing 8,000 ETH

Liu Feng:

Today's podcast mainly revolves around Ethereum. We have prepared for a long time, but we have been considering who to invite for this discussion. The Ethereum project is both loved and hated because it was once a vibrant and creative ecosystem that attracted countless fearless developers. However, many people are disappointed with its price performance. Today, Ethereum has some new narratives, and we have invited Blue Collar, who has witnessed Ethereum's growth, to talk about the new changes in Ethereum today and its future direction.

Sun Ming:

Hello everyone, I am High-Quality Blue Collar, and I am also the General Counsel of Distributed Capital. Thank you all.

Liu Feng:

I remember you lost a wallet's private key a year or two ago, which contained 1,000 Ethereum, right?

Sun Ming:

Actually, it was 8,000. I still check that address from time to time. But I can't recover it; I really lost that mnemonic phrase, and no matter how I search, I can't find it.

11 Years Ago: The Vision of Ethereum - Too Good to Be True

Liu Feng:

I would like to ask Blue Collar, when did you first get acquainted with Ethereum? Everyone knows that when Vitalik first came to China to raise funds, he was helped by Mr. Shen Bo from Distributed Capital and Dr. Xiao Feng from Wanxiang. I believe you were also an important person behind the scenes.

Sun Ming:

Yes, I actually got to know about it at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015, mainly through Shen Bo's recommendation. At that time, I was mainly researching an older project called Bitshares. There was a circle in China studying Bitshares, and they generally preferred to use blockchain for applications rather than just doing value storage like Bitcoin. It was natural to study Bitshares because many of its applications now seem timeless, such as DEX, stablecoins, and Oracles, which were directions Bitshares had already attempted.

The methods implemented in Bitshares may be different from now, but the concepts were proposed by him and there was a path to implementation. Shen Bo told me that there was now something more abstract than Bitshares, and this abstraction might be different from what people refer to as abstract today; it was indeed a more generalized and universal project called Ethereum, so he recommended that I study it. I am not a technical expert, and I may not understand some technical details, but the vision he implemented still seems very revolutionary.

This is actually related to our research on Bitshares back then. Although Bitshares proposed many concepts, it still had a significant flaw because it was not an abstract smart contract platform. In the Bitshares project, all DApps were developed by the developers of the chain itself, so these two were tightly coupled and hard-coded into it; there was no situation where a third party could deploy contracts on the chain.

Liu Feng:

So when you saw the grand vision proposed by Ethereum 11 years ago, you found it completely different, right?

Sun Ming:

Very different, and it was very revolutionary. Sometimes I felt "too good to be true," wondering if such a grand thing could be realized. When I first saw it, I had some doubts in my heart and was not sure if this thing could really be achieved.

Liu Feng:

Blue Collar has taken us back to 11 years ago, from the era of Bitshares to the initial description of Ethereum. I think everyone should remember this point, which is his description of the development ecosystem characteristics of Bitshares, where applications were developed by the chain's developers. We may compare this with today's various blockchains, especially the development of Layer 1 ecosystems. Another point is that Blue Collar has been paying attention to Ethereum since its infancy.

I guess you might have been one of the earliest investors in China supporting Vitalik's Ethereum investment, and you helped review the legal agreement, right?

Sun Ming:

Yes, when Wanxiang invested in Ethereum, that agreement was actually drafted by me.

Liu Feng:

I had an interview with Dr. Xiao a while ago, and he recalled the moment when he took out $500,000 to support Vitalik's Ethereum, but Blue Collar was an important participant behind the scenes who helped review that investment agreement.

From this point, I think everyone should understand your long-standing relationship with Ethereum. I would like to hear your personal subjective feelings and summarize the significant changes you have witnessed in Ethereum's development over nearly 11 years.

Sun Ming:

In fact, there have been several historical turning points that are particularly memorable and have had a significant impact on Ethereum's development. The first one that comes to mind is the hard fork event in 2016.

Liu Feng:

That was the hacker incident that occurred shortly after, where the community voted to hard fork it, which should have been a dark time shortly after its birth.

