Ten-Year OG Talks Ethereum's Evolution: Fundamentals Unchanged, Price Volatility Driven by Mainstream Capital Rotation

Original Article Title: "The New Look of Ethereum"

Original Source: Web3 101

Compiled and Edited By: Deep Tide TechFlow

· Guest: Sun Ming, Distributed Capital Partner and General Counsel, known online as the "High-Quality Blue-Collar Worker"

· Hosts:

- Liu Feng, BODL Ventures Partner, former ChainNews Editor-in-Chief

- Xiong Haojun Jack, Legal Dynamic BlockBeats Deputy Editor, host of "Web3 Anonymous Talk"

· Air Date: September 22, 2025

Key Points Summary

This podcast episode features the Ethereum community OG "High-Quality Blue-Collar Worker" – a legal protocol drafter who ten years ago made a legendary transaction involving Ethereum at Wanxiang Investments, a long-time Ethereum supporter who lost the private key to a wallet holding 8000 ETH. The episode reviews key moments in Ethereum's decade-long development, the Ethereum technical roadmap, the evolution and constants of the core Ethereum narrative, discussing Ethereum's core value as a public chain, and addressing criticisms and misunderstandings of the Ethereum Foundation and the Ethereum ecosystem during this period.

Interesting Points Summary

· Human society greatly needs this kind of completely neutral entity, but it is almost non-existent in the real world, so once such a thing appears, it is extremely scarce.

· Credible neutrality is Ethereum’s most unique and valuable trait. Even under political pressure, the Ethereum Foundation maintains a politically neutral position.

· Earlier this year, on Twitter or other media, some well-known project founders or investment institution founders expressed admiration for Trump, with none willing to distance themselves from the Trump administration. However, only Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation explicitly maintained political neutrality. If even the Ethereum Foundation had expressed any support for the Trump administration at that time, I would likely have sold all my coins.

· Many thought Trump was here to save the crypto world, which now seems a bit ludicrous.

· Layer 2 is an inevitable future trend. Mainstream businesses need a relatively closed environment to prevent the value they create from being captured by holders on the mainnet.

· Layer 2 may not be fully decentralized, and it may become increasingly centralized.

· If all Layer 2 solutions are classified as generic Rollups, there may be a winner-takes-all situation. However, in the future, there may be various types of Layer 2 solutions, each catering to different business scenarios.

· Ethereum is not user-friendly.

· The Ethereum Foundation's mission has nothing to do with Wall Street taking over. They mainly have their own technical roadmap to follow, and price is not a top priority for them, although price movements can create external pressures.

Lost Private Key to Wallet Holding 8000 ETH

Host: Today's podcast is mainly focused on Ethereum. We've prepared for this for a long time but have been contemplating who to invite for the discussion. Ethereum, as a project, is both loved and hated because it was once a vibrant and creative ecosystem that attracted numerous fearless developers. However, many have been disappointed by its price performance. Today, Ethereum has some new narratives, so we've invited Blue Collar, who has been witnessing Ethereum's growth, to talk to us about what's new with Ethereum today and its future direction.

Sun Ming: Hello, everyone. I'm Blue Collar, a high-quality worker and also the Chief Legal Advisor at Distributed Capital. Thank you all.

Host: I remember a year or two ago, or maybe two to three years ago, you lost the private key to a wallet containing 1,000 Ethereum, right?

Sun Ming: Yes, it was actually 8,000. I still check that address from time to time. But I can't recover it. I actually lost the mnemonic phrase, and no matter how hard I try, I can't find it back.

11 Years Ago, Looking at Ethereum's Vision: Too Good to Be True

Host: I'd like to ask Blue Collar, when did you first get to know Ethereum? Everyone knows that when Vitalik first came to China for fundraising, he was helped by Distributed's Mr. Shen Bo and Wanxiang's Dr. Xiao Feng. I believe you were also one of the key figures behind the scenes.

Sun Ming: Yes, actually, I got to know Ethereum towards the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015, mainly through Shen Bo's recommendation. Because at that time, I was mainly researching a relatively old project called Bitshares. There was a circle in China at that time researching Bitshares, and they tended to like using blockchain for applications rather than just pure value storage like Bitcoin. It was quite natural to study Bitshares because many applications inside it still seem relevant today, such as from DEX to stablecoins, Oracles, which were some directions that Bitshares had tried in the past.

