The Epilogue

[00:00:17] Hello and welcome back to the Strange Water Podcast.

[00:00:21] Thank you for joining us for the last time.

[00:00:25] Six years ago, I left my job at Anheuser-Busch InBev,

[00:00:29] unsure of where I was going,

[00:00:31] but sure that I did not fit into the corporate world.

[00:00:35] For a long time, I was truly adrift in Strange Waters.

[00:00:40] That is until May 2021, when I heard Hayden Adams

[00:00:44] explain Uniswap and Ethereum on the Bloomberg Odlots podcast.

[00:00:49] Since that day, I've been captured.

[00:00:53] Although it took a couple of years,

[00:00:54] I eventually realized that this was not a fluke,

[00:00:58] that podcasts have a special power.

[00:01:02] Last year, I started my very own podcast, this one.

[00:01:06] For me, Strange Water has become so much more

[00:01:09] than just a podcast.

[00:01:11] It is by far the most important way that I stay ahead

[00:01:15] of the deluge of research and ideas

[00:01:18] that come out of this ecosystem.

[00:01:20] Over the last year, Strange Water has become

[00:01:23] my professional identity in this space.

[00:01:27] And so I could not be more thrilled to announce

[00:01:31] that the Strange Water Podcast

[00:01:33] is being acquired by BlockWorks.

[00:01:36] Although this news comes with the sad announcement

[00:01:38] that we will be sunsetting Strange Water,

[00:01:42] it is far overshadowed by the incredibly exciting launch

[00:01:46] of the Expansion Podcast.

[00:01:49] Expansion will be everything Strange Water was and more,

[00:01:53] backed by an incredible co-host, NoSleepJohn,

[00:01:56] and the formidable brand, resources,

[00:01:59] and experience of BlockWorks.

[00:02:02] I couldn't be more excited to join BlockWorks.

[00:02:05] I had the incredible fortune to visit the offices

[00:02:08] and meet the team over the last few months,

[00:02:12] and I was absolutely floored.

[00:02:14] There are few moments in life when you walk into a room

[00:02:17] and you realize that you're the dumbest person

[00:02:20] in the room.

[00:02:21] Those are the moments that you should chase,

[00:02:24] because those are the moments

[00:02:26] that you found the right room to be in.

[00:02:28] And that's what I experience being at BlockWorks.

[00:02:32] Today we have our final episode of Strange Water,

[00:02:36] a lovely transition into a very exciting journey.

[00:02:40] And I'm excited to be here with the co-founders

[00:02:43] of BlockWorks, Mike Ippolito and Jason Yannowitz.

[00:02:48] Thank you, Mike and Jason for everything you've built

[00:02:51] and for everything that you've done for me

[00:02:54] and for Strange Water.

[00:02:55] I could not be more excited for this next chapter.

[00:02:59] And so for the last time,

[00:03:01] let's get started with Strange Water.

[00:03:09] Expansion was kickstarted by a grant

[00:03:10] from the Celestia Foundation.

[00:03:12] Nothing said on Expansion is a recommendation

[00:03:14] to buy or sell securities or tokens.

[00:03:17] This podcast is for informational purposes only

[00:03:19] and any views expressed by anyone on the show

[00:03:22] are solely our opinions, not financial advice.

[00:03:25] Rex, John and our guests may hold positions

[00:03:28] in the company's funds or projects discussed.

[00:03:37] All right everyone, welcome back to another,

[00:03:39] this is a special episode actually.

[00:03:41] This is a mashup of Bell Curve and Empire

[00:03:45] and we've got a special announcement for everyone today

[00:03:47] because we're formally welcoming the newest member

[00:03:50] to the BlockWorks podcast, drum roll please,

[00:03:52] blah, blah, blah, blah, ASMR Expansion.

[00:03:56] This is our newest podcast,

[00:03:58] focused on the module ecosystem.

[00:03:59] It's hosted by Rex, Rex Gershwin and NoSleepJohn.

[00:04:03] Fellas, welcome, welcome.

[00:04:05] Awesome man, thank you.

[00:04:07] That was a beautiful,

[00:04:08] well, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:04:11] You know we have like, we'll do that now for us.

[00:04:13] Would you believe it that I ad-libbed all that?

[00:04:15] Yeah.

[00:04:16] I did like,

[00:04:17] I think you got with Expansion,

[00:04:19] you get sound effects, you get thought out introductions.

[00:04:22] It's the worst.

[00:04:23] Exactly.

[00:04:24] Full nine yards here.

[00:04:26] Full nine yards.

[00:04:27] All right guys, so yeah,

[00:04:28] maybe I could put the two of you on the spot.

[00:04:31] Maybe NoSleep, if you wanna give us

[00:04:32] like a little bit of an overview

[00:04:34] of what the Expansion pod is.

[00:04:37] Yeah, so like Expansion is gonna be a podcast

[00:04:41] on the modular ecosystem.

[00:04:43] So we're talking about like modular blockchains,

[00:04:46] Celestia, anything in that vein.

[00:04:49] I don't know if you guys see in like modular expansion

[00:04:51] on Twitter or X these days,

[00:04:54] modular expansion is like this idea of this design choice

[00:04:59] of building blockchains and crypto with different modules

[00:05:02] and combining them with different pieces together

[00:05:06] to build something way better.

[00:05:08] So there's gonna be like unique roll-ups and products

[00:05:11] launching super fast with the modular stack

[00:05:13] and there's this opening for a modular focused podcast

[00:05:17] and that's what Expansion is.

[00:05:18] There's a lot of leaders and thought leaders

[00:05:20] in the modular ecosystem that we wanna elevate.

[00:05:23] We don't wanna do another academic podcast.

[00:05:25] We don't wanna do another podcast

[00:05:26] like rehashing the data availability problem.

[00:05:29] So we want something that can elevate builders

[00:05:31] while introducing like a new idea

[00:05:33] to people on the podcast.

[00:05:37] Yeah, awesome.

[00:05:38] And I think like from my perspective,

[00:05:39] especially as like behind the scenes here a little bit

[00:05:42] we've like thought forward a lot of episodes

[00:05:45] and done a lot of research already.

[00:05:47] It is just becoming so clear to me

[00:05:49] that the end game of all blockchains

[00:05:52] looks like a lot more similar than it does different.

[00:05:55] And so I think like it's a really cool opportunity

[00:05:58] to be able to tell the story of like

[00:06:00] what is blockchain?

[00:06:01] What's the purpose?

[00:06:02] What do these architectures look like?

[00:06:04] But through the lens of like this specific path

[00:06:06] which is, you know, the modular path

[00:06:08] let's like create as many Lego pieces as possible

[00:06:11] and let people build as opposed to

[00:06:14] the more monolithic or I guess if you're on that team

[00:06:16] we're calling it integrated now

[00:06:18] but that path of like let's maximize the capabilities

[00:06:21] and then let's figure out how to make it

[00:06:24] more modular after.

[00:06:27] Again, I see these things as like the same result

[00:06:30] but there's so much about like the story to get there

[00:06:34] and the modular story that

[00:06:36] is gonna provide a lot of awesome content.

[00:06:39] Yeah, I think the thing that's cool about

[00:06:42] this particular moment in time in crypto

[00:06:45] when you look at these different architectures is,

[00:06:48] you know, modular is like a very,

[00:06:49] it's just the design choice and philosophy.

[00:06:52] And, you know, No Sleep, I know you mentioned

[00:06:54] that it's sort of associated with Celestia

[00:06:56] which it was in my mind as well

[00:06:59] but also is much broader than that.

[00:07:00] Like you can look out into different egos

[00:07:03] like the Ethereum, you know,

[00:07:05] sort of modular ETH roll up scale

[00:07:08] is a great example of that.

[00:07:10] Now you've got Bitcoin L2s.