Sun Ming:

At that time, the community was indeed in a difficult state. Around May 2016, Vitalik held a meeting in Shanghai about blockchain and Ethereum, and I could see that he was very nervous. Throughout the meeting, he was distracted, working on his laptop and replying to some chat messages, likely about how to resolve this issue. Although this issue was not strictly an Ethereum problem, it had a significant impact on Ethereum.

Liu Feng:

Because at that time, DAO was the core of the ecosystem, and a large amount of ETH was raised for DAO. But they did not publicly disclose this matter to the community at that time, right?

Sun Ming:

Yes, I knew about it before it was fully disclosed, but some people were already aware. I was thinking from the perspective of a community participant about what choice I should make. Although I did not participate in the investment in Slock.it, I felt this matter was very significant, so when such a big event happened, I naturally thought about how I would choose if the community needed to vote against the fork.

Liu Feng:

The result was a hard fork, and the transactions were rolled back, which is an event that people often discuss ten years later.

Sun Ming:

But now I want to know why this matter is criticized because the hard fork does not erase anyone's assets; it is just a choice made by the community. Moreover, since the ETC chain itself still exists, anyone who wishes to support the ETC chain has the right to continue to maintain it and use the code on it. This essentially just gives ordinary people a choice and does not erase anyone's rights.

This was the first historical development event that left a deep impression on me. The second event that could reach this level is actually something that happened earlier this year. The event of Trump taking office was originally not closely related to crypto, but during Trump's presidency, many celebrities in the crypto circle began to express admiration for Trump, especially many project founders.

At that time, I was a bit pessimistic, feeling that the revolutionary nature of this industry had completely disappeared, and almost all participants were speculators. You could see on Twitter or other media that some well-known project founders or investment firm founders were expressing admiration for Trump, and none were willing to distance themselves from the Trump administration. However, only Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation clearly maintained political neutrality at that time. If even the Ethereum Foundation had said anything to cater to the Trump administration, I would likely have sold all my coins.

Many people think Trump came to save the crypto world, which seems a bit ridiculous in hindsight.

The Unique Value of Ethereum: Credible Neutrality

We don't want to delve too much into political discussions in this program. I'm more pleased that you mentioned Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation's clear stance on neutrality, which is very important, as I believe this topic may come up again in our subsequent discussions.

You mentioned these two moments, and especially the second one makes me want to ask, why do you think this neutral stance makes you willing to continue to support Ethereum?

Sun Ming:

This is closely related to the revolutionary ideals that Ethereum upholds. I actually don't like to hold onto mediocre things; many blockchain projects seem quite mediocre to me. It's not that their technology is mediocre; it might be very good, but it has a lot to do with the founding ideals. They can only provide some value that is relatively easy for others to replicate. In contrast, if something can achieve "credible neutrality," this kind of credible neutrality is almost non-existent in today's commercial world and other areas of society, where everything has a political stance.

As a lawyer, I often study politics and law, and I can say clearly that the current academic community is almost all politically biased, and political stances often come first. Therefore, in today's society, if one can find something that strives to maintain neutrality, even if it's an organization or a group of people, it is extremely rare.

Liu Feng:

In your view, Ethereum's wholeheartedness and true neutrality are important characteristics.

Sun Ming:

Yes, such entities, whether they are Ethereum or not, whether they are in the blockchain world or not, have unique value. Human society greatly needs completely neutral entities, but such things are almost non-existent in reality. So once something like this appears, it becomes extremely scarce.

Liu Feng:

You have given a high evaluation of this characteristic, believing it to be its greatest value. But I must tell you that not everyone thinks this way.

Sun Ming:

Of course not; everyone has their own opinions. This is just my personal view. I tend to enjoy studying politics and history. The academic circle is the same; all academic research is also politically biased, even if it is not explicitly stated. If there is no political stance to study any academic theory, it will essentially be criticized as a form of nihilism.

Liu Feng:

But in fact, more and more people believe that Ethereum's neutrality has caused it to miss many opportunities, and they think its narrative is not attractive enough.

Sun Ming:

From my observation, indeed many people think this way, but this is just a small ripple in history. I still maintain that from a long-term and philosophical perspective, some things are indeed needed to exist in human society for a long time, even though they essentially exist as a hedge against certain opposing entities.

Liu Feng:

This is actually the value of Crypto that we have been discussing. If Crypto is not a hedge against the real world, it has no value in existence.

