Bit of blue sky thinking on different models for the economic organisation of staking and protocol services more generally! A good exercise in trying to create a coherent model from many discussions that took place in the last few months
I wrote up a detailed explanation of the 7-block re-org that occurred last week on the beacon chain. It goes over the basics of the PoS Ethereum consensus and shows visually how the re-org happened, and why it is not inherent to the protocol
EIP-1559 is going live today! I am very excited to see all the work that went into it come alive 😀
And among all the excitement for the burn, I wanted to share a little more about why this mechanism is in place
Launching today "RIG Open Problems" (ROPs), a collection of problem prompts we're looking to solve with *you*! 🌱
The prompts come with some questions to answer, but could lead to more open-ended explorations.
I wrote a new post about rollup economics. This framework hopefully provides more clarity on the various parties co-existing in a rollup system, and helps guide discussions on fees and economic designs
While thinking about PBS, I came upon the possibility of unbundling its market structure (proposer/builder anti-griefing mechanisms) from the shape of its allocation mechanism (the whole block auction). Here is a post exploring this alternative!
Some news! I joined
@ethereum
as a research scientist in a new team, the Robust Incentives Group.
We will look at mechanism design and protocol security from an algorithmic game theory/economics point of view.
Excited to share our work soon!
Just released a new (long!) post on Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS), a collection of the various topics related to (mostly protocol-side) PBS and how they all tie in together
A new post on everything ePBS, slot auctions, execution tickets, attester-proposer separation, preconfirmations and even PEPC! I propose an alternative mechanism, "APS-Burn", to execution tickets in order to achieve attester-proposer separation
Releasing a PEPC FAQ note, after multiple discussions at EthCC!
Dive into its philosophy+architecture, how it compares to Eigenlayer, SUAVE or ABCI++, and two new designs:
- In-protocol mev-capture using PEPC
- Out-of-protocol PEPC with PEPC-Boost
I released a new post, "Seeing like a protocol", where I explore how we engineer protocol credibility, and how it fares in a world where the protocol is more and more embedded in a dense net of other domains. Check it out and let me know what you think!
In this latest post, I play out some games that inclusion lists may induce.
1. Builders may be incentivised to "stuff" their blocks to defeat the list
2. Proposers may try to bribe or extort one another with forward ILs
Find out more in the post!
EIP 1559 is even better than you think: it’s not quite true that whenever basefee is too low, we are back to how things are today (the first-price auction model)
Trying out
@viamirror
with a new post on semantics for staking!
The explosion of creativity unlocked by liquid and re-staked assets makes it hard to orient oneself and unravel their constructions. Post 1 digs into liquid staking mechanisms.
We have a new paper on
#eip1559
, written with
@StefLeonardos
, Daniël Reijsbergen, Stratis Skoulakis and Georgios Piliouras!
"Dynamical Analysis of the EIP-1559 Ethereum Fee Market" is available on arXiv:
Eth 2.0 is coming, and with it a whole lot of changes to the economics of Ethereum. So that we could understand them better,
@yslcrypto
and I dug into the specs to see what is going on. Find it on
@hackingresearch
!
When the best builders censor, few realise we cannot improve upon inclusion guarantees without decreasing the value received by proposers. In other words, the situation today is Pareto-efficient, which is problematic
Some personal news: I will be leaving Singapore 🇸🇬 soon, after almost 7 years here, and relocating to Berlin! 🇩🇪
I'll probably write a little more about all this when things get less hectic :) until then, thank you to all who made SG special, and excited for Berlin!
There are only a few more days left to sign up for Columbia Cryptoeconomics (CCE), held on Dec. 6th and 7th at Columbia University.
Talks and keynotes on MEV, staking economics, mechanism design for blockchain and more!
@tayvano_
As I stated on the call I'd recommend wallets to rethink from first principles how they present information. Most of the time, there is no need to play complex estimation games for the priority fee, since basefee targets half-full blocks always
CBC Casper wants to make blockchain consensus formal, secure and open.
@VladZamfir
@naterush1997
@adiasg
and G. Piliouras recently released a proof-heavy introduction to its specifications. I tried to translate the maths with pictures and explanations!
🥳 Yesterday I defended my PhD, "Efficiency, regret and inequality in decentralised systems" 🥳 I'll have more to say about it, but here is a quick twitter abstract 👇
To many, the burn is intrinsically linked to EIP-1559, but the relationship is more nuanced. EIP-1559 today has two properties:
1) It captures economic value created by the use of the network
2) It removes this value from the supply
Had a blast at
@ethconomics
@EFDevconnect
yesterday! The talks were great and seeing everyone was amazing. Big thanks to
@_julianma
for pulling it off and being a great MC too!
