Counting the "King of Sales" Vitalik's projects, behind it is a covert battle for Ethereum's "orthodoxy."

Author: Terry, Plain Language Blockchain

As one of the fastest monetizing fields, for ordinary retail investors deeply embedded in the Web3 world, the ability to timely follow various Alpha bloggers and KOLs' promotional tweets has almost become an essential skill for tracking the keys to wealth.

So, who is the most influential "promoter" in today's crypto world?

Although the following KOL promotional effect chart may not be rigorous, placing Vitalik Buterin in a unique position is indeed accurate— as the absolute decision-maker of the broader Ethereum ecosystem, Vitalik rarely directly "promotes," but every public and subtle endorsement he makes has a tremendous impact on the market.

A typical example is the recent surge of ENS due to Vitalik's comments, thus this article aims to review the projects/technical directions that Vitalik has historically "promoted," their development and current status, and attempt to summarize the underlying reasons and how they have influenced and shaped the Ethereum we see today.

Vitalik's Clear Preference for ENS

It is no exaggeration to say that Vitalik has a "preference" for ENS.

He publicly stated in an interview: "Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is the most successful non-financial Ethereum application to date."

As we all know, ENS, launched in 2017, stands for Ethereum Name Service, which is a distributed domain name service based on Ethereum. It allows any user to register an Ethereum domain ending with ".eth" through a unique bidding process for their Ethereum address.

In simple terms, ENS can map a long and hard-to-remember "0x-prefixed Ethereum address" to a custom short address, such as satoshi.eth, vitalik.eth, etc. This way, in wallets that support ENS, users no longer need to copy and paste long addresses; they can directly use the ENS domain to bind various cryptocurrency addresses and receive cryptocurrency payments.

Vitalik's Twitter account nickname has always been "vitalik.eth," effectively serving as a long-term free advertisement for ENS, also indicating his supportive stance towards ENS.

Since the beginning of this year, Vitalik has directly engaged several times to "promote," which has visibly stimulated the price trend of ENS in the secondary market:

First, on January 3, Vitalik retweeted ENS's layer 2 data resolution plan and posted, "All L2s should run on the CCIP resolver so that we can directly register, update, and read ENS subdomains on L2. ENS is very important; it needs to be affordable." Subsequently, ENS surged over 30% in just five minutes, breaking through 12 USDT.

Then, on May 21, Vitalik and ENS staged another dramatic "support" scenario— the cause was Vitalik's discussion with others about sorters & intentions, where he emphasized his views on cross-L2 standards/infrastructure, particularly highlighting three key changes: "Token transfers, ENS, and smart contract wallets (for individuals and organizations)."

We need an open decentralized protocol for quickly transferring assets from one L2 to another and integrating it into the default sending page of wallets. Key changes in token transfers, ENS, and smart contract wallets can be easily implemented on L1 but are very difficult on L2. Lightweight clients, basic reliability, and proof systems are also much safer/decentralized on L1 and far from sufficient on L2.

Overall, since January 3, ENS has risen from 8 USD to a peak of 30 USD, an increase of nearly 300%.

What Else Has Vitalik "Promoted"?

In addition to ENS, there is a long list of projects/technical directions that Vitalik has historically "promoted."

Plasma

First, there is Plasma, once Vitalik's most esteemed Ethereum scaling solution, which is now rarely mentioned, and most new users may not have heard of it.

In August 2017, Vitalik and Joseph Poon jointly released the initial concept of Plasma— a set of off-chain scaling solutions, essentially separating data and computation (excluding deposits, withdrawals, and Merkle roots) from the Ethereum main chain to execute off-chain, while periodically storing some key operational state data on the main chain to leverage the Ethereum main chain for final security.

However, since Plasma could not solve the data withholding problem and was not conducive to migrating contract states to L1, it was ultimately replaced by the new Ethereum scaling route represented by Rollup, which has now become the only mainstream option for Ethereum scaling.