Sun Ming:

Many things can replace it; centralized internet is also quite good. But the problem is, just like the relationship between gold and the dollar system, the dollar system does operate very well, but gold must always exist because it needs an opposing entity to support it.

The Narrative of Ethereum Hasn't Changed, but Its Roadmap Has Changed a Lot Over the Past Ten Years

Liu Feng:

The core value of Ethereum has actually remained unchanged, but I must mention that the narrative based on its core value has indeed been changing. Could you briefly trace some changes in its core narrative?

Sun Ming:

In fact, the term "narrative" itself is a relatively recent translation. When Ethereum first emerged, people generally did not refer to it as a "narrative," but rather idealistically called it a "vision." For example, the concept of a "world computer." This macro vision still exists today, but from a practical perspective, it must be implemented step by step, breaking down this vision into specific tasks to achieve it.

As for whether the narrative has undergone significant changes, I don't think there have been major changes; essentially, its roadmap has changed a lot over the past ten years. There are many reasons for this, as whenever its roadmap is proposed, after a period of practice—say, one, two, or three years—it may find that the original roadmap has encountered some dead ends. Sometimes it may not be a dead end but rather some particularly large difficulties that cannot be resolved at that historical stage. Therefore, they must try other more feasible paths. This is actually the same as any social revolution; the initially set route cannot be 100% adhered to forever and will inevitably be adjusted during specific time periods.

The earliest change was in 2015 when they believed they could solve scalability issues through sharding. But later, everyone found that the technical route of sharding was too difficult to implement. I remember in 2015, in Shen Bo's office, when the founder of Blockchain Pencil, Wang Zhaogong, asked a question about when decentralized exchanges (DEX) could be realized on Ethereum. Vitalik believed that they would have to wait for sharding to be implemented to achieve sufficient speed, which might take about three years.

At that time, Wang Zhaogong was working on a DEX startup project, and from his perspective, it was impossible to wait another three years. Three years later, history proved that such scalability could not be achieved during that time, so they had to look for other paths. Ultimately, they proposed a Layer 2-centric scaling solution, but this solution is also a mixed bag in terms of its roadmap.

Liu Feng:

I remember this solution was proposed at the ETH conference in Taipei at the end of 2018 or in 2019, introducing the concept of Rollup.

Sun Ming:

At that time, Rollup had already matured. The original route was not actually Rollup but rather using Plasma. Plasma was initially proposed by Joseph Poon, but later practice proved that it was not particularly effective, so they proposed the concept of Rollup, which was relatively effective, and thus ultimately settled on a Layer 2 solution centered around Rollup. Of course, Layer 2 is not just Rollup; there are many other technologies, and we can see that the changes in this path are quite significant.

Is "Layer 2-Centric" Right or Wrong?

Liu Feng:

The revised roadmap focusing on Rollup for scaling has had a huge impact on today's Ethereum ecosystem. The main ecological manifestation of Ethereum now is the mainnet plus Rollup Layer 2, with all applications growing on this foundation. However, recently this roadmap has changed again; could you introduce this to everyone?

Sun Ming:

Recently, both within the Ethereum Foundation and among external observers, there has been a consensus that the focus should still be on enhancing the mainnet's scalability. To be honest, from my observation, the community's views may be somewhat skewed. In fact, there is no denial of the necessity of Layer 2; enhancing Layer 1 will not affect Layer 2. Personally, I believe that Layer 2 is an inevitable future trend; this is not a technical issue but a matter of business logic.

In reality, mainstream commercial institutions will not use Layer 1 to deploy DApps. They need a relatively closed environment to prevent the value they generate from being captured by holders on the mainnet. This is a fundamental business logic issue, especially in the financial sector, where many regulatory requirements also need Layer 2 to meet. If these regulatory requirements are to be met, it is almost impossible to achieve on Layer 1 because many functions would need to be added to the mainnet to avoid privacy breaches and ensure KYC compliance.

Putting everything on Layer 2 may lead to many Layer 2s being developed and operated by centralized commercial institutions.

Liu Feng:

So according to your vision, a large number of application-oriented Layer 2s should exist in a customized manner.