You can catch all the talks here:
Finally done listening to this beast (i retweeted earlier without listening, purely on the basis of aggregate chadness)
Woweewow
Amazing to hear
@casparschwa
and
@adietrichs
make the case for their current work. Also great moderation from
@hasufl
and
@jon_charb
. Must hear!
ETHEREUM STAKING ENDGAME
@hasufl
&
@jon_charb
brought on
@adietrichs
&
@casparschwa
from the EF following their latest research & proposal to change ETH issuance
2.5 hours going deep on PoS economics, LSTs, restaking, economic security & more
Links below 👇
This has been one of my favourite talks to give, a snapshot of many things learned from many people over the last year, and hopefully a good foundation for the next!
Many thanks again to
@ciamac
@Tim_Roughgarden
and
@AgostinoCapponi
for hosting me
Vitalik continued to discuss the centralization risk of ETH staking on ETH Taipei, emphasizing that LIDO COINBASE BINANCE and others have an excessive share, and introduced the idea about "rainbow staking", a conceptual framework allowing protocol service providers, whether…
There are many to mention but the help of all researchers and developers was invaluable ❤️ while I wrote the piece above, most of the content comes from their work on the issue.
Thanks for having me
@EthCC
! Video of my talk, "Making sense of rollup economics", where I discussed how not-so-mainstream economics seem to find a natural field of application in our systems
Sharing the same feeling! Devconnect is exhilarating so far. I enjoyed every single event I went to and everything has been planned to perfection 🤩
I also can't wait for everyone to see the recordings of
@ethconomics
, the talks were mind-bending. Future is bright!
My humble setup
@superphiz
. Yes I have two nodes, after
@dannyryan
really drove home the point about having a redundant setup to get maximum yield (kidding kidding, don't do this at home, or you know, elsewhere 😅 The 2nd node does other stuff!)
Protocol Berg videos are up, and with them a recording of our Blockspace Expo with
@rphmeier
@AnotherJannik
@hxrts
and
@cwgoes
We spend 80 mins teasing out what makes our ecosystems special, and why blockspace suppliers should think about the demand too
We know you've all been waiting eagerly, and so have we...
🪅 The Protocol Berg recordings are up! 🪅
You can now (re-)watch your favorite talks via the archive - brought to you by our friends from
@streameth
.
📺👇
Overall I am excited! As I mentioned in the
@BanklessHQ
panel, I do believe it is a step change in how the protocol functions. I'll try and share as much as I can about its first steps. There are many more things to check and tune after 1559 hits mainnet!
This is an amazing opportunity to get started with core protocol research and development!
I am super happy to be a potential mentor for projects on cryptoeconomics, economic modelling and data science 🥳
Welcome to the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship.
The fast track to becoming an Ethereum core dev is now open!
A fellowship program for anyone who is interested in diving deeply into core protocol research and development. EPF is now accepting applications:
Looking to start EthCC on the right foot? Come to Building B, Eiffel Stage at 10:25 for "Seeing like a protocol"!
We'll map the boundaries of Ethereum together 🗺️
Presenting "Scaling Ethereum: Rollup Economics" tomorrow (Thursday 02.11)
@CBER_Forum
, 15:00 UTC.
The aim is to give an overview of some of the relevant questions when thinking about rollup economics, following my and
@DavideCrapis
's posts on the topic!
More on rainbow staking at
@EthTaipei
!
@gballet
mentions other services for nodes. There is an interesting distinction to be made between protocol services ("seen" by the protocol, and possibly rewarded from issuance) and non-protocol services
We're excited to announce that Eclipse Labs, the development team contributing to Eclipse Mainnet, has raised a $50M Series A co-led by
@placeholdervc
and
@hack_vc
, bringing our total capital raised to $65M.
Eclipse brings Solana performance to Ethereum with the first SVM L2.
a small christmas present 🎁 for cryptotwitter – we are ecstatic to share "Execution Tickets," an idea from
@drakefjustin
on a reimagined blockspace market!
dive into the design + implications here↓
👽🎟️
thanks for reading, and see you next year🎄🪩🎉
Blockspace futures for regular execution might induce weird games, but it seems relatively harmless and potentially beneficial for a DA layer such as 4844. This would be a fun exercise to think through it as an enshrined solution!
What does property 1) buy us? Namely, resistance to economic abstraction. In other words, ETH the asset has a special place on Ethereum, the network, as the only asset that is able to pay for the protocol fee ("basefee")
It's very cool to see researchers such as
@noamnisan
share their work on ! Also a good reference to share with econ-minded people keen to dig into some models.
Basic tokenomics discussion at econ-101 level
By:
- noamnisan
ELI5
This article discusses the basics of tokenomics in Web3 systems, specifically focusing on proof of stake and utility tokens. It explains the importance of determining transaction fees based on marginal costs and…
Ethereum is becoming an economic system like no other, so the tools we use to understand it must inherit from the same principles: openness, community-oriented, and with a sense of wonder :)
There'll be a lot more to share about it in the coming weeks too!
1/ A new open-source Ethereum economic model implemented using
@cadcad_org
, created in collaboration with
@ethereum
's Robust Incentives Group (RIG). Modular, customizable, extensible, based on official Altair spec (Blue Loop). Analysis and online course👇
Missed this while on a break, very interesting post!
Relating it to PEPC, I understand preconfs as a specific type of proposer commitments, where the proposer commits to some transaction inclusion with or without execution guarantees.
We think a lot about rollup preconfirmations.
We have been working on a design we call Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) preconfirmations. In our latest blog, we explore this approach alongside Proposer-Promised preconfs, as initially described in the context of based sequencing:
A new notebook/tutorial continuing the exploration of eth2 incentives from simulations, this time looking at network partitions, inactivity leaks and attestation aggregation.
Part 2 of my visual exploration of CBC Casper is out 😄 I follow the latest paper by
@VladZamfir
@naterush1997
@adiasg
, where they use the CBC framework to define protocols, including the friendly GHOST 👻 Check it out and let me know what you think!
A valuable ETH is good btw: it provides security to the network in general, especially after the shift to Proof-of-Stake. Resistance to economic abstraction means there is a demand floor to ETH, commensurate with how much value people derive from using Ethereum
Could ETH be valuable for more reasons than its negative issuance? Could its negative issuance even prevent it from being more valuable? There aren't many data points for properties of assets that look like ETH, mostly because there are very few assets that look like ETH!
@sassal0x
@mrjasonchoi
I have not 🙈 mostly because I am not an analyst... but i've done a lot of modelling of the incentives side, some of which you can find in my posts () or in my research ()
I presented a general talk on "Modelling blockchain protocols: Consensus and fee markets", at the 7th Workshop on Stochastic Methods in Game Theory. The slides are here!
Today,
#TestingTheMerge
! Also...
#BreakingTheMerge
😁
After modding (lightly) a Lighthouse client, my validators started re-orging others by proposing their blocks late. Find out why below!
If you are a consensus researcher keen to look into the design of "Multiplicity gadgets" in the context of Ethereum's Gasper, take a look at our new Open Problem and reach out!
@_danielmarzec
@MaxResnick1
Was planning to release this ROP next week but we'd be interested to think more about it! h/t to
@0xQuintus
for sharing your note too, great stuff to get started
Pour les francophones, je présente avec
@ethzed
@m_ratsim
et
@gballet
"Ethereum: Un protocole en mutation" dans 15 minutes à la salle Sorbonne ! On parlera de toutes les bonnes choses présentes sur cette infographie
#EthCC
(cc
@trent_vanepps
)
Across all the possible futures of Ethereum that I consider reasonably likely or desirable, some sort of includer-builder or includer-proposer separation is at play. ILs may “only” be the first step in that direction, but they are a necessary step. Strong support for Pectra 🍀
happy friday-before-st-pattys🇮🇪!
it's also 18 months to the day since The Merge. to celebrate, check out "The Case for ILECTRA," which argues for the candidacy of EIP-7547 (inclusion lists) in the Electra/Prague hard fork!
hope you're feeling lucky 🍀▼
Proud and surprised to see my “lil” essay “Seeing like a protocol” in there, in such good company 😊
There is probably a larger point about protocols hiding in that essay, but it remains pretty high context with Ethereum references (you write about what you know after all)
Here's a "top 15" reading list to kickstart your thinking about protocols - this was hard to narrow down! For the full list + links visit the SoP forum (first comment)
Super excited for this and really want to make the most of this opportunity! Polkadot, Cosmos, Gnosis and Ethereum… what are things that we can learn from one another?
What are the things *you* would like to hear in the discussion?
*
@barnabemonnot
is a research scientist focused on cryptoeconomics & mechanism design at the
@ethereum
Foundation. He'll bring together protocol researchers & devs from distant ecosystems to talk about blockspace, resource pricing, MEV... feat.
@rphmeier
,
@hxrts
,
@AnotherJannik
En français cette fois pour parler de la mutation d’Ethereum vers Proof-of-Stake 🌱, sharding 🌈, EIP 1559 🔥, la L2 🌉.... trop à dire ☺️
Merci à
@gregory_raymond
pour cette opportunité !
Très fier de publier dans
@21Millions_
une tribune du brillant
@barnabemonnot
sur les évolutions d'Ethereum
21M trouve sa raison de vivre en donnant la parole aux experts cryptos les plus pointus
La lire gratuitement 👉
Very cool work from
@BharathVedarth1
deploying a prototype of the PEPC-Boost relay!
Going through the implementation also raised some fun design questions that we’re eager to answer. More on that in the thread, post and the repos 👀
Hey folks! I am excited to share my work on PEPC-Boost which I have been working on as part of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship program with all of you!
Checkout it out here ⬇️
Here is a 🧵 with a TLDR;
I analyze the endgame for:
-Proof-of-stake (PoS)
-Liquid staking tokens (LSTs)
-Dual governance
-Proof-of-governance (PoG)
-Restaking & PEPC
I reconsider their merits from first principles & push back on popular notions including economic security
ETH could be made more valuable because:
1) it is needed to pay for things on the Ethereum network
and/or
2) it is made scarcer because of the burn
These two properties could even be seen as fairly independent from each other
Super super grateful to be on the receiving end of this stream and happy to have helped push the EIP forward with many others along the way :) waiting for August 4th!!
🔥 Introducing the EIP-1559
#NFT
Series 🔥
- made in collaboration w/ the
#EIP1559
#Ethereum
contributors: all proceeds go to them 🤗
- "1559 Supporter" 1559 total editions
- "1559 Patron" 1/1 up for auction
Read about the inspiration, mint, and bid 👇
@_danielmarzec
@MaxResnick1
Was planning to release this ROP next week but we'd be interested to think more about it! h/t to
@0xQuintus
for sharing your note too, great stuff to get started
(If we did give it back, the protocol fee wouldn't be very binding, the BP could offer rebates by subsidising a transaction and sharing revenue with the user. It's a slippery slope that would eventually lead to basefee being irrelevant)
What about 2) ? What can we do with the value captured?
It's simpler to think first about what we cannot do. And the one thing we really cannot do is give it back to the current block producer who included transactions that pay the protocol fee
web2: funnel research money to paywalled publishers, driven by researcher incentives to publish at all cost(s) + protect territory
web3: funnel research money to researchers, break rigid silos, open access, attributable, reproducible, accountable 🌈
I wrote up a short exploration of the data around the beacon chain incident last week. It goes into how the network slowed but didn't stop, which is good evidence of its robustness during times of stress
Good call on the challenges of enshrining! To me, the biggest question remains: Is it worth it? What are the risks from cementing the existence of a market which is extremely dynamic and (imo) plausibly not the final form of block construction?
Some quick notes from today’s breakout meeting on ePBS:
- About the broad goals of ePBS, devs generally agreed that the point of this project is to enshrine relay functionality in-protocol through staked builders.
- This does not mean that there will be no need or use for…
As a personal note, I see burning as a good "default" choice, barring any better alternative. I also believe it is superior to redistributing to BPs specifically. But I would be hard pressed to argue for it as a necessary consequence of the 1559 mechanism
🚨Speaker Announcement!🚨
@AndreaCanidio
will be speaking at ETHconomics in just over one week!
First, he will present how AMM design relates to sandwiches and arbitrage profits, then Andrea presents his recent paper that show both can be eliminated by clever AMM design!
This is a developing story 🙂 at the time I am quoting this, the thread is 30 tweets long, about a quarter of the way from the 118 tweets (!) that are planned
If you're experiencing a rainy Saturday evening as I am, sit down, put on some music, and see you on the other side 🫡
1. I consider minimum viable issuance to be an important pledge to the regular Ethereum user. Staking should secure Ethereum, but not become an inflation tax, degrading utility and liquidity while generating monopolistic hazard. A thread on staking economics: 🧵