[00:07:12] You've got even down to some of the work

[00:07:13] that George Os is doing with Wreath

[00:07:15] like the very clients themselves.

[00:07:17] You're starting to build in these sorts of,

[00:07:18] you know, interchangeable modules

[00:07:20] and it's really bigger than any one ecosystem,

[00:07:24] I would say.

[00:07:24] And I think it also is very cool because

[00:07:28] I know Jason, you were actually the one

[00:07:29] that called my attention to this

[00:07:30] but you guys might be interested to know

[00:07:32] that modular versus integrated was a debate

[00:07:35] that they had in the internet back in the day.

[00:07:37] And it's actually very cool that this sort of moment

[00:07:41] in time when people are considering these different ways

[00:07:43] of building blockchains actually rhymes

[00:07:45] with the way that they built

[00:07:47] the underlying infrastructure for the internet

[00:07:49] which I find fascinating, yeah.

[00:07:54] No, it's funny that you mentioned

[00:07:55] that modular is bigger than Celestia

[00:07:57] because when Rex told me

[00:07:59] that when he first joined this podcast

[00:08:01] like starting this project,

[00:08:03] he was under the impression that Ethereum was modular

[00:08:06] and like he didn't really know about Celestia yet.

[00:08:10] So it's pretty funny that you mentioned that.

[00:08:11] Okay, let me rephrase that.

[00:08:16] Jump in Rex.

[00:08:18] No man.

[00:08:21] Look, I think that what Celestia is doing

[00:08:23] is really incredible and I agree with everyone

[00:08:27] that Celestia has created a modular meme

[00:08:30] on which a lot of energy is moving towards

[00:08:33] and I think that's totally awesome.

[00:08:35] But for me when I heard modular,

[00:08:37] this brought me back to cards on the table,

[00:08:40] I'm class of 2021, right?

[00:08:42] This brought me back to a bankless episode

[00:08:44] that I heard while I was still being like crypto-pilled

[00:08:47] where Ryan and just, sorry, Ryan and...

[00:08:53] David.

[00:08:54] David, woo!

[00:08:56] You can see how out of practice I am

[00:08:57] but Ryan and David were talking about

[00:09:00] basically Solana versus Ethereum

[00:09:02] in this monolithic versus modular

[00:09:04] and how I understood in 2021 what modular meant

[00:09:08] was okay, we're realizing that in order to scale Ethereum,

[00:09:12] one option is just to increase the computing capabilities.

[00:09:16] This is the same as the block wars of Bitcoin

[00:09:19] or instead of rerunning that entire conflict

[00:09:22] and the entire play, let's look for opportunities

[00:09:24] to take things out of the core decentralized protocol

[00:09:28] that don't need to be decentralized and trustless

[00:09:30] and let's build modules that give us back that capability

[00:09:34] but without putting all the onus on this

[00:09:38] hopefully super decentralized low powered computing network

[00:09:41] and so that's always the frame

[00:09:43] that I've understood modular to be

[00:09:45] which is we understand what we're trying to do

[00:09:48] at blockchain, we are trying to create

[00:09:50] a credibly neutral space upon which we can build identity

[00:09:53] and property but the way to get there is

[00:09:57] you can make the space just as performant as possible,

[00:09:59] you can make this space dynamic and modular

[00:10:02] and maybe siloed so people can do different experiments.

[00:10:05] There's all sorts of different ways

[00:10:07] and for me modular, yes maybe back then

[00:10:11] was attributed to Ethereum,

[00:10:12] these days it's attributed to Celestia

[00:10:14] and next cycle will be attributed to

[00:10:18] whatever crazy company takes center stage

[00:10:21] but for me exactly to your point Mike

[00:10:23] and I guess your point before that which is

[00:10:27] this is not a blockchain conversation,

[00:10:30] this is a computer science conversation

[00:10:32] and always phase one is build a system

[00:10:36] and phase two is how do we modularize it

[00:10:39] so that different people can work

[00:10:41] on different parts of the stack.

[00:10:43] I actually come at it from a different angle,

[00:10:45] modular I think it's like a design principle

[00:10:48] like Rex said it's a way of building

[00:10:50] using smaller pieces or modules

[00:10:53] but I think in crypto especially

[00:10:54] it's becoming something bigger,

[00:10:56] it's almost like a cultural movement,

[00:10:58] it's becoming synonymous with Celestia

[00:11:00] and this way of design, it's like a way of thinking,

[00:11:04] modular is becoming almost like a noun,

[00:11:06] it's like a culture and ecosystem,

[00:11:08] it's a new form of collaboration

[00:11:10] across the blockchain stack,

[00:11:11] it's accelerating experimentation use cases,

[00:11:15] it's an avenue for app developers

[00:11:17] to achieve sovereignty on the entire blockchain stack

[00:11:21] and it's growing really fast so expansion is the idea.

[00:11:25] No sleep in Rex have you guys ever dug into the

[00:11:28] 1990s the pre crypto stuff

[00:11:31] the monolithic versus modular debates

[00:11:33] as the web was getting created

[00:11:35] in the Netscape Mark Andreessen days?

[00:11:38] I mean what's funny is that

[00:11:39] I'm very familiar with the 90s histories of the internet

[00:11:43] and that specific frame wasn't on my radar

[00:11:47] until this conversation

[00:11:48] and now that we're talking about it makes a lot of sense.

[00:11:51] I will say that just like my degree

[00:11:53] was in computer science and literally the first class

[00:11:58] is about how object oriented programming

[00:12:02] and that is essentially we need to program modularly

[00:12:06] and not just all in one code dump.

[00:12:10] And so again, John I hear what you're saying

[00:12:13] and I do believe that a movement is building

[00:12:17] on top of these very basic

[00:12:18] computer science design principles

[00:12:20] but to me this is just like we're talking,

[00:12:24] okay what's the right way to build a car?

[00:12:27] Oh you use assembly line

[00:12:28] like that's what modular means to me.

[00:12:30] Yeah I actually if you go back and read from the 90s

[00:12:33] it's you're both, I think both of your right

[00:12:36] there's a technical decision

[00:12:37] and then there was also like

[00:12:40] I couldn't agree with no sleep more

[00:12:41] like it was a religious movement.

[00:12:43] Like if you look at it to like the monolithic arguments

[00:12:46] in the 90s it was like early ARPANET protocols

[00:12:49] like NCP like the web applications were all built

[00:12:52] in this like monolithic way

[00:12:54] and then like the integrated development environments

[00:12:57] like the IDEs like that was like one frame of belief.

[00:13:00] It was like the same people who believe

[00:13:01] that like AOL would create

[00:13:03] maybe 10 years later like the people who believe

[00:13:05] that AOL could create this beautiful walled garden

[00:13:08] and that was totally fine

[00:13:09] and then there was like the modular examples

[00:13:12] would be like TCPIP worldwide web

[00:13:14] which was like HTML and HTTP and the browser

[00:13:18] and then like on the architecture side

[00:13:20] like the microservices

[00:13:21] and I think tech from a tech perspective that went out

[00:13:24] from a religious and like cult like movement

[00:13:27] that also went out.

[00:13:28] So I think it'll be interesting to see

[00:13:30] how you guys explore

[00:13:31] in tying it all back to this podcast

[00:13:33] like there's a tech argument here

[00:13:35] and then there's like a cultural argument here as well.

[00:13:38] Yeah, especially in like crypto

[00:13:39] where everything is a cult

[00:13:40] every single blockchain ecosystem is a cult

[00:13:42] like Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum

[00:13:45] like everything's a cult really.