Sun Ming:

Yes, and it will be operated in a centralized manner, especially in a centralized way. Similar to the situation with Base, but the mainnet will realize the settlement function of the entire world computer, which is an ideal state. The mainnet will provide data availability for all Layer 2s while offering some trustless, decentralized facilities, but complete trustlessness cannot be achieved.

Jack:

I completely agree with what Blue Collar just mentioned; many institutions may need customized chains, and this logic has already been proven in the past year or two. In the financial sector, institutions like JPMorgan tend to adopt blockchain structures like Avalanche when experimenting with blockchain because it provides a subnet technical structure that allows them to customize a completely closed ecosystem from the ground up.

Sun Ming:

Recently, we can observe some projects, such as Google Cloud Universal Ledger and Stripe Tempo, which have also become Layer 1s. They are not closely related to decentralization; they essentially just opened a public ledger, allowing information data to be transparent and enabling third-party participants to trust it. If the goal is merely to achieve transparency without pursuing immutability, options like Google Cloud are acceptable.

Different business models will have different demands. Certain scenarios do require the immutability feature, but not all scenarios need it.

Liu Feng:

But people will ask, why must it be built on Ethereum? I can create EVM compatibility.

Sun Ming:

This goes back to the initial philosophical question: what unique value are you providing? If you believe that all products or services from the Web 2 era can be perfectly realized, enterprises can independently develop and achieve transparency, but in certain scenarios, there may be a demand for immutability, building a Layer 1 may not be feasible.

Liu Feng:

So you believe this will lead some enterprises to choose to build their own Layer 1?

Sun Ming:

Yes, different business scenarios mean that Web 3 does not completely replace Web 2 but provides some value that Web 2 cannot offer. The irreplaceable value is a continuous spectrum; some scenarios require complete trustlessness, while others only need transparency.

Liu Feng:

So does Ethereum's characteristic still hold appeal for some large commercial enterprises in the future? Can you give some examples of scenarios that require this characteristic?

Sun Ming:

In specific commercial scenarios, it is attractive, but immutability comes with its costs, and not all scenarios require it. For example, scenarios that need to maintain complete evidence of historical events or the trust issues between nations, especially between hostile parties. In these cases, merely seeing the ledger may not be enough; it must ensure that the ledger is immutable.

And trustlessness has a high cost, so not all business models need this feature. Ethereum provides this capability in scenarios that require complete trustlessness, but that does not mean it can take over all Web 2 business scenarios; that is unrealistic.

Liu Feng:

In this case, how should we view Ethereum? How can it truly attract such users?

Sun Ming:

Acquiring users is a business logic issue, but the Ethereum Foundation is not good at this. The role of the Ethereum Foundation is not to attract investment but to focus on developing what it wants.

Liu Feng:

This is also why we see companies like Etherealize emerging. Can you briefly introduce Etherealize? Have you invested in them?

Sun Ming:

I haven't invested in them; I just know a bit about them. The founder of Etherealize essentially does this because the Ethereum Foundation is not a commercial entity and does not understand how to attract investment. Other project foundations might do these things, while Etherealize focuses on how large institutions can enter the Ethereum ecosystem.

Liu Feng:

So Etherealize helps large institutions promote Ethereum and assists them in entering the Ethereum ecosystem.

Sun Ming:

In the products and services of large institutions, certain parts need to leverage the unique value provided by Ethereum. The early work of the Ethereum Alliance was also in this direction. At that time, large enterprises believed they could not directly use public chains, so they chose consortium chains. Later, it was proven that consortium chains were not particularly successful, but they still hold value in certain niche markets.

From today's perspective, the relationship between large institutions and public chains is no longer so distinctly separated; in fact, they can use public chains in certain ways, whether through Layer 2 or other means. Therefore, institutions like Ethereum Trust have started to promote public chains to large institutions instead of consortium chains.

Liu Feng:

This indicates that the Ethereum Foundation is beginning to realize this issue. Although it has historically not been an investment attraction organization, it is now starting to support third-party teams and extend an olive branch to large institutions.

Sun Ming:

Yes, the Ethereum Foundation has recognized this issue. Although it is not an investment attraction organization, some institutions have emerged in the market to fill this gap.

What is the Ethereum Foundation (EF) Doing? Why is it Criticized?