It is worth noting that due to Rollup's extreme reliance on data availability on the main chain, and Plasma completely bypassing the data availability issue while significantly reducing transaction costs, interest in Plasma has begun to revive. At the end of last year, Vitalik Buterin published articles like "Exit games for EVM validiums: the return of Plasma," viewing Plasma as a method to enhance chain scalability using validity proofs like zkSync and StarkNet.

This has led to a renewed examination of Plasma's ability to minimize data availability constraints, and it is expected that Plasma may play an important role in enhancing Ethereum network performance in the future.

RAI

In the stablecoin field, Vitalik has specifically published his views on stablecoin design, believing they can essentially be divided into three different categories: centralized stablecoins, DAO-governed real-world asset-backed stablecoins, and governance-minimized cryptocurrency-backed stablecoins.

The first two are represented by USDT/USDC and DAI, while he detailed the model of RAI for the third category, believing that RAI avoids all ties to non-cryptocurrency financial systems, making it harder to attack.

Subsequently, Vitalik expressed his belief that the rise of RAI could address the issues of Lido's dominance in the LSD ecosystem, stating, "RAI's radical governance may not need to go all the way down; if the RAI community takes more active governance to support staking ETH and intentionally only accepts non-dominant forms of staking ETH, that would be enough."

However, as of the time of writing, on-chain data shows that RAI's total supply is only 1.65 million, making its share in the stablecoin market almost negligible.

SIWE, POAP, SBT

In the Web3 world, how do you prove what kind of person you are?

Vitalik has stated that ENS and similar services help build an ecosystem around identity because "blockchain applications for identity are valuable due to their independence from institutions." Besides ENS, SIWE, POAP, and SBT are also seen by Vitalik as key components for constructing an on-chain identity system:

Sign In With Ethereum (SIWE) standard allows Web3 users to log into (traditional) websites based on on-chain accounts;

POAP is used to issue tokens representing proof;

Especially through the article "Decentralized Society: Finding the Soul of Web3," Vitalik has gradually brought soulbound tokens (SBT) into more people's view, increasingly becoming the actual carrier of Web3 digital identity— SBT can further provide proof of results while analyzing on-chain traces and recording participation processes, while possessing permanent and non-transferable token attributes, laying the foundation for building a complete one-to-one Web3 identity system.

From this perspective, the essence of soulbound tokens (SBT) is to establish a native Web3 identity system for every Web3 user from scratch, enabling a broader expansion of Web3 into diverse new application scenarios beyond DeFi and NFTs based on this identity system.

However, with the ebbing of the Web3 social wave, SBT currently serves merely as a representative credential for decentralized identity and has yet to see large-scale on-chain adoption.

DVT

On December 28, 2023, Vitalik published an article discussing how to handle the enormous number of signature loads in the Ethereum network without sacrificing decentralization, mentioning a corresponding solution, which is to use DVT (Distributed Validator Technology) to build decentralized staking pools.

Since DVT allows multiple nodes to act as a single Ethereum PoS validator, it can significantly enhance security and decentralization. In November 2023, Lido actually began trialing the DVT solution to achieve a so-called distributed validator network— supported by Obol Network and SSV Network.

Loopring / Taiko

As one of the early representative projects of Rollup solutions, Vitalik has publicly praised Loopring's solution multiple times, for example, recognizing the Loopring protocol in discussions related to trading performance, stating that combined with sharding, horizontal scaling solutions would divide the Ethereum network into thousands of "islands," theoretically achieving a transaction performance of 160,000 transactions per second.

Recently, Taiko, which has deep ties with Loopring and just launched its mainnet, also received recognition from Vitalik— on May 25, Vitalik Buterin, as a block proposer, promoted the first block on the Taiko mainnet, stating in the block's comment:

"I’m excited to see that Taiko is launching as a based rollup. Ethereum benefits from L2s taking a plurality of different approaches, and I appreciate them being among the first to go in this direction."

Farcaster

In September 2023, Vitalik's X account was hacked, posting a phishing link for a free ConsenSys commemorative NFT related to Proto Danksharding, resulting in user losses exceeding $690,000.

Subsequently, Vitalik stated on the decentralized social media platform Farcaster that his Twitter account had indeed been subjected to a SIM card hijacking attack, possibly due to exposing his phone number while registering for Twitter Blue, and also mentioned that he had uninstalled Twitter and joined Farcaster, where accounts can be recovered via Ethereum addresses.

As of the time of writing, it appears that Vitalik has indeed made Farcaster his main social media platform— having posted over 10 posts on Farcaster in the past week, while not a single post on X, with the latest being a reply to an old post from June 11.

The Underlying Battle for Ethereum's "Orthodoxy" Behind Promotion

Returning to the core issue, as a super public figure whose every word and action has a significant impact on the broader Ethereum ecosystem and the entire Web3 world, what considerations lie behind Vitalik's public "promotions"?

The reason is largely to maintain Ethereum's "orthodoxy," or to ensure that Ethereum's development does not deviate or lose momentum, and to strive to outline an ideal future— a blueprint for Ethereum's further decentralization and achieving mass adoption.

From the ENS, Plasma, and Taiko mentioned above, we can clearly see a main thread of maintaining Ethereum's DA orthodoxy:

First, the ENS L2 data resolution plan that Vitalik actively promotes requires that ENS services expanded to various L2 networks must adopt orthodox Ethereum DA, meaning that DA must be placed on the Ethereum mainnet, thereby excluding L2s that choose third-party DA platforms like Celestia.

Since ENS is a key component in building the Ethereum identity system, when the broader Ethereum ecosystem achieves mass adoption and influx of traffic in the future, it will be an indispensable non-financial application and infrastructure for L2s.

Establishing the standard that "if L2 wants to deploy ENS, it must place DA on the Ethereum mainnet" further increases the opportunity cost for L2s choosing third-party DA, compelling them to carefully consider who has the higher overall cost.

The intention behind Plasma is undoubtedly more apparent— in the context of the DA war, it completely bypasses the data availability issue, significantly reducing transaction costs, especially by combining Plasma with ZK zero-knowledge proofs, which just proves the validity of Plasma blocks on the main chain, alleviating reliance on exit mechanisms.

Finally, Taiko, as the first project to land as a Based Rollup, has its core highlight in achieving Rollup scaling through L1 ordering— delegating sorting power (and derived sorting, MEV, etc. income) to L1, meaning that all sorting and security are provided by Ethereum L1, further enhancing the economic attractiveness and competitiveness of the Ethereum mainnet.

Every public action has legitimate or illegitimate (private or public) interests associated with it, and Ethereum and Vitalik are no exception. Even at the early signs of the third-party DA debate sparked by Celestia, it was evident that Vitalik has extensive experience in struggles.

An interesting analogy in the article "On Vitalik and the Impact of Various Roadmaps on Ethereum's Governance Process" is that Vitalik actually plays a substantive "CTO" role in the Ethereum ecosystem, steering the Ethereum ship to stay on course:

Responsible for guiding Ethereum's development process and aligning with the planning direction of various "roadmaps," even having the power to make final decisions on whether the development direction aligns with Ethereum's vision (regardless of whether he intends to be so "autocratic").

From this perspective, no matter how people usually tease the differences between Vitalik and Satoshi as the two major founders of cryptocurrencies/ecosystems, at least Vitalik is a very competent project founder— striving to maintain Ethereum's orthodoxy and always firmly steering the Ethereum ship in the direction he (and some key figures) deems appropriate, ensuring it does not deviate or lose momentum in the competition among public chains.

Conclusion

Vitalik is human, not a god; from this perspective, all issues can clearly reveal the answers behind them.

For us ordinary users, it is enough to remember that Vitalik's various studies on Ethereum often contain the potential to lead new trends, allowing us to keenly sense the main battleground for future financial struggles that may be hidden within.