[00:13:46] So everybody's up to like last year

[00:13:50] has been like very focused on this monolithic way

[00:13:53] of thinking for building blockchains

[00:13:55] and there's like a small pocket of Cosmos people

[00:13:57] that have been ahead

[00:13:58] like four years ahead of their time with AppChain

[00:14:01] and super modular blockchain stack

[00:14:03] at like Cosmos SDK

[00:14:05] but only recently did it really break

[00:14:06] into the mainstream of crypto thought

[00:14:08] with like this rebrand of AppChains

[00:14:11] into the modular and sovereignty

[00:14:13] like these different principles here.

[00:14:15] So yeah, like this way of thinking

[00:14:17] is something that we're gonna explore on the podcast.

[00:14:19] Very excited about it.

[00:14:21] I think the way that the technical architecture

[00:14:25] of these blockchains and the religious fervor

[00:14:29] that like builds around them, they're related

[00:14:30] because it's a very small number of people

[00:14:33] in the world that actually do understand

[00:14:35] these technical trade-offs

[00:14:36] but because of the way that blockchains work with forks

[00:14:40] you need a lot of people to buy

[00:14:42] into one particular architecture.

[00:14:44] And so you tend to get these arguments

[00:14:47] that stem from very specific technical trade-offs

[00:14:51] that evolve into these broad, this like,

[00:14:55] it's like modular integrated

[00:14:57] or it's big blocks or small blocks

[00:14:58] and that it becomes this like religious sort of movement

[00:15:02] when it's actually we're really arguing

[00:15:04] about something very specific here.

[00:15:07] And I think basically almost every big argument

[00:15:10] in blockchain you can trace back to the block size war.

[00:15:14] Like we've spent all the time

[00:15:16] that we've spent building infrastructure

[00:15:17] has been solving the fundamental trade-off

[00:15:20] that the big versus small block scaling approaches

[00:15:23] have introduced.

[00:15:24] So yeah, I think getting into that

[00:15:26] and teasing that apart on this podcast

[00:15:28] is gonna be super interesting.

[00:15:31] And to that end, I think if you fast forward

[00:15:35] the clock from 2017 when the block size war was occurring

[00:15:39] the tech looks really different now

[00:15:41] than it did back then, right?

[00:15:42] Like the early trade-offs of the block size war

[00:15:47] were really rough and like Bitcoin cash

[00:15:51] was kind of just like,

[00:15:52] hey, what if we just made these blocks way bigger

[00:15:54] with no way to obviate any of the negative trade-offs

[00:15:57] there.

[00:15:58] We have a lot of stuff that we didn't have back then.

[00:16:00] We have things like data availability sampling, right?

[00:16:03] We've got zero knowledge like ZK tech.

[00:16:06] We've got frankly like roll-ups

[00:16:07] where a zero to one innovation

[00:16:09] in terms of extending security

[00:16:11] from across different types of blockchains.

[00:16:14] So maybe we could get into some of the,

[00:16:17] I think this technical and cultural argument

[00:16:21] is gonna be something that we're gonna dig into

[00:16:22] and explore on the podcast.

[00:16:23] But what are some of these sort of sectors

[00:16:29] or tech changes that have impacted the world of modular

[00:16:33] over the last couple of years

[00:16:33] and like, what are we gonna,

[00:16:34] give us a little bit of a flavor

[00:16:35] of what we're gonna be digging into on the pod

[00:16:37] in that firm.

[00:16:38] Well, Mike, I'm a little concerned

[00:16:40] about having this conversation

[00:16:42] because I don't think I can afford the royalty fees

[00:16:44] required to talk about cryptography.

[00:16:49] Yes, shots fired, shots fired, Dex.

[00:16:54] The ZK trademark, yeah, we're not gonna,

[00:16:57] gotta be careful with that.

[00:16:58] Yeah, okay.

[00:16:59] So we'll settle up afterwards.

[00:17:03] But yeah, I do think, look like,

[00:17:06] one just to like, to draw like the,

[00:17:09] put a bow on the point about the block size wars.

[00:17:12] It was either today or yesterday,

[00:17:14] Vitalik just wrote a blog post on,

[00:17:16] like reflecting on the block size wars.

[00:17:18] And it's like pretty interesting to read that

[00:17:21] and from Vitalik Buterin,

[00:17:23] like one of our, you know,

[00:17:25] like one of the few guys

[00:17:26] who could understand any of this.

[00:17:28] And that is like a treatise on like,

[00:17:31] basically giant egos and community dynamics

[00:17:34] and like things that are really unrelated to

[00:17:37] like the underlying technical reasons.

[00:17:39] And I think that, you know,

[00:17:42] there's something like pretty profound in that

[00:17:44] and that like, you can argue

[00:17:47] until you're blue in the face all day

[00:17:49] about like the technology stuff.

[00:17:51] And like, that's not really what is like driving

[00:17:53] what's happening in this industry.

[00:17:55] And especially like when you look back in retrospect,

[00:17:57] there's just like so much more happening off chain

[00:18:00] than on that that's like where your attention needs to be.

[00:18:04] And by the way, like the reason in my opinion,

[00:18:06] the reason the modular internet won out over

[00:18:08] like the monolithic internet is like, it's super simple.

[00:18:11] Like one is explicitly saying we are inclusive,

[00:18:15] come build on us, come add to us.

[00:18:17] And the other one's saying, come pay,

[00:18:19] come pay to use it.

[00:18:21] And so like the one that just says like,

[00:18:23] hey, not only can you use this,

[00:18:25] but like you can create your own fortune off it.

[00:18:27] Like that's just gonna win in the longterm.

[00:18:30] Rex, could I poke at that though?

[00:18:31] Because-

[00:18:32] Yeah, for sure.

[00:18:33] If you actually look at the way

[00:18:34] that the internet looks today,

[00:18:36] it actually does look a little bit more monolithic

[00:18:38] in terms of the entities that ended up winning out.

[00:18:41] It is Google and it's Facebook and it's Amazon

[00:18:45] and it is these sort of web giants that have taken...

[00:18:49] This reminds me of that quote

[00:18:50] that all of business is just bundling

[00:18:52] and unbundling over and over again.

[00:18:54] And it kind of stood out as this Cambrian explosion

[00:18:59] of these open protocols

[00:19:00] that there were tons of different websites

[00:19:02] and innovation and now it's kind of like re-monolithicized

[00:19:07] over time, if that's a word.

[00:19:09] So I don't know, what would you say to that?

[00:19:12] I take your point,

[00:19:13] especially like at the business slash application layer

[00:19:15] of the internet.

[00:19:17] I don't think we're anywhere near that

[00:19:19] in terms of our analogy in blockchain.

[00:19:20] And like, let me throw this back at you

[00:19:22] where it's like,

[00:19:24] do I think the internet is decentralized?

[00:19:25] Yes.

[00:19:26] And why is that?

[00:19:27] Because I think there's one way

[00:19:28] to measure decentralization.

[00:19:30] Is there any one man, woman

[00:19:33] or entity on this planet

[00:19:34] that can decide that they don't want something

[00:19:37] to exist on that platform and then make it happen.

[00:19:40] And so like, yeah, you can get things de-indexed

[00:19:42] from Google.

[00:19:43] Like, yeah, you can maybe like get registrars

[00:19:45] to not host like specific websites or something.

[00:19:49] But like based on the incredibly horrifying shit

[00:19:54] that you can find on the dark web,

[00:19:55] like yeah, the internet's decentralized.

[00:19:57] And like, that's kind of what I'm gesturing too.

[00:20:02] Well said man.

[00:20:04] I think that's actually a really strong litmus test

[00:20:06] for decentralization.

[00:20:08] And one of the things that I'd maybe

[00:20:11] to be a little bit selfish about

[00:20:12] and talk about why BlockWorks is really excited

[00:20:15] about this podcast,

[00:20:16] like putting on my BlockWorks hat is like,

[00:20:17] it's honestly, it's a combination of,

[00:20:20] in a way there's a,

[00:20:22] this is the most interesting cultural

[00:20:24] and technical argument

[00:20:26] that's happening in crypto right now.