Liu Feng:

Taking this opportunity, could you introduce the positioning and role of the Ethereum Foundation (EF)? Over the past year or two, EF has been the target of criticism from many people. What exactly does EF do?

Sun Ming:

Yes, because there are no other institutions to criticize, EF has become a target. The voices of criticism are often related to price declines, but objectively speaking, the rise and fall of prices are not EF's problem.

The Ethereum Foundation is mainly responsible for researching and formulating the overall roadmap. Although there are some people internally responsible for coding, the main coding work is still done by third-party teams outside of EF, especially in terms of clients.

Liu Feng:

So, the work of EF is actually foundational research and strategic direction formulation, rather than directly achieving these goals.

Sun Ming:

Correct. It shares research results in an open-source manner with teams and individuals willing to join the Ethereum ecosystem. EF does not have the power to command anyone to do anything; its funding and moral appeal are its main methods. EF's governance model is relatively unique. It does not subsidize nodes, so it cannot control the behavior of developers or nodes.

However, this model has both advantages and disadvantages. Efficiency is relatively low, which is a problem. At the same time, over the past two years, people have criticized EF, believing it to be a bureaucratic organization. Your view is that because the price of the coin has performed poorly, they have become scapegoats. The bureaucratic issues mentioned in the criticism do exist to some extent. Any organization has bureaucracy, and EF is not particularly good at internal governance and management, leading to redundancy and bureaucratic phenomena.

Another issue is who can represent Ethereum externally. The community's misunderstanding of EF makes it seem like the only representative, while in reality, EF does not control anything. The community needs to recognize that EF is not the only representative; other third-party organizations are also playing a role.

Liu Feng:

In the past, EF played a significant role in formulating the roadmap, but the roadmap is always being adjusted, which gives the impression that there are some problems.

Sun Ming:

Adjustments to the technical roadmap are normal, and I believe EF has not made particularly large mistakes in this regard. For example, the development direction of Layer 2 and subsequent ZK technology is the right choice.

Liu Feng:

Some people criticize that EF has united some Ethereum enthusiasts, but in reality, they are profiting by leveraging EF's name.

Sun Ming:

This situation does exist and is related to EF's unclear positioning. The community needs to clarify EF's responsibilities to better identify which projects EF supports and which do not.

Liu Feng:

What institutions can now take over some of EF's functions?

Sun Ming:

Some institutions that work on clients are quite obvious, as well as organizations like Etherealize, which focus on commercial onboarding. EF is clarifying its positioning and responsibilities, and certain tasks that do not belong to EF should be undertaken by other institutions.

Jack:

If the number of participants in the Ethereum ecosystem increases, does it mean that the technical roadmap can also be discussed by more people?

Sun Ming:

This is a good governance question. There are no successful precedents for decentralized governance, and EF is exploring how to achieve better decentralized governance. One of EF's core tasks is to formulate the roadmap, but Vitalik's opinions also hold significant weight in this process.

Jack:

If large institutions on Wall Street want to compete for the technical direction of Ethereum, what would they do?

Sun Ming:

They might establish a second foundation similar to EF to formulate their own roadmap. If coordination fails, theoretically, they could choose to hard fork, but whether the forked project can gain consensus is a question.

Liu Feng:

This is actually a typical decentralized organization, but decision-making is still centralized; everyone looks to leaders like Vitalik.

Sun Ming:

In terms of formulating the roadmap, both Vitalik's personal charisma and community consensus are important foundations.

Is Layer 2 a Vampire?

Liu Feng:

We have been discussing the issues with the Ethereum Foundation, and now let's return to the Layer 2-centric scaling solution. This solution seems to have sparked quite a bit of controversy, with many people criticizing Layer 2 for "sucking" Ethereum. What do you think?

Sun Ming:

This criticism does exist; many people believe that Layer 2 has not paid enough "rent" to the Ethereum mainnet. This is indeed an objective issue; it cannot be said to be completely right or completely wrong.

The objective fact is that the rent paid by Layer 2 to the Ethereum mainnet is indeed very low, possibly below expectations. From Vitalik and EF's perspective, they do not want to charge too much rent, as this could affect the balance of the entire ecosystem.

