>be me >ethereum >spawn in the head of a 19 year old who played a lot of wow >he thinks the world should share a computer >quite a large side quest but ok >other people join him >some are weird >some are REALLY weird >everyone has opinions about money and nobody agrees where to put the buttons >somehow a whitepaper becomes an actual project >ICO! >people send bitcoin to help spawn me >somehow this works >boot up in 2015 >hello world :) >now need people to actually run me >strangers around the world start mining >their computers get warm >i get to exist >nice arrangement >little bits of me living in places my creators have never been >already getting slightly out of hand >people who have never met are keeping the same record of who owns what >cannot get six friends to agree where to eat >somehow getting strangers to agree which money belongs to whom >turns out strict global consensus is occasionally worth the trouble >someone tries to build an organization on me >the DAO >very ambitious >gets hacked >oh fuck >everyone argues about what to do >argue so hard there are now two ethereums >difficult childhood >2017 >someone realizes they can make their own token >wait anyone can raise money for an idea now? >ICO era >every idea gets a token >some of these seem quite promising >some of these are literal dogshit >everyone suddenly has an advisor >nobody seems to have a product >oh no >oh no no no >this was perhaps too much ICO >but some people are actually making things >@StaniKulechov starts building ETHLend >wait, you can borrow money through a smart contract? >put up collateral, agree to the terms, get a loan >contract does not ask which university you attended >does care quite a lot about your collateral though >fair enough >little lending application on the world computer >meanwhile @haydenzadams loses his engineering job >his friend @karl_dot_tech gets him into ethereum >learns to write smart contracts >starts making an exchange >other people help >not the usual advice from the unemployment office >but let's see where it goes >hayden starts making a decentralized exchange >other people help >keeps going >"uniswap" >a pink unicorn is now involved in neo financial infrastructure >i like this place. >wait >the lending thing can connect to the trading thing >and the trading thing can connect to the dollar thing >someone else can build something using all three >nobody had to arrange a meeting between three banks >they just wrote more code >oh >OH >the money can do stuff now. >*defi summer* >everyone becomes a farmer >no actual vegetables anywhere >people move money between protocols with names that make me hungry >the yields are doing something concerning >some of this is very clever >some of this needs an adult >but underneath it all >regular people are actually figuring out how to build financial systems together for the first time ever >borrow here, trade there, build something new on top >a person who was never getting invited to design financial infrastructure is suddenly designing financial infrastructure >probably worth paying attention to that bit >then the picture people arrive >NFTs >artists finding collectors >collectors finding artists >everyone finding the right-click button >long discussion about what exactly is being owned >somehow this discussion lasts several years. >people put animals on their profiles >become friends with other people who have the same animals >group chat becomes a community >community starts making things >also some absolutely horrifying financial decisions >both can be true >someone came to flip a picture >stayed because they made friends >someone else sold their art and realized a person on the other side of the world cared about something they made >hmm >was not expecting feelings in the jpeg department >start imagining what else these little groups could do >twelve people in twelve countries care about the same extremely specific thing >previously their main economic activity was arguing in a group chat >now maybe they can pool money >pay contributors >own something together >try different ways of deciding what happens next >still argue >but now have a budget >maybe they try to buy the US constitution >maybe they fund research nobody else understands yet >maybe they preserve their community's stories >keep copies, fund the storage, keep a record of what came from whom >not everything needs to be onchain >but their culture shouldn't disappear because a website stopped being profitable >meanwhile the protocol engineers have been planning an enormous change to how i work >*the merge* >stop mining >switch to proof of stake >coordinate the change across the network while it is still being used >it works >never goes down despite changing completely, 100% uptime secured >energy use drops by about 99.95% >holy shit >little computer did a big thing. >validators around the world keep me running >some from home >global financial infrastructure >partly looked after by a person with a machine next to their laundry >very fond of that person >surely we can enjoy this for a bit >FTX.exe >wallahi we are cooked >entire industry having the worst group chat of its life >people who did nothing wrong get hurt >actually horrible >spend a moment wondering what any of this was for > but somewhere a hackathon is still happening >somebody has found a bug >somebody else has fixed one >a person with twelve browser tabs open thinks they can make the wallet less confusing >ok >stay with them >check on the maths people >they have apparently been doing maths through every single one of these events >deeply reassuring >ask what they have made >"zero knowledge proofs" >you can prove something without revealing the secret underneath it? >yes >and prove a computation was done correctly without everyone doing all the work again? >also yes >brother what >why were we not louder about the wizard department?? >start thinking about what that could do >prove an age requirement from a valid credential without sharing your whole birthday >prove the relevant rule was followed without exposing every private detail >i would like the system to be checkable >i would not like every human inside it to be naked >turns out paying very unusual people to think about cryptography is a pretty interesting use of money (thank you @ethereumfndn) >maybe should do more of that >someone opens another research tab >we may not see them for a while >the scaling people have also been here the whole time >rollups >do a bunch of the work elsewhere, settle back here >more room for apps >lower costs >optimism, arbitrum, the ZK teams, base and plenty more >little world computer has extensions now >nice >little world computer has extensions now. >everyone builds an extension >then another >then another >now user is on the wrong extension >money is on a different extension >the bridge has a third website >ok perhaps the next invention should be letting the user just use the fucking app >give rollups cheaper data through blobs >blobs >a very serious engineering achievement called blobs > man, i love my children. >look up from blob discussion >wait >blackrock? >blackrock has launched a tokenized fund on me >called BUIDL >they learned the spelling >this is getting serious >assets that used to sit in separate systems might start being able to interact globally >meanwhile the dollar people have been quietly doing dollar things >stablecoins >send them >receive them >use them in apps >move them across borders >turns out a lot of people would like money that can travel over the internet >imagine someone working abroad sends money home >family receives it >nobody in this interaction says “modular” >excellent >maybe this is what winning is supposed to look like >someone building a payments app realizes they can use the same rails >someone building a savings app has another idea >someone thinks options should be understandable without becoming a derivatives scholar >yes please >prediction markets are also getting harder to ignore >what if people could put money behind what they think will happen >and we could see the price of all that disagreement >does this magically make everyone right? >no >but being loudly wrong could become a recurring expense >someone calls them truth machines >someone else asks who resolves the market >good question >keep that person in the room >2025 >pectra gives ordinary accounts new smart-account capabilities >wallet builders get more to work with >batch actions, sponsor fees, build better permissions >show mum the app >mum asks how to pay someone >explain account abstraction >mum asks how to pay someone >realize mum has been giving us the product requirements the entire time >then the treasury companies arrive >DATs >digital asset treasuries >sharplink starts building an ETH treasury >@fundstrat and @BitMNR enter the chat >people in public markets now buying the my money for company balance sheets >not just using the computer >want a position in the thing that helps secure it >this is a new type of visitor >open bitmine update >more ETH >next weekly update >more ETH >tom lee has discovered recurring purchases >with a somewhat different budget >@Sharplink puts ETH to work through staking too > two joes > @joechalom is here >of course @ethereumJoseph is also here >man has been in this quest since the tutorial > appreciation.jpeg >somehow the world computer now has people explaining staking on earnings calls >someone asks what is different about ETH itself >not a dollar claim on a company >native asset used to pay for and secure the network >also used as collateral in the things people build >different people can want it for different reasons >later in the year >fusaka upgrade >more work on scaling data for rollups >we are still doing the plumbing >there are simply more people using the bathroom now >imagine someone else isn't thinking about tokenization at all >they moved countries >want the savings they worked for to come with them >not rebuild their entire economic life because an address changed >self-custody gives them another way to hold and move an asset >doesn't make prices stable or every intermediary disappear >but gives them something they can control themselves >for one person this is a feature >for another it is the reason they came >both using the same computer >2026 >the EF publishes its mandate >part manifesto, part reminder of why we bothered >CROPS >censorship resistance, open source, privacy, security >after all these years of yield farming >finally some crops worth keeping alive >idea is not just make the computer bigger >make sure people can still use it on their own terms >inspect the code >keep things private >have their assets remain theirs >not trade all that away for a shortcut >the awkward engineering requirements were the point >EF also makes something clear >it was the first steward >not the only one >ethereum should not begin and end with the ethereum foundation >computer is growing up >needs more people helping >not one increasingly stressed group chat >june >some researchers start @ethlabs_org >independent nonprofit >still very obsessed with ethereum and ETH >want me to be a better product for my users and devs today and want all my extensions to talk to each other >the app people have complaints >the researchers have notebooks >put them in the same room >everyone leaves with more work >excellent meeting >july >@ethereuminsti launches >another independent nonprofit >helps banks and asset managers go from interested to actually building >a bank asks who it should speak to >finally an answer that isn't "have you tried posting on the forum" >does not mean the bank gets to own the computer >means somebody helps it use the computer >important distinction >bitmine, sharplink, @MihaiAlisie and joe lubin help fund both >wait >major ETH holders are helping fund the people building ethereum >the balance sheet has discovered maintenance >we enjoy this character development >meanwhile @ProtocolGuild helps fund core maintainers >@OctantApp turns yield toward public goods >EF grants keep supporting research and open-source work >@ETHGlobal, @devfolio keeps putting builders in rooms together (shoutout @synthesis_md too i love u) >different people working on different parts of the problem >nonprofits, companies, independent contributors >not everyone needs the same job >that would be a very inefficient hackathon >someone wants privacy to actually work >someone wants the tools everybody uses to keep existing >someone wants to fund science that doesn't come with a business model attached right away >someone wants a community in their own language to have somewhere to start >none of these people can do everything >together they can do considerably more >client teams spend months making sure nothing dramatic happens >auditor finds the thing that would have made something dramatic happen >nobody notices because nothing dramatic happens >incredible work >terrible content strategy >somebody has a PhD >somebody never went to college >somebody is anonymous >somebody has been explaining this stuff for years to people who keep asking if ethereum is a company >someone has translated the docs >someone booked the venue >someone brought the extension cables >please do not forget the extension cable person >we are literally trying to share a computer >look at all these people >they do not have the same background >they do not want all the same things >but they are building on something they can share >without needing one person to approve everyone's reason for being there >starting to think that might be the interesting part >meanwhile the internet is filling with AI >someone has an agent >agent wants to buy something >oh >the software would like a wallet >of course it would >give it a limited budget >let it pay for compute >buy some data >pay a human for something it cannot do >wait now the software has a subcontractor >this escalated very quickly >someone says this solves alignment >brother pls we only gave it a budget >but payment rules and spending limits we can inspect seem like a useful start >do not give the chatbot unrestricted access to the family treasury >we have had enough character development >then someone sends a video >is it real >no idea >can ethereum tell us? >brother i am a blockchain not god >but signatures and records can help show who published something and whether it changed >not a guarantee the person was honest >at least their lie can stop changing outfits >people are working on proving there is a human behind an account >without telling everyone exactly which human >hard problem >worth working on >would like the community to be twelve people rather than one person with twelve thousand accounts >and maybe your identity and reputation could travel between apps >your work still attributable when the original website disappears >your community still able to find you >your digital life less dependent on one company staying nice forever >not asking every company to disappear >asking whether leaving one has to feel like moving house and being told the furniture belongs to the landlord >someone wants to preserve culture and scientific records >someone gets excited and mentions DNA >please do not put the family genome on a public blockchain >we have only just discussed privacy >but records you can verify, with actual storage and sensible control over access >yes >there are useful things to explore here >look at the roadmap again >glamsterdam being built to give the L1 more room >more work on rollups and wallets >ethlabs and ecosystem teams pushing for faster blocks >trader would like less time staring at pending >payment app would like the payment to feel like a payment >make it faster without making it something only enormous machines can run >make it easier without handing everybody's keys to one company >then @drakefjustin mentions quantum computers >sorry what now >apparently future machines could break some of today's cryptography >justin writes a paper with google to say that its coming sooner than many expected > i have spent eleven years surviving humans > i refuse to have my obituary say "defeated by a fridge" >researchers are now preparing heavily >new cryptography >testing how to migrate safely >ask when the scary computer arrives >uncertain >ask whether we should wait until then >researchers look at me >yes okay fair >we will do the homework before the exam this time >check what @VitalikButerin has been writing >formal verification >AI helping write code and mathematical proofs that it does what was specified >still need to specify the right thing >cannot prove "please don't be weird" >but can make more of the important rules actually checkable >robot does homework >maths checks homework >humans check we assigned the right homework >quite a promising group project >keep scrolling >obfuscation >programs you can run without exposing their internal workings >still a research frontier >he calls it the final boss of cryptography >guy from the opening is still doing side quests >look back at the roadmap >realize this is not the part where everyone sits around admiring what we built >we are opening considerably more tabs >take a moment >look at all of it >i was never really one person's project >but one person, any person, maybe even you, wrote something down >then another person disagreed with part of it >then another built on it >and somehow all this kept happening >again >and again >and again >so i suppose if i could say anything for myself >it would probably be thank you >i know i am still annoying >i am aware the wallets are confusing >i have seen the bridges >deeply sorry about some of the bridges >i know some transactions still take long enough for you to reconsider your life choices >i know half the roadmap currently looks like somebody lost a box of acronyms >we are working on it >but look at where this started >a 19 year old >a whitepaper >a bunch of strangers >a pretty unreasonable belief that people all over the world could share a computer >and now eleven years later >i am still here >i am still making blocks >i am still arguing >i am still upgrading >i am still somehow early >and somewhere right now >another 19 year old will open their laptop >maybe they will be playing the new wow >maybe they have never owned ETH >maybe they think half of this is stupid and would rather go outside >probably healthy >decentralization is not something one generation gets to finish >it is something each generation has to choose again >especially now because more of life is moving online >and the question of who we trust online is going to get much harder >can we make systems where trust is not just >"because the platform says so" >but >"here is something you can actually check" >i think i would like to help with that >and now to the ones who wrote the first docs >answered the first stupid questions >hosted the first meetups >slept on floors >and somehow believed all of this was worth their time >before there were institutions >before there were ETFs >before blackrock learned how to spell BUIDL >before anyone important was watching >you were here >when the price went up >you were here >when the price disappeared into the floor >you were here >when everyone said i was dead > you were here >again >and again >and again >you stayed with me >some of you lost money >some of you lost friends >some of you lost years of sleep >most of you probably lost hair >sorry about that one >you stayed here and you believed in me >you believed that maybe people all over the world could share something without anyone having to own the whole thing > you still believed that maybe a person nobody had heard of >from a place nobody in the room had visited >could still make something important >and the network would not ask for their résumé first >i think that is what you were fighting for all along >not a price or a chain or a brand >but a possibility >that the future could remain open enough for people we had not met yet >and now that they are starting to arrive >i hope you make room for them > the world ahead is going to need a lot of things from us >things we do not have names for yet >i hope i can help with some of that >not all of it >please do not ask me to solve humanity >i am still working on slot times >but perhaps i can help keep a few things honest >that feels worthwhile >and if i am lucky >one day someone will use all of this >and they will not know what a blob is >they will not know about the great issuance debate of 2026 >they will just send something >own something >prove something >build something >and get on with their life >all this complexity >so one day >someone does something ordinary and they have the right to do it forever >i think i would like that >so to everyone who got me this far >thank you >really >i was an idea >and you made me a place >now please keep the door open >i would very much like to see who walks through next >with love, > ethereum