[00:20:28] So like here's like putting on my BlockWorks selfish hat.

[00:20:30] BlockWorks looks for parts of crypto

[00:20:33] that like on underserved audiences.

[00:20:36] And when you look at something like modular,

[00:20:38] like the cross ecosystem aspect to it

[00:20:41] is super appealing, right?

[00:20:43] Because okay, like clearly, you know,

[00:20:45] no sleep, you're a little bit more excited about Celestia,

[00:20:48] rex you're more in Ethereum,

[00:20:49] salon is leaning into L2s,

[00:20:51] Bitcoin has L2s.

[00:20:52] Something about this like design philosophy

[00:20:54] just makes people say, I'm part of this.

[00:20:57] And it's a huge, almost like invisible

[00:21:00] really underserved ecosystem.

[00:21:01] And the cultural component to me is fascinating.

[00:21:04] On the technical side, I think it's,

[00:21:07] yeah, I like relate a lot back to the block size wars

[00:21:10] and the two different ways of scaling blockchains,

[00:21:12] which is to make the boxes bigger

[00:21:13] or to move the compute onto other boxes

[00:21:16] or in another computing environment.

[00:21:18] And I actually, I would say,

[00:21:20] I'd be curious what both of you guys

[00:21:21] would think about this.

[00:21:22] I think both of those are still open questions

[00:21:23] because salon is kind of taking the bigger boxes route

[00:21:26] but eventually like you run into the problem of,

[00:21:29] okay, you're successful enough

[00:21:30] that you bring on enough demand

[00:21:31] and then you make the boxes so big it isn't centralized.

[00:21:34] And then in the modular approach

[00:21:36] and like kind of Ethereum land,

[00:21:37] okay, we kept this one set of boxes small,

[00:21:40] the validator boxes,

[00:21:41] but then we just made other bigger boxes,

[00:21:43] sequencer boxes, relay boxes.

[00:21:45] So is that even worth the trade off?

[00:21:47] And so I think both of these are unanswered questions.

[00:21:50] So Mitch, it's a really healthy mix

[00:21:52] of the cultural stuff, the technical arguments.

[00:21:55] That's why I'm like jumping out of my seat for this.

[00:21:58] I'm super pumped about it.

[00:21:59] I think like under discussed part of the modular thesis

[00:22:02] is the sovereignty aspect.

[00:22:04] So you can decide all those design choices.

[00:22:08] Like you don't have to go either or

[00:22:11] you don't have to do like super big blocks,

[00:22:12] super small blocks.

[00:22:13] Like you don't have to decide,

[00:22:15] you get to decide which side

[00:22:17] or like where in between you wanna be.

[00:22:19] So like with the modular stack,

[00:22:21] you can own the full stack.

[00:22:23] You can control the direction of your chain,

[00:22:26] which upgrades you want,

[00:22:27] which optimizations at the execution environment level.

[00:22:31] You can add like compliance,

[00:22:33] you can add permissions, monetization elements.

[00:22:36] All that can be added there in your own roll up

[00:22:39] or your own chain with the modular stack

[00:22:41] because it's so much easier to build it this way

[00:22:43] or like build it with these modules

[00:22:45] that are like really easy to swap out in and out.

[00:22:48] And you get to decide all this

[00:22:49] because you're sovereign,

[00:22:51] it's modular.

[00:22:54] That's like the big idea here.

[00:22:57] Yeah, and I think, you know, my joke aside, right?

[00:23:01] Like I do think the answer here is ZK, right?

[00:23:03] Like I think that,

[00:23:07] Mike, I just heard you on Bell Curve this morning

[00:23:09] and talking to the framework guys

[00:23:12] about like the promise of ZK has been

[00:23:14] like in front of us for like half a decade now.

[00:23:17] And if you believed it back then,

[00:23:18] like you missed a lot of good stuff.

[00:23:20] And like, I hear that for sure.

[00:23:22] But like also the actual science

[00:23:27] and the mathematics and the technology is like,

[00:23:30] it is moving so fast that it's like unbelievable

[00:23:33] to people that are even in the tech industry.

[00:23:35] And like I can tell you so many stories

[00:23:37] about like professors who are like inventing this shit

[00:23:40] saying like I've been in technology for 40 years

[00:23:43] and I've never experienced anything

[00:23:44] like how quickly an idea turns into a company

[00:23:47] or I've never seen the amount of,

[00:23:50] just like advancements we've made

[00:23:54] in such a short amount of time.

[00:23:56] But for everyone who like doesn't really understand

[00:23:59] why this is such a big deal,

[00:24:01] like the reality of what ZK is bringing us

[00:24:03] is the ability to do like arbitrarily

[00:24:05] a complex amount of compute

[00:24:07] like on these huge boxes that you're talking about,

[00:24:09] Mike, like on super centralized servers,

[00:24:11] on AWS, whatever.

[00:24:13] And then just by like putting that proof

[00:24:16] onto a blockchain,

[00:24:18] you're, if that proof verifies,

[00:24:21] you're essentially able to like project the computing

[00:24:24] from that centralized place

[00:24:26] into this new blockchain environment.

[00:24:28] And so like I think what the rollup centric roadmap,

[00:24:33] but like all of this is really pointing to

[00:24:35] is like we need to create one base layer

[00:24:38] or maybe one per ecosystem, right?

[00:24:39] But one base layer of crypto economic security.

[00:24:43] And like that means different things to different people.

[00:24:46] Like Ethereum, it looks one thing,

[00:24:47] like looks one way, Solana looks another,

[00:24:49] but it's about how do we create this like trustless trust?

[00:24:53] And then how do we use ZK to just jam

[00:24:56] as much functionality into those boxes

[00:24:59] through the power of cryptography

[00:25:00] rather than through the power of like actual compute.

[00:25:05] I'm completely, you know what I'm very curious to see,

[00:25:08] Rex is where,

[00:25:09] you know what we haven't seen quite so much

[00:25:11] in crypto thus far is tech moves really fast

[00:25:14] and every once in a while it makes something obsolete.

[00:25:17] And I think ZK makes some of the stuff

[00:25:20] that we have been working on in crypto thus far

[00:25:23] somewhat obsolete.

[00:25:25] Here's an example that I'll give you.

[00:25:26] The way that I'm very interested in what's going on,

[00:25:29] I've always seen a lot of similarity

[00:25:30] between Bitcoin and Celestia as ecosystems

[00:25:34] because it's very kind of,

[00:25:36] the base layer is very dumb, right?

[00:25:38] It's not a settlement layer,

[00:25:39] there's no smart contract logic that lives there.

[00:25:42] It's very simple and the big difference

[00:25:43] is big versus small blocks.

[00:25:45] But both of those ecosystems are saying,

[00:25:47] hey, with this ZK,

[00:25:49] you can have these ZK accounts on the base layer

[00:25:52] and exactly what you just described,

[00:25:53] these big computers can do things off of the base layer

[00:25:57] but then prove it to this thing down here.

[00:26:00] And that looks a lot like

[00:26:02] the ETH rollup version of things, right?

[00:26:05] Which is like,

[00:26:06] hey, I've got these small boxes on layer one

[00:26:09] and I've got this other kind of mechanism

[00:26:11] which is called a rollup

[00:26:12] and it's a trusted bridge

[00:26:13] and that's how I talk to this other big sequencer box

[00:26:16] but it's the same thing.

[00:26:18] And so I'm very curious to see what ZK,

[00:26:22] when it gets fully rolled out and implemented,

[00:26:24] what it disrupts and changes

[00:26:27] in terms of the architecture

[00:26:28] of these different blockchains.

[00:26:30] That is gonna be very interesting to me.

[00:26:33] Here's my hot take.