Vitalik emphasizes the concept of public goods; he hopes to charge only a small fee for each transaction. However, the centralized sequencers of Layer 2 allow them to earn more profit. This has led to a problem of interest coordination between the Ethereum mainnet and Layer 2, which may be the biggest issue in the future.

The rent from the mainnet may not be as low as imagined, but the fees charged by Layer 2 are too high. EF's philosophy is to leave value for the end users, so Layer 2 should charge less.

The decentralization process of Layer 2 is also very long. I believe that Layer 2 cannot be completely decentralized; it may only become more centralized.

Liu Feng:

Does this mean that their sequencers are also not decentralized?

Sun Ming:

Only a small number of Layer 2s may move towards decentralization. This is a difficult problem to solve, and EF is also powerless.

Liu Feng:

Vitalik's philosophy is to hope that the mainnet does not charge too much, but in reality, the benefits have not flowed to the end users but are in the hands of Layer 2.

Sun Ming:

Moreover, the fee model of Layer 2 is also not transparent, and EF cannot control their behavior. Unless this issue is alleviated through competition among Layer 2s in the future, but this is not a panacea.

If all Layer 2s are classified as generic Rollups, there will indeed be a winner-takes-all situation. However, various different Layer 2s may emerge in the future, each with different business scenarios.

Liu Feng:

Ideally, the Layer 2 ecosystem could achieve coexistence of users and revenue and could feed back to the mainnet, but in reality, this situation seems to be non-existent.

Sun Ming:

I believe that in the future, there may be some completely centralized commercial companies operating these Layer 2s, like Base. However, if Ethereum can provide more technical options, it may alleviate the current problems, but ultimately it depends on market choices. But I have always believed that Ethereum is not strictly suitable for ordinary users.

Is the New Story of "Institution Adoption" Reliable?

Liu Feng:

Today, everyone is talking about the story of Ethereum, which is that Ethereum is actually more suitable for institutions, whether it is so-called RWA or other truly institutional use cases. Ethereum is the best settlement layer, which seems to be its new narrative today.

Sun Ming:

Yes, at least in the DeFi field, it still has some irreplaceable advantages because DeFi is indeed quite necessary.

Liu Feng:

Complete neutrality and complete immutability can really ensure the security of assets. I can see that when Etherealize promotes Ethereum to institutions, this is the term they like to use the most: "This is the safest chain besides Bitcoin, and it is truly a platform that can achieve decentralization and trustlessness." As you mentioned, Ethereum may not be suitable for retail small investors; its core focus should be on large institutions, especially financial institutions.

Back to the initial question, we initially liked Ethereum because it had great potential; it could be an attractive platform for many native developers, especially native users of cryptocurrencies. But according to its new narrative and logic, it seems we are returning to a world of appeasing Trump, which is quite contradictory, isn't it?

Sun Ming:

One can only say that this is a market choice because ordinary people will not sacrifice their interests for revolutionary ideals.

Liu Feng:

If I were to look again, I think the most attractive aspect of Ethereum, especially during the period from 2019 to 2021-2022, was the emergence of many particularly native DeFi attempts. That was a time of complete victory for Crypto natives.

According to the new narrative, it seems that Ethereum is no longer suitable for that kind of flourishing ecosystem, just like the reality of compromise.

Sun Ming:

I think the community has not yet found what the next step for DeFi should look like or what it should do. The institutional products and services are things that many people have already seen, and they feel more certain.

Liu Feng:

So how long do you think this current situation of aligning everything with institutions and boldly embracing Wall Street and politicians will last?

Sun Ming:

Maybe until Trump's term ends.

Jack:

I actually feel a bit emotional about this. When I saw Solana, it was considered by the market to be a potential Ethereum killer, and shortly after Trump took office, it changed its promotional banner to the American flag, branding itself as an American chain.

After Trump leaves office, this chain may still face some political challenges; won't it encounter political backlash?

Sun Ming:

It's not just him; almost everyone is doing this. Those who engage in politics will eventually face reckoning one day, including Trump's family itself.

However, in the short term, many people are indeed more willing to do this because of some real interests. This is a universal choice, and I think it's understandable, even rational.

