Vitalik's new article: It's time to "align" the entire Ethereum ecosystem

Original Title: Making Ethereum alignment legible

Author: Vitalik

Compiled by: Scof, ChainCatcher

In the Ethereum ecosystem, balance is one of the most important governance challenges— or more accurately, it is about integrating decentralization and collaboration. The strength of this ecosystem lies in the wide array of individuals and organizations—client teams, researchers, layer two network teams, application developers, local community groups—who are all working towards their respective visions of what Ethereum could become. The main challenge is to ensure that all projects collectively build an Ethereum ecosystem, rather than 138 incompatible territories.

To address this challenge, many in the Ethereum ecosystem have proposed the concept of "Ethereum alignment." This may include value alignment (e.g., open source, minimizing centralization, supporting public goods), technical alignment (e.g., collaborating with standards across the ecosystem), and economic alignment (e.g., using ETH as a token where possible). However, this concept has historically been poorly defined, leading to the risk of social control: if alignment means having the right friends, then "alignment" as a concept fails.

To tackle this issue, I believe we should make the concept of alignment clearer by breaking it down into specific attributes that can be represented by specific metrics. Everyone's list will differ, and the metrics will inevitably change over time. However, I think we already have some solid starting points.

• Open Source - This is valuable for two reasons: (i) the code can be audited for security, and more importantly (ii) it reduces the risk of proprietary lock-in and allows third parties to improve it without permission. Not every part of every application needs to be fully open source, but the core infrastructure components that the ecosystem relies on absolutely should be. The gold standard here is the FSF definition of free software and the OSI definition of open source.

• Open Standards - Strive for interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem and build on open standards, whether they are existing (e.g., ERC-20, ERC-1271…) or in development (e.g., account abstraction, cross-L2 transfers, L1 and L2 light client proofs, upcoming address format standards). If you want to introduce a new feature and existing standards do not serve well, collaborate with others to write a new ERC. Applications and wallets can be rated based on the number of ERCs they are compatible with.

• Decentralization and Security - Avoid trust points, minimize censorship vulnerabilities, and reduce reliance on centralized infrastructure. Natural metrics are (i) The walkaway test: if your team and servers disappeared tomorrow, would your application still work? and (ii) Internal attack testing: if your team itself attempted to attack the system, how much damage would it cause? An important formalization is the L2beat aggregation phase. *

  Positive Sum

• Facing Ethereum - The success of a project should benefit the entire Ethereum community (e.g., ETH holders, Ethereum users), even if they are not part of the project's own ecosystem. Specific examples include using ETH as a token (thereby contributing to its network effects), contributions to open-source technology, and commitments to donate a certain percentage of tokens or revenue to public goods in the Ethereum ecosystem.

• Facing the Wider World - Ethereum aims to make the world a freer and more open place, realizing new forms of ownership and collaboration, and making a positive contribution to the significant challenges humanity faces. Does your project achieve this? Examples include applications that bring sustainable value to a broader audience (e.g., financial inclusion), donating a certain percentage to public goods outside of Ethereum, and building technologies with utility beyond cryptocurrency (e.g., financing mechanisms, general-purpose computer security) that are actually used in those environments.

Ethereum node map, source ethernodes.org

Clearly, the above standards do not apply to every project. For layer two networks (L2s), wallets, decentralized social media applications, etc., the applicable metrics will vary greatly. Different metrics may also change in priority: two years ago, it was acceptable for Rollups to use "training wheels" since they were still in the "early stages"; today, we need to reach at least the first stage as soon as possible. Nowadays, the most obvious positive sum metric is the commitment to donate a certain percentage of tokens, and more and more projects are doing this; in the future, we may also find other clear metrics that define positive sum aspects.

My ideal goal is to see more entities like L2beat emerge to track how various projects are doing in meeting the above standards and other community-proposed standards. Projects should not compete to befriend the right people, but should compete to remain aligned as much as possible based on clear and understandable standards. The Ethereum Foundation should maintain a certain distance in this regard: we fund L2beat, but we should not become L2beat. Creating the next L2beat is itself a permissionless process.

This will also provide a clearer pathway for the Ethereum Foundation and other organizations (and individuals) that wish to support and participate in the ecosystem while remaining neutral to decide which projects to support and use. Each organization and individual can determine which standards they care about most based on their own judgment and choose projects partly based on which ones best meet those standards. This makes it easier for the Ethereum Foundation and everyone else to be part of the incentives that drive projects towards greater alignment.

Only by clarifying the definition of "merit" can elite governance be achieved; otherwise, you will have a (potentially exclusive and zero-sum) social game. For concerns about "who watches the watchers," the best solution is not to pin all hopes on ensuring that all influential people are angels, but rather through decentralization and other time-tested techniques. "Dashboard organizations" like L2beat, block explorers, and other ecosystem monitors are excellent examples of this principle at work in today's Ethereum ecosystem. If we can do more to clarify the different aspects of alignment while not concentrating on a single "watcher," we can make this concept more effective, as well as fair and inclusive, just as the Ethereum ecosystem strives for.