[00:26:34] I think all blockchain VMs

[00:26:36] are about to become obsolete.

[00:26:38] Like the EVM obsolete, move VM.

[00:26:40] Icy take record.

[00:26:43] And let me put it this way.

[00:26:44] It's been almost a year and a half since Risk Zero

[00:26:48] created the substrate

[00:26:52] so that somebody ran the first version of Linux

[00:26:55] where every single thing you did,

[00:26:57] it came with a proof.

[00:26:59] And the thought,

[00:27:01] of course no one's gonna run Linux on blockchain.

[00:27:03] That's so unnecessary.

[00:27:05] But if you can run Linux,

[00:27:07] that means you can run every single piece

[00:27:09] of enterprise, consumer, whatever software

[00:27:13] with ZK proofs.

[00:27:15] And with ZK proofs,

[00:27:16] that means you can project it into Ethereum.

[00:27:20] And so my question is why would we care about any of,

[00:27:23] even the move VM which is supposed to solve

[00:27:25] all the problems of the EVM

[00:27:27] still forces developers to go into this

[00:27:30] incredibly bizarre paradigm of accounts

[00:27:33] and smart contracts and logic and gas.

[00:27:37] Like all of that's nonsense.

[00:27:39] And with ZK we can finally express it enough

[00:27:43] with trustlessness enough

[00:27:44] that we can move on past all of this.

[00:27:48] It's a super interesting,

[00:27:50] I'm sorry, no sleep.

[00:27:51] What are you guys saying?

[00:27:52] I was just gonna say

[00:27:53] like you guys are giving us

[00:27:54] some great episode ideas here.

[00:27:56] Dude, yeah.

[00:27:59] That would be,

[00:28:00] I haven't seen that idea, Rex honestly.

[00:28:02] I've never heard that.

[00:28:03] I always have an idea.

[00:28:04] It makes a ton of sense because,

[00:28:08] that's what you hear.

[00:28:09] It's like the chewing glass experience of devs

[00:28:12] and you have to onboard these devs

[00:28:13] and it takes forever.

[00:28:14] And it's a cool example of this in Sui

[00:28:16] is the way that you get onboard.

[00:28:18] It's very easy.

[00:28:19] They've got a ZK email login

[00:28:21] for a bunch of their stuff.

[00:28:22] Right?

[00:28:23] And it just is super easy.

[00:28:24] There's like a proof that could submit it

[00:28:25] and the user onboarding flow is like butter.

[00:28:29] So really small example of what you're describing

[00:28:31] but yeah, I think that's like

[00:28:35] into the blockchain logic

[00:28:37] or however that works, execution.

[00:28:39] I honestly don't know.

[00:28:43] I was like, we're not supposed to ask

[00:28:45] these complex questions.

[00:28:47] There's no more questions like these.

[00:28:49] No more questions.

[00:28:50] Well here, let me take us a step forward

[00:28:52] so you can understand this.

[00:28:54] Is like I was talking to Amrit Kumar from AltLayer

[00:28:58] and I said, okay,

[00:28:59] how are blockchains gonna develop?

[00:29:01] And what he said is like,

[00:29:02] think about like,

[00:29:03] let's say you're on a DYDX, right?

[00:29:06] And right now, so you pay a fee to DYDX

[00:29:09] to be like a market maker or take or whatever, right?

[00:29:11] To do your trade.

[00:29:12] And then you also pay a fee for gas.

[00:29:15] And like that makes sense to us.

[00:29:17] Like we all get it, right?

[00:29:19] But like if you're not crypto-pilled

[00:29:21] and you don't understand this stuff,

[00:29:23] why are you paying two fees?

[00:29:24] Why?

[00:29:25] Like why shouldn't we be creating blockchains

[00:29:28] that not only like abstract away the concept of gas,

[00:29:31] they literally don't have it.

[00:29:33] And whatever fees that need to be paid back to the L1

[00:29:36] to do the proving costs,

[00:29:38] just include that in your protocol,

[00:29:39] in your app fee, right?

[00:29:41] Like that's the way the entire world works,

[00:29:44] not blockchain.

[00:29:48] 100%.

[00:29:49] I'm sorry, what were you gonna say?

[00:29:51] No, I keep seeing all of this and like,

[00:29:55] I just keep seeing all this in like the context

[00:29:57] of the 90s rise

[00:29:59] because I've been reading too much about it.

[00:30:00] No, so I'll just like go back to it.

[00:30:02] But like every time you introduce something new,

[00:30:04] like there's this whole bunch of things

[00:30:07] that people have been working on for years

[00:30:09] and sometimes decades that just quickly become obsolete.

[00:30:12] So the thing I was reading about earlier this week

[00:30:13] was like as soon as you got the open standards,

[00:30:17] like HTTP, HTML, DNS,

[00:30:20] like all of the other,

[00:30:23] a lot of those other protocols and standards

[00:30:26] that people have been working on for like 15 years

[00:30:28] immediately went away.

[00:30:29] Like they just weren't relevant anymore.

[00:30:32] And there was thousands of people working on these things.

[00:30:35] And so I don't know,

[00:30:36] it's just, yeah, I don't know.

[00:30:38] I keep seeing things in that light but.

[00:30:40] You know what, Rex?

[00:30:41] Also something that you just maybe predicted there,

[00:30:44] maybe I'm reading too much into it,

[00:30:45] but one thing that might,

[00:30:48] another thing that I feel like tends to happen

[00:30:50] around new technologies is there's a little bit

[00:30:52] of a fight around the way to monetize it.

[00:30:54] This was originally the criticism of the internet.

[00:30:56] How are we ever gonna monetize this thing?

[00:30:58] Isn't it just funny cat JPEGs?

[00:31:00] And yeah, you get eyeballs on it,

[00:31:01] but how do you ever make money?

[00:31:03] And then Google acquired DoubleClick

[00:31:05] and the rest was history.

[00:31:06] It was like, oh, we sell them ads.

[00:31:09] And we haven't evolved that much

[00:31:10] in the business model of the web since then.

[00:31:13] And the fee discussion,

[00:31:15] I would be really curious as,

[00:31:17] we build out these different infrastructure layers of,

[00:31:19] I think it's still an open question

[00:31:20] of how we're gonna monetize any of this stuff.

[00:31:22] And maybe another hot take would be

[00:31:24] that all these blockchain fees

[00:31:26] should eventually go to zero

[00:31:28] because you have to find another way.

[00:31:33] Whoever is providing the infrastructure

[00:31:35] for these blockchain networks

[00:31:36] will find a way to extract value,

[00:31:37] but the way is not to just charge for compute resources.

[00:31:40] You probably can't do that.

[00:31:42] That is all gonna get commoditized.

[00:31:44] Or you could do it,

[00:31:44] but the user doesn't pay.

[00:31:46] It's the application on top.

[00:31:47] It's the application that pays.

[00:31:49] Yeah.

[00:31:51] I don't pay AWS when I use a Squarespace website.

[00:31:55] Squarespace pays AWS for that website.

[00:31:58] Yeah, this is like a big debate in modular right now.

[00:32:00] Where does value accrue on the modular stack?

[00:32:02] Is it in the DA layer?

[00:32:03] Is it in execution?

[00:32:04] Is it in interop?

[00:32:06] Is it in what, ZK now?

[00:32:08] There's a bunch of other pieces in the modular stack.

[00:32:11] Where does all go?

[00:32:12] And originally people thought it was DA.

[00:32:16] Now people are less sure about that.

[00:32:17] Is it in execution?

[00:32:19] Because that's where all the community and the apps are.

[00:32:21] Where does the value accrue?

[00:32:24] Does it accrue?

[00:32:25] I wanna reframe that question.

[00:32:27] I hear everyone talk about where does value accrue?

[00:32:30] I think maybe a better way to think about that

[00:32:32] is who has leverage in the stack?

[00:32:35] That's where the value ultimately accrues.

[00:32:37] Because people are like,

[00:32:38] so where does value accrue?

[00:32:40] Does that mean where does token price go up?

[00:32:42] Where do fees come back to?

[00:32:46] Who generates the revenue?

[00:32:48] And it's this broad question,

[00:32:50] but I think it really comes down to

[00:32:51] who has the leverage in the entire stack?

[00:32:56] And if you look at, yeah,

[00:32:57] like that's where I think it gets really interesting.

[00:33:00] It's like who's got the leverage

[00:33:01] in this modular stack that we're building?

[00:33:04] Yeah, I mean honestly,

[00:33:05] that's one of the things about,

[00:33:07] like love talking about it and doing a podcast on it.

[00:33:10] But if I was building a company in the modular space,

[00:33:13] I would be pretty nervous, right?

[00:33:15] Because the same thing that we're saying is so awesome

[00:33:18] about ease and integration and plug and play

[00:33:21] and all this stuff is also exactly how easy it is

[00:33:25] to rip your stuff out of your customers' apps, right?

[00:33:28] And so like I hear all of these conversations

[00:33:32] about how like, oh, you can use Celestia

[00:33:34] for data availability.

[00:33:35] And then like maybe EigenDA comes along

[00:33:37] and they're cheaper so you can switch to them

[00:33:39] or maybe like whatever.

[00:33:40] But first of all, my question is like,

[00:33:43] if we're able to rotate like these pieces

[00:33:46] like data availability

[00:33:48] through all these different systems,

[00:33:50] one, like are we,

[00:33:51] does data availability even mean anything anymore?

[00:33:53] Like what's even happening here?

[00:33:55] But two, like when you're building a business,

[00:33:57] like the things that make this system great

[00:33:59] also just make you so, so vulnerable to disruption.

[00:34:05] I agree.

[00:34:06] I think I agree with that.

[00:34:09] I also think that's also why composability

[00:34:12] is overrated as a narrative

[00:34:14] because this is already happening.

[00:34:17] What you're describing is this is a business challenge

[00:34:19] which is you hear this all the time

[00:34:21] in the context of interop.

[00:34:22] Why don't we just make these damn things interoperable?

[00:34:25] You mean, why don't I make it easier

[00:34:27] to churn my customers?

[00:34:29] Like that's how these ecosystems hear that question.

[00:34:32] Why would I do that?

[00:34:33] That doesn't make any sense.

[00:34:34] And that's why you see more business source licenses.

[00:34:37] That's why you see DAPs moving off of main chains.

[00:34:40] Like that's the competitive pressure

[00:34:44] from the standpoint of these protocols.

[00:34:47] My ecosystem, baby.

[00:34:49] So that's the, sorry, Nils,

[00:34:51] I didn't mean to interrupt you there.

[00:34:52] Yeah, no worries.

[00:34:53] Wait, like so something,

[00:34:55] like I'm not gonna show Anisha

[00:34:57] but like their approach to this argument

[00:34:59] is actually very interesting because they've,

[00:35:02] they're coming at this as in like

[00:35:05] they're gonna own the full user stack.

[00:35:07] So all these rollups built on the Anisha stack

[00:35:10] are gonna be interoperable

[00:35:12] in the sense that you have one UI

[00:35:15] that you get to use all these apps with

[00:35:17] and all the underlying infrastructure

[00:35:19] they also integrate into their platform.

[00:35:22] So they own the full stack

[00:35:25] and they can eventually,

[00:35:26] if the community gets big enough,

[00:35:27] all these users will move with them wherever they,

[00:35:31] whatever part of this,

[00:35:32] whichever stack they wanna move to,

[00:35:33] their users go with them.

[00:35:35] So that's like an interesting idea

[00:35:36] like we're gonna talk about later in a future episode.

[00:35:40] I really liked the Anisha design.

[00:35:42] Maybe a theme,

[00:35:44] if I could suggest anything for the show

[00:35:45] but one thing I'd be curious,

[00:35:47] maybe you guys could dig into is like

[00:35:48] this idea of first mover versus second mover advantages

[00:35:51] in blockchain ecosystems.

[00:35:53] And I think the L1s,

[00:35:55] if I like the first generation blockchains,

[00:35:57] let's call it like Bitcoin, Ethereum,

[00:36:00] I guess as long as like right on the edge

[00:36:01] but the way that I see it,

[00:36:02] the advantage that they have

[00:36:04] is that they have a huge market cap.

[00:36:06] They have a ton of crypto native wealth

[00:36:08] and developers wanna go and build things

[00:36:10] because the people with crypto native wealth

[00:36:13] will do things on that ecosystem.

[00:36:15] The challenge that they have is

[00:36:17] these L1s had to make a lot of decisions

[00:36:18] in the early days about

[00:36:20] where they were gonna draw the line around the L1

[00:36:23] versus what they were gonna export

[00:36:24] either to another layer

[00:36:26] or allow off chain infrastructure to spring up around.

[00:36:28] And some of those decisions weren't 100% right.

[00:36:31] And so it's interesting to watch

[00:36:33] some of these next gen blockchains

[00:36:36] that the advantage they have is that they can build,

[00:36:38] they can learn from some of the mistakes

[00:36:40] that Ethereum or Solana or whatever made

[00:36:43] but the trade off that they don't have

[00:36:48] they don't have all this crypto native wealth and the users.

[00:36:52] And I think that one of the things that Cosmos missed on

[00:36:55] was they prioritize the end game product,

[00:36:59] like this sovereignty principle

[00:37:01] that I think at the end is

[00:37:02] like one of the defining characteristics

[00:37:04] of what this system is gonna look like

[00:37:06] but they systematically deprioritize distribution.

[00:37:09] And so far, I think distribution is trouncing product.

[00:37:13] And this is like the first time

[00:37:14] for second time founder thing.

[00:37:16] Yeah.

[00:37:17] And that's why I think Ethereum has done so well.

[00:37:18] So I don't know, I'd be curious digging into that.

[00:37:22] That's what I call it.

[00:37:23] Yeah, like the Cosmos.

[00:37:25] I think the Cosmos hub failing

[00:37:28] is a pretty good lesson

[00:37:29] for the modular ecosystem right now

[00:37:31] because all these rollups are doing app specific ideas.

[00:37:35] They're doing like bunch of sovereign rollups coming out

[00:37:38] with their own ideas they wanna build

[00:37:40] but where it is,

[00:37:42] what's like the shelling point for the ecosystem?

[00:37:44] Is it Celestia?

[00:37:45] Is it the execution layer?

[00:37:47] Is it like the initial stack

[00:37:49] or whatever optimism rollup stack super chain?

[00:37:52] Where is, what's the shelling point?

[00:37:54] Because with Cosmos, the mind sure got so fragmented

[00:37:57] that no one even knew where to look

[00:37:59] for direction for the Cosmos SDK stack.

[00:38:03] Why does the hub exist?

[00:38:04] There was like so many questions there.

[00:38:06] All that mind got fragmented

[00:38:07] and that momentum kind of died out

[00:38:09] because it got so fragmented.

[00:38:10] So how do we keep this momentum

[00:38:12] in the modular ecosystem going

[00:38:14] and taking those lessons from Cosmos?

[00:38:16] How do we learn from that?

[00:38:19] I would phrase that.

[00:38:20] Let me ask that question to both of you guys

[00:38:22] because I think that's a challenge

[00:38:23] that other modularly designed ecosystems are starting to,

[00:38:26] I think Cosmos front ran this.

[00:38:28] They were the first ones to run into this problem.

[00:38:30] They had extremely,

[00:38:31] the sovereign full stack chain has been the vision

[00:38:33] from the beginning supported by the Cosmos SDK

[00:38:36] and Tendermint and IBC and all that stuff.

[00:38:39] But now Ethereum as it's growing

[00:38:40] and it's adopting this,

[00:38:41] like I saw Vitalik wrote this post about pluralism

[00:38:44] and multiple different roll ups.

[00:38:46] It's fragmenting liquidity and attention also.

[00:38:49] So how do you guys think that modular ecosystems

[00:38:52] trade off some of the benefits that you get,

[00:38:55] the scalability and the customizability

[00:38:58] and all that kind of stuff

[00:38:59] with the sort of fragmentation

[00:39:01] and loss of a shared shelling point?

[00:39:03] Like what do we think the way is to solve that?

[00:39:09] Yeah, I mean, I think it's tough.

[00:39:12] Anyone building in this space

[00:39:14] and anything that could be remotely called modular

[00:39:16] understands that everything that's cool about this

[00:39:19] by definition also puts users in walled gardens

[00:39:24] that just make everything

[00:39:25] that's cool about crypto worse.

[00:39:27] And so, I don't know, welcome to life.

[00:39:29] Everything sucks more than it should.

[00:39:31] We'll figure it out.

[00:39:32] But I'm pretty skeptical on all,

[00:39:37] look, I don't think the interesting thing

[00:39:40] about any of this is the technology.

[00:39:42] Like if we are interested in building

[00:39:45] good fast computing,

[00:39:47] like we should stop, to my point earlier,

[00:39:49] stop messing around with all these weird VM stuff

[00:39:52] and just go build financial applications on AWS.

[00:39:57] What is interesting here

[00:39:59] is that we have created

[00:40:01] a credibly neutral shared space.

[00:40:03] Like I think we can all agree that Bitcoin,

[00:40:05] Ethereum, and depending on where you're standing, Solana,

[00:40:08] but like maybe, maybe not, right?

[00:40:10] But like that is achieve this very delicate idea

[00:40:14] of credible neutrality.

[00:40:16] And like to me, what's exciting about modular

[00:40:18] is modular is the realization

[00:40:21] that like with this credible neutrality,

[00:40:24] we can continue adding more technology

[00:40:26] and more features onto it without disturbing

[00:40:29] like the thing that's sacred,

[00:40:30] the thing that we're here to protect

[00:40:32] and to build and to grow.

[00:40:34] With things like Initia, right?

[00:40:35] Like John, you said you're not here to shill their bags.

[00:40:37] I'm not here to like shit on their bags, right?

[00:40:40] But like, I just, anytime you're like, okay,

[00:40:46] like all these cool things we learned in Ethereum

[00:40:48] and Bitcoin and Solana,

[00:40:49] like we're gonna take them,

[00:40:50] we're gonna upgrade them,

[00:40:51] but we're just gonna start over

[00:40:53] and build a new ecosystem.

[00:40:54] To me is like completely missing the point of crypto.

[00:40:57] And like the point of crypto

[00:40:58] is about the shared trustless space

[00:41:01] that you can't just like,

[00:41:02] get a bunch of kids that are really smart

[00:41:04] and have really good memes in a room

[00:41:06] and like regenerate that.

[00:41:08] And so I, like when I hear things like sovereign rollups,

[00:41:12] like to me what that is like, okay,

[00:41:15] by definition, a rollup is supposed to settle

[00:41:17] to a different chain.

[00:41:19] And like if it's not on Ethereum,

[00:41:22] I don't think it's a rollup.

[00:41:23] What does a sovereign rollup?

[00:41:24] I think that's just an alt L1

[00:41:26] like that for some reason has decided to use Celestia.

[00:41:31] Why beyond me, right?

[00:41:31] But so like, I do think that for me,

[00:41:34] like my North Star is the trustless space

[00:41:37] and not how do we create a new one,

[00:41:39] but how do we grow the one that we have.

[00:41:42] And like the technology comes secondary to that,

[00:41:46] to credible neutrality

[00:41:47] and not we don't create credible neutrality

[00:41:50] by building better technology.

[00:41:52] It's the other way around.

[00:41:53] Yeah.

[00:41:54] I'm curious.

[00:41:55] I don't know if you're gonna bring up

[00:41:57] the question of the technology.

[00:41:59] I'm curious.

[00:42:00] I don't know if you're gonna respond there,

[00:42:01] but I've got some pushback for you, Rex.

[00:42:05] So I actually view it almost opposite to that.

[00:42:08] So I view each of these.

[00:42:10] I think the interesting thing about crypto

[00:42:12] to your point is not just the technical architecture.

[00:42:14] I think if you boil it down,

[00:42:16] if you were just looking at efficiency,

[00:42:18] they should all just live on one box, 100%.

[00:42:22] I think the thing that's interesting about it

[00:42:23] is when you expand it to multiple boxes

[00:42:26] and you accept some amount of decentralization

[00:42:28] and the surrendering of essential control,

[00:42:30] you open up different use cases

[00:42:32] that wouldn't otherwise make sense if it was on one box.

[00:42:35] I think frankly, like the biggest,

[00:42:37] one of the biggest use cases

[00:42:38] that I'm kind of coming back around

[00:42:39] to the Bitcoiner point of view is the money.

[00:42:41] Like that makes a lot of sense.

[00:42:42] Like you can, I can very easily honestly say

[00:42:45] if Google issued money tomorrow, I wouldn't trust it.

[00:42:48] Why?

[00:42:49] Because it's a freaking company

[00:42:50] and they're a for-profit company

[00:42:52] and that's not the kind of entity

[00:42:53] that you want issuing your money.

[00:42:55] And so I think there are other use cases like that.

[00:42:57] And what these different blockchain ecosystems

[00:43:03] how they've organized

[00:43:04] is around different values and principles.

[00:43:07] And I think it's been helpful to tackle

[00:43:09] different actual technical design decisions.

[00:43:11] So Bitcoin solved that first one, right?

[00:43:13] Which is I wanna create money.

[00:43:16] I need a super decentralized environment for that.

[00:43:18] How do we do that?

[00:43:19] And they got the very first version

[00:43:20] of working version of consensus with proof of work, right?

[00:43:23] Then eventually we're like,

[00:43:24] this is a pretty cool architecture.

[00:43:25] What if there were other things that we could build

[00:43:28] with these decentralized boxes?

[00:43:30] And that's when Ethereum came, right?

[00:43:32] It's like, okay, we wanna keep roughly

[00:43:34] that same level of decentralization.

[00:43:36] And then a separate cultural zeitgeist grew up around that.

[00:43:41] It's like, we don't wanna be

[00:43:41] like these doomer Bitcoin people, right?

[00:43:43] We wanna be like these optimistic people.

[00:43:46] But then it was like, oh actually,

[00:43:48] in addition to just reconstructing

[00:43:50] our conception of the base layer,

[00:43:52] we need this shit to go fast.

[00:43:53] Boxes need to be a little bit bigger.

[00:43:56] We need the throughput coming here.

[00:43:57] And we need a little bit more focus

[00:43:58] on this execution layer, Entrasalana.

[00:44:01] And so I actually view each of these things

[00:44:04] as having organized to solve different parts

[00:44:06] of this incredibly challenging computer science currency

[00:44:12] markets equation.

[00:44:14] I see all of these things rebundle

[00:44:17] like starting to become more similar,

[00:44:19] but I think they're probably gonna stay separate forever.

[00:44:23] And I view that as a good thing

[00:44:24] because just like it's such a cheesy example,

[00:44:27] I've used this a couple of times

[00:44:28] and people are always like, you're so American,

[00:44:30] but I'm gonna give it anyway.

[00:44:31] I love America.

[00:44:32] I think America is the best country in the world.

[00:44:34] My parents grew up telling me

[00:44:35] it was the best country in the world.

[00:44:36] It's awesome.

[00:44:37] But I also don't want it

[00:44:38] to be the only country in the world.

[00:44:40] I think it's really nice

[00:44:41] that there are other cultures that exist

[00:44:43] which have optimized for different values and standards.

[00:44:46] And I actually think they're being different

[00:44:49] cultural ecosystems all around

[00:44:51] and that makes this one little ecosystem

[00:44:54] that I'm in better.

[00:44:55] That's been my view on blockchains for a little while.

[00:44:58] I think that's how I like them.

[00:45:00] Well, yeah, I love that.

[00:45:01] That was so good.

[00:45:02] Yeah, like Bitcoin has the money,

[00:45:05] like the Doomer money cult

[00:45:07] and then Ethereum has the super optimistic

[00:45:11] decentralization folks

[00:45:13] and then Solana has the engineering focused,

[00:45:15] engineering product focused people, right?

[00:45:18] That culture.

[00:45:19] So Mike, what's your view of how many?

[00:45:21] Oh yeah, go ahead.

[00:45:22] I guess like with modular,

[00:45:23] like this modular native ecosystem

[00:45:26] has like a different energy this time as well.

[00:45:30] It's very interesting

[00:45:30] like the way people collaborate across different stacks.

[00:45:32] Like I work in the modular space.

[00:45:35] So I see how everybody works together.

[00:45:36] It's very different than how like these different

[00:45:39] all ones work together or they don't really.

[00:45:42] So that's really interesting.

[00:45:44] Like this different vibe is coming out of modular

[00:45:45] and that's like that cultural shift

[00:45:47] that I wanna talk about on this podcast

[00:45:49] that we mentioned earlier.

[00:45:50] Modular is a culture now

[00:45:52] and we really wanted to get that here.

[00:45:54] One thing that's gonna be interesting in No Sleep

[00:45:56] is seeing how that culture develops when modular,

[00:45:58] I feel like inevitably becomes quite successful.

[00:46:01] Like if you look at Ethereum,

[00:46:02] how Ethereum developed,

[00:46:03] it was like a very like us versus them

[00:46:06] and everyone who was building an Ethereum

[00:46:08] was very together

[00:46:09] and everyone was like,

[00:46:12] in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg,

[00:46:14] at the Ethereal Summit.

[00:46:15] I still in Brooklyn.

[00:46:17] I still in Brooklyn.

[00:46:18] I still in Brooklyn haven't let,

[00:46:19] no they've moved to Soho.

[00:46:20] The successful ones have moved to Soho.

[00:46:22] They have.

[00:46:23] All in Williamsburg now.

[00:46:24] They've all gone to Soho

[00:46:26] if they've raised enough money.

[00:46:27] New York's going modular.

[00:46:30] The Soho Williamsburg Barbell.

[00:46:32] They were all very rah rah

[00:46:34] and like we're building an Ethereum together

[00:46:36] and even though we compete, we're together.

[00:46:38] But now that they've all raised a lot of money

[00:46:41] and they're competing for the same users,

[00:46:44] optimism versus arbitrum are not so rah rah,

[00:46:47] we're building this together anymore.

[00:46:49] They are staunchly competing

[00:46:52] and modular really feels like kind of early Ethereum

[00:46:54] where it's like we're all doing this together

[00:46:56] and you've got all these awesome companies

[00:46:58] and we're all doing it together

[00:46:59] and we're all hanging at the modular summit

[00:47:01] and we're all listening to the expansion pod

[00:47:02] and all that kind of stuff.

[00:47:04] But it's like a self-fulfilling,

[00:47:09] if the modular ecosystem ends up being really successful,

[00:47:12] there's gonna be the same thing

[00:47:13] that happened in Ethereum probably

[00:47:15] where there's some pretty intense competition.

[00:47:18] Yeah, yeah.

[00:47:18] It'll be interesting to see how that impacts the culture.

[00:47:21] I think it also depends

[00:47:22] like how fast crypto as a whole grows.

[00:47:24] Like if someone builds something really sick and modular

[00:47:27] like with a modular blockchain

[00:47:29] and it onboards a bunch of people

[00:47:31] and we get a bunch of users in the ecosystem,

[00:47:33] like we're not competing for like a shrinking pie

[00:47:35] which is like kind of what Ethereum is doing

[00:47:38] during the bear market.

[00:47:38] Everybody was fighting for like the same users.

[00:47:41] If the ecosystem is growing fast enough,

[00:47:43] then you don't have to fight against each other.

[00:47:46] So that's like a really vague way of saying

[00:47:49] if we grow fast enough, it's not a problem.

[00:47:51] Eventually once growth slows down,

[00:47:53] like yeah, it's gonna be some PVP.

[00:47:55] But I think for the next two to three years,

[00:47:57] there's really good momentum behind this ecosystem

[00:47:59] and if we break through to that next,

[00:48:03] let's say like 100 million users in crypto

[00:48:05] with this modular stack and modular building pieces,

[00:48:09] then we might not have that like PVP as much.

[00:48:14] That makes sense.

[00:48:15] Yeah.

[00:48:16] I agree, Phyllis.

[00:48:17] Well look, I think hopefully this gave listeners

[00:48:20] a little bit of a flavor

[00:48:21] of what expansion the show is gonna be.

[00:48:23] Guys, I am just so pumped for this one.

[00:48:27] And Rex, I got a shout out here.

[00:48:29] Rex is a, he's joining us here at Blockworks

[00:48:31] and actually Rex is a,

[00:48:32] I will announce this separately as well.

[00:48:34] People already be aware of this

[00:48:35] by the time they're listening on this episode

[00:48:36] but Rex has been hosting a podcast

[00:48:38] Blockworks acquired the Strange Water podcast

[00:48:40] which is one of my favorite pods

[00:48:42] and actually how we found Rex.

[00:48:44] So very excited to be doing this with you buddy.

[00:48:46] And no sleep, we've got to know you through this process.

[00:48:50] It's been great to get to know you.

[00:48:51] You've been a long time follower on Twitter

[00:48:52] and yeah, the two of you guys,

[00:48:55] this is, we love all of our shows like children

[00:48:57] but yeah, I am super pumped for this one

[00:49:00] which I hope came across on this.

[00:49:02] If folks want to follow you guys

[00:49:05] and just where we're gonna link by the way

[00:49:07] for folks who are listening,

[00:49:08] take this as a minute here.

[00:49:10] Go down into the show notes of Bell Carver Empire

[00:49:13] where you're hearing this

[00:49:14] and there's going to be a link to expansion,

[00:49:16] the RSS feed, the Twitter and the YouTube.

[00:49:19] So go make sure you follow that.

[00:49:21] And we're also gonna link

[00:49:22] No Sleep in Rex's personal Twitters as well.

[00:49:25] So definitely go follow them

[00:49:26] and you can get any and all updates there but.

[00:49:31] Yeah man and I just,

[00:49:32] I wanna turn this back at you guys

[00:49:34] and just say thank you for giving us this platform.

[00:49:36] And as someone who's been doing a podcast for a year,

[00:49:40] I know and now that John has been working on it,

[00:49:43] this is not easy work.

[00:49:44] And one, it's just awesome to be part of such an amazing

[00:49:49] fun, optimistic company but two, man,

[00:49:53] everyone on this call already knows this

[00:49:54] but the guests that we're getting

[00:49:56] and the content that we're producing is,

[00:49:59] there's never been a podcast

[00:50:01] released opening like this.

[00:50:02] This is gonna be insane and mental

[00:50:04] and it wouldn't have been possible

[00:50:06] without the support and the brand and everything.

[00:50:09] So just thank you, thank you and so excited

[00:50:12] and welcome to a new era of podcasts.

[00:50:15] Boom, good place to end.

[00:50:16] Go follow expansion, listen to it.

[00:50:18] Rex, No Sleep are pumped.