The situation with Ethereum is a bit special. Are you choosing Ethereum or EF? Strictly speaking, no one can truly represent Ethereum. You will see many people in the Ethereum community moving in one direction, but there will definitely be another group moving in a different direction; there is no specific representative. The institutionalization is actually not closely related to EF; EF itself does not particularly focus on this; it is still concerned with its own roadmap.

Liu Feng:

Currently, I find that the situation is not as beautifully diverse as it seems; rather, Ethereum is also experiencing a situation where everyone is moving in one direction. Everyone is now celebrating the establishment of Ethereum's DAT company. People are cheering that companies like Etherealize no longer need to promote Ethereum to institutions, while on the other hand, everyone hopes that Ethereum will turn towards complete commercialization.

Lan Ling, is there anything else you particularly want to discuss, especially regarding the many criticisms, misunderstandings, and even attacks on Ethereum this week?

Sun Ming:

I think criticism is necessary, even if the criticism is wrong. Although I believe that much of the criticism from last year and the first half of this year came from the price decline, these issues fundamentally exist and will not disappear just because the price goes up. An increase in price does not necessarily mean that you are doing particularly well; it has nothing to do with that.

Liu Feng:

Do you think there have been changes in Ethereum's fundamentals?

Sun Ming:

I don't think there have been significant changes, but the price decline is certainly due to mainstream funds changing hands. This year is a phase of concentrated turnover, so this is actually not related to the Ethereum Foundation (EF).

Liu Feng:

First, it has nothing to do with EF, and secondly, there hasn't been much change in the fundamentals, right?

Sun Ming:

Yes, EF cannot influence the price at all. The power to dictate prices has long been in the hands of Wall Street; EF has no impact on prices. Although EF has many issues that need improvement, from another perspective, they have been exploring decentralized governance and have encountered many detours. The main protocol of Ethereum is constantly changing, with significant upgrades every year, which sharply contrasts with Bitcoin's stability. Bitcoin's main protocol changes very rarely, making governance choices relatively easy, while Ethereum requires regular major decisions, which is indeed challenging.

Jack:

You mentioned that Ethereum has been taken over by Wall Street. Do you think the mission of the Ethereum Foundation has ended?

Sun Ming:

Of course not; the mission of EF has nothing to do with Wall Street taking over. They still have their own technical roadmap to implement, and the price is not very important to them, although the price itself can bring external pressure.

EF has very limited control over things; they do not control the nodes, and the coins are not in their hands. Their power in the entire ecosystem is very small, so there is no need to mention EF too much.

Jack:

Is it possible that the Ethereum Foundation will become less important for the Ethereum ecosystem in the future?

Sun Ming:

It is possible in the future, but in the short term, it is still very important because they are responsible for formulating the roadmap. If one day Ethereum is considered to have evolved into a complete state, with no need for major changes, EF may not have much of a role. However, at the technical level, they still play a decisive role, as they ultimately determine the direction of the technical roadmap.

Jack:

Are you not worried that large institutions will take away this technical discourse power? I feel that this trend is developing.

Sun Ming:

If the technical roadmap is taken away, it is likely to lead to a fork, creating a new Ethereum chain. Large institutions on Wall Street actually do not have consensus internally; each company has its own technical roadmap.

Liu Feng:

I think the choice of the technical roadmap is relatively viewed from a commercial perspective. If everyone's interests are tied together, the significance of competing for discourse power is not particularly great. Of course, there will be some disputes, but it is more about mutual benefit.

Sun Ming:

Taking discourse power is actually meaningless; you can do whatever you want with your own roadmap without needing to care about how others see it.

Jack:

I ask this because Ethereum, as an asset, has already been recognized by Wall Street. They will want to find new narratives for their accumulated assets to drive up prices, etc. Will this affect the fundamentals?

Sun Ming:

This has little to do with the fundamentals. Just like if you accumulate a lot of Bitcoin, it won't affect the core team's dominance over Bitcoin.

Liu Feng:

The areas that may involve competition for interests are the formulation of the economic model and the impact of changes in the technical roadmap on the economic model. This situation may arise, but the governance characteristics of Ethereum do not rely on token voting; rather, the influence of developer choices and social consensus is greater.

Sun Ming:

This model cannot be said to be the best, but it is certainly an effective way at present. Other projects can choose different governance methods, and even extreme on-chain voting is a form of governance, although it may not be very effective.

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