The approach that has been implemented in Bitshares may be different from what it is now, but the main point is that these concepts were proposed by him and there was a path for implementation. At that time, Shen Bo told me that there was now something more abstract than Bitshares, and this abstract concept may not have the same meaning as what people now refer to as abstract. That abstract is indeed a more generalized, more universal project called Ethereum, so he recommended me to study it. I am not a technical expert, so I may not understand some technical details, but the vision he implemented still seems very revolutionary.

This is actually related to our research on Bitshares back then. Although Bitshares proposed many concepts, it still had a significant flaw because it was not an abstract smart contract platform. In the Bitshares project, all DApps are developed by the developers of the chain itself, so these two are tightly coupled together, hard-coded to be completed inside it, and there is no situation where a third party can deploy contracts on the chain.

Liu Feng: So when you saw the grand vision proposed by Ethereum 11 years ago, you found it had already changed completely, right?

Sun Ming: Very different, and very revolutionary. Sometimes I feel it's "too good to be true." Can such a grand thing really be achieved? When I first saw it, I still had some doubts in my mind and couldn't really believe that this thing could actually be implemented.

Liu Feng: Blue-collar worker at the beginning brought us back to 11 years ago, from the era of Bitshares to seeing the initial description of Ethereum. I think everyone should remember that his description of the development ecology of Bitshares, where all applications are developed by the chain's developers. Later, we may compare this issue with the various blockchains today, especially the development of the first-layer ecosystem. In addition, Blue-collar worker actually started paying attention to Ethereum when it was still in its infancy.

I guess you were probably the earliest Chinese investor supporting Vitalik's Ethereum investment, and you helped review the legal agreement, right?

Sun Ming: Yes, when Wanxiang invested in Ethereum, I actually drafted that agreement.

Liu Feng: I interviewed Dr. Xiao some time ago, and Dr. Xiao recalled the moment when he took out $500,000 to support Vitalik's Ethereum, but Blue-collar worker was the key participant who helped review that investment agreement behind the scenes.

Starting from here, I think everyone should understand your long-standing relationship with Ethereum. I'm really interested in hearing your personal subjective feelings, and summarizing the nearly 11 years of Ethereum's development that you have experienced. What are the particularly important changes you have seen?

Sun Ming: In fact, there have been several turning points in history that are especially worth recalling, which had a significant impact on Ethereum's development. The first one I can think of is the hard fork event in '16.

Liu Feng: That was followed by a hack event, and the community voted to hard fork it, which was a dark time shortly after its inception.

Sun Ming: At that time, the community was indeed in a rather difficult state, around May '16. Vitalik held a blockchain and Ethereum conference in Shanghai, and I could tell he was very nervous. Throughout the entire conference, he seemed distracted, constantly working on his laptop, and at the same time responding to some chat messages, most likely regarding how to resolve this issue. Although strictly speaking, this issue was not Ethereum's own problem, it had a very significant impact on Ethereum.

Liu Feng: Because at that time, DAO was the core of the ecosystem, and the fundraising for DAO had gathered a large amount of ETH. But they didn't really make this issue public to the community back then, right?

Sun Ming: Yes, when I first found out, it wasn't completely public yet, but some people already knew. I was thinking from the perspective of a community participant about how I should choose to act. Although I was not involved in Slock.it's investment, I felt this matter was very significant. So, when such a big event happened, I naturally thought about how I would choose if the community needed to vote on not forking.

Liu Feng: The result was a hard fork, and the transactions were rolled back, which is an event that people often bring up for discussion even ten years later.

Sun Ming: But now I wonder why this event is criticized because a hard fork does not erase anyone's assets; it's just a community choice. And because the ETC chain itself still exists, if you are willing to support the ETC chain, everyone has the right to continue maintaining it and use the code on it. Essentially, this is just giving ordinary people a choice and does not erase anyone's rights.

This was the first historical development event that left a deep impression on me. The next event that reached this level of significance was actually earlier this year, the inauguration of Trump. While initially seemingly unrelated to crypto, during Trump's inauguration, many prominent figures within the crypto community started to express their appreciation for Trump, especially many project founders.

At that time, I was somewhat pessimistic, feeling that the revolutionary nature of this industry had completely disappeared, with almost all participants being mere speculators. You could see on Twitter or other media platforms at the time that some well-known project founders or founders of investment firms were expressing their appreciation for Trump, with none willing to keep their distance from the Trump administration. Only Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation were clearly maintaining political neutrality at the time. If even the Ethereum Foundation had made any statements catering to the Trump administration at that time, I would have very likely sold all of my coins.

Many believed that Trump was here to save the crypto world, which seems quite ludicrous in hindsight.

Ethereum's Unique Value: Credible Neutrality

Liu Feng: Our show does not want to delve into too much political discussion. What intrigued me more was your mention of Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation's explicit stance of neutrality, which is very important because I think this topic may come up again in our subsequent discussions.

The two moments you mentioned made me pensive, especially the second one. You also got me wondering, why do you think this neutral stance makes you willing to continue to persevere within Ethereum?

Sun Ming: This has a lot to do with the revolutionary ideal that Ethereum upholds. I don't particularly like holding onto mediocre things; many blockchain projects seem rather mediocre to me. It's not that their technology is mediocre; the technology may be very good. However, their relationship with the founding principles is significant, as they can only provide value that others can easily replicate. On the contrary, if one can achieve “credible neutrality,” in today's business world and other domains of society, this kind of credible neutrality is almost non-existent, with everything having a political stance.

As a lawyer, I study politics and law extensively in my daily life. I can assert definitively that nearly the entire academic world today also has political stances, and these political stances are often predominant. Therefore, in today's society, if one can find something that strives to remain neutral, whether it be an organization or a group of people, it is actually incredibly rare and valuable.

Liufeng: In your opinion, Ethereum's wholeheartedness and true neutrality are important qualities.

Sun Ming: Yes, these kinds of things, whether Ethereum or not, whether in the blockchain world or not, actually have unique value. Human society is in great need of such completely neutral things, but they are almost nonexistent in the real world. So once such a thing appears, it becomes extremely scarce.

Liufeng: You have highly praised this quality of it, considering it its greatest value. But I must tell you that not everyone may think the same way.

Sun Ming: Of course not, everyone has their own views. This is just my personal opinion. I usually enjoy reading about politics and history. The academic circle is the same way; all academic research is also politically motivated, even if not explicitly stated. If there is no political stance to research any academic theory, it is fundamentally criticized as a form of nihilism.

Liufeng: However, in fact, more and more people believe that Ethereum's neutrality has caused it to miss out on many opportunities, and they feel that its narrative is not compelling enough.

Sun Ming: From my observation, indeed many people think so, but this is just a small ripple in history. I still adhere to a long-term and philosophical perspective. Some things are indeed needed for human society to exist in the long run, even though they essentially exist as a hedge against something.

Liufeng: This is actually what we have been talking about regarding the value of Crypto. If Crypto is not a hedge against the real world, it has no value.

Sun Ming: Many things can replace it; centralized internet is also fine. But the issue is, just like the relationship between gold and the US dollar system, the US dollar system does operate very well, but gold as a thing must always exist because it needs a counterpart to support it.

The Ethereum Narrative Remains Unchanged, but the Roadmap Has Changed Significantly Over the Past Decade

Liufeng: Ethereum's core value has actually always remained unchanged, but I must mention that Ethereum's narrative based on its core value has been constantly changing. Can you briefly reflect on some of the changes in its core narrative?

Sun Ming: In fact, the term "Narrative" itself is a relatively recent translation. In the early days of Ethereum, people generally did not refer to it as "Narrative," but rather more idealistically as "Vision." For example, the concept of the "World Computer." This macro vision still exists today, but from a practical perspective, it must be gradually realized, breaking down this vision into specific tasks to achieve it.

As for whether the Narrative has undergone significant changes, I don't think there has been a major change. Essentially, its roadmap has changed a lot over this decade. There are many reasons for this because every time its roadmap is proposed, after a period of practice, such as one year, two years, three years, it may be found that the original roadmap has encountered some dead ends. Sometimes it's not necessarily a dead end but rather encountering some particularly major difficulties that cannot be resolved at that historical stage. Therefore, they must try other, more feasible paths. This is actually the same as any social revolution; the originally set roadmap cannot be 100% followed forever and will inevitably be adjusted at specific time periods.

The earliest change was in 2015 when they believed that sharding was the solution to scalability issues. But later, everyone found that the technical roadmap for sharding was too difficult to implement. I remember in 2015, I was in Shen Bo's office, and at that time, Baohu Wang (Founder of Blockchain Pencil) asked a question, "When can we have a decentralized exchange (DEX) on Ethereum?" Vitalik believed that it would require sharding to be implemented to achieve sufficient speed, which might take about three years.

At that time, Baohu was working on a DEX startup project, and from his perspective, waiting for another three years was not an option. After three years, history proved that such scalability couldn't be achieved during that period, so they had to look for other paths. In the end, they proposed a Layer 2-centric scaling solution, but this solution was also a controversial roadmap.

Liu Feng: My impression is that this proposal was put forward at the end of 2018 or in 2019, the Rollup concept was introduced at an ETH meetup in Taipei.

Sun Ming: At that time, Rollup was already mature. The original roadmap was not Rollup but rather using Plasma. Initially, it was Joseph Poon who proposed Plasma, but later, practice proved its effectiveness was not particularly good. Therefore, they introduced the concept of Rollup, which had relatively better results, so they ultimately settled on a Layer 2 scaling solution mainly based on Rollup. Of course, Layer 2 is not just Rollup; there are many other technologies. You can see that the changes in this path have been significant.

Is "Layer 2 Centricity" Right or Wrong?

Liufeng: The revised roadmap focuses on Rollup as the main scaling solution, which has had a significant impact on the current Ethereum ecosystem. The primary form of the Ethereum ecosystem now is the mainnet plus Rollup Layer 2, where all applications are built upon. However, recently, this roadmap has changed again. Can you introduce it to us?

Sun Ming: Recently, within the Ethereum Foundation, including both the Foundation and external observers, it is believed that enhancing scalability around the mainnet is still necessary. To be honest, from my observations, the community's view may be somewhat skewed. In reality, the necessity of Layer 2 has not been refuted, and enhancing Layer 1 will not affect Layer 2. Personally, I believe Layer 2 is an inevitable future trend, not a technical issue but rather a matter of business logic.

Mainstream businesses will not actually use Layer 1 to deploy DApps. They require a relatively closed environment to prevent the value they create from being captured by mainnet token holders. This is a fundamental business logic issue, especially in the financial sector, where many regulatory requirements also necessitate Layer 2 compliance. Meeting these regulatory requirements is almost impossible on Layer 1 because adding many features to the mainnet to prevent privacy leaks and ensure KYC compliance would be necessary.

Putting everything on Layer 2, a future tailored toward applications may result in many Layer 2 solutions being developed and operated by centralized business entities.

Liufeng: So, according to your vision, in the future, many application-oriented Layer 2 solutions should be able to exist in a customized manner.

Sun Ming: Yes, and they will be operated in a centralized manner, particularly centralized operations. Similar to the Base scenario, whereas the mainnet would achieve the global computer settlement function, which is an ideal state. The mainnet would provide data availability for all Layer 2 solutions while offering some trustless, decentralized facilities, but complete trustlessness is unattainable.

Jack: I very much agree with the points made by Teacher Blue Collar earlier. Many institutions may require a customized chain, a logic that has already been proven in the past one or two years. In the financial sector, institutions like JPMorgan Chase, when experimenting with blockchain, tend to favor blockchain structures like Avalanche because it provides the technical structure of subnets, allowing them to customize a completely closed ecosystem from the ground up.

Sun Ming: Recently, we have observed some projects, such as Google Cloud Universal Ledger and Stripe Tempo, doing the same. They have built this as Layer 1, which is not highly related to decentralization. Essentially, they have just opened up a public ledger where information data can be transparent, allowing third-party participants to trust. If only transparency is achieved without pursuing immutability, choices like Google Cloud are acceptable.

Different business models have different demands. Some scenarios indeed require the immutability feature, but not all scenarios do.

Liu Feng: But people will ask, why must it be built on Ethereum? I can be EVM compatible.

Sun Ming: This brings us back to the fundamental philosophical question: what unique value do you actually provide? If you believe that all products or services in the Web 2 era can be perfectly realized, developed independently by the enterprise to achieve transparency, but in some scenarios, there may be a demand for immutability, self-building Layer 1 may not be feasible.

Liu Feng: So do you think this will lead to some enterprises choosing to build their own Layer 1?

Sun Ming: Yes, with different business scenarios, Web 3 is not a complete replacement for Web 2 but rather provides some value that Web 2 cannot provide. Irreplaceable value is a continuous spