Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Overview: On March 6, Vitalik published a lengthy article directly pointing out the longstanding "path dependency" mentality within the Ethereum community: always making incremental improvements based on the existing ecosystem, rather than reimagining the possibilities of the application layer from first principles. He called on Ethereum people to "take off their suits and ties" and to re-examine DeFi, decentralized social, identity verification, and even the intersection of AI and privacy with a bolder and more open mindset.

The full text is as follows:

I believe that we in the Ethereum world should maintain a bolder and more open mindset on many things—especially at the application layer and how we view our position in the world.

Core attributes should not be compromised: anti-censorship, open source, privacy, security (CROPS). We should not alienate "openness" into a state where people have no assurance of what security attributes L1 will retain a year from now. We should not ask ourselves, "Do we really need light clients to verify the accuracy of the chain in a trustless manner?" Such questions. But especially at the application layer and in the interface between Ethereum and the external world, we should be more willing to fundamentally rethink various concepts and step out of our comfort zone.

This includes issues of technological direction, such as: "What if the development of AI essentially means that browser plugins and mobile wallets will disappear within a year?"

An example from last year involved a shift in mindset—viewing privacy as the highest priority, equally important as other security attributes. This implies a radically different Ethereum application stack, since up to now the entire tech stack has not been built around privacy. Well, let's build a completely different Ethereum application stack!

An example from this year is the growing work on network-layer privacy, both within and outside the Ethereum Foundation.

This also includes issues at the application layer, such as: "What if the rest of DeFi is basically just a universal futures market built on quality decentralized oracles, allowing users to self-organize on this basis?" and "What if the ideal decentralized oracle only performs M-of-N small LLM SNARK verification on zk-TLS data from several mainstream news sites?"

(By the way, this is interconnected with the AI topic: one consequence of AI is that it pushes "applications" from discrete categories of behavior with discrete UIs into a continuous space. Therefore, the model of "building fewer applications, relying on users to self-organize on them" will inevitably expand as a paradigm.)

Another example from this year is rethinking the role of L2 from scratch—what kind of L2 truly offers the greatest synergy and benefits with Ethereum.

This also involves the cultural aspect. This is an important reason for the deep connection I, @AyaMiyagotchi, and others have with the "milady" matter. Yes, it's a silly and cute meme. Yes, I find some of the political views of certain milady fans embarrassing, sometimes even unabashedly sycophantic (of course there are also some milady fans who are quite the opposite). But the core underlying meaning, the "information behind the information," is: take off the suit and tie. If you're wearing a suit and tie, be willing to grab the nearest glass and pour it over your own suit and tie, forcing yourself to take it off and regain your full bodily flexibility and freedom. The next time you're invited to one of those formal dinners full of rich people, really imagine yourself doing that. Write down the preconception of "I am a decent person" on a piece of paper, crumple it up, and burn it. This psychological baptism will bring about an intellectual baptism—unlocking greater creativity and expanding the boundaries of possibility.

For too long, our algorithm in Ethereum has been: we have this existing ecosystem, what is the next logical step that would make it a little better? Now, our algorithm should be: we have this excellent L1, which will become even more excellent, we have an increasingly rich set of tools—both built within our ecosystem and from outside—so with everything we know today, what is the most valuable thing?

If you were to write that chapter on applications in the 2014 Ethereum white paper, thinking from first principles about what truly meaningful things can be done in the realms of DeFi, decentralized social, identity verification, etc., what would you write? At least take this step: reduce all concerns of path dependency to zero, pretend that today’s usage of the Ethereum chain is zero, and you are the first person proposing or building an application; see what emerges. Even if you are indeed the one building today’s existing applications, please do this.

This is how Ethereum will regain its strength.

Popular Comments:

@dcposch:

For aspects like "wallets," reducing path dependency to zero—100% agree. After all, the usage is approximately zero, and many deep-rooted product decisions are completely wrong.

As for reducing path dependency to zero in off-chain finance—100% disagree.

The "currency signal" that can truly bring liberating value to 100 million users must necessarily involve smooth integration with fiat channels and issuers' assets; this is beyond doubt. It need not be limited to this, nor should it be locked into these things. It can be open-source, substantially better in terms of privacy, accessibility, and anti-censorship. But it must respect this specific path dependency—otherwise, we will only be trapped in a geek island, amusing ourselves.

@vitalikburterin:

Yes, I completely agree that payment applications/wallets/Agent-like products aimed at mainstream users should be integrated with traditional finance, allowing users to deposit and withdraw funds; this is entirely reasonable.

The path dependency I hope we break away from mainly concerns the path dependency of the history of the Ethereum application/wallet ecosystem itself.

For a random example: if you are just making a payment application, you could explore completely not exposing 0x addresses (perhaps only using a disposable address during top-ups, and of course being able to withdraw to others' addresses), with all payments completed internally within Railgun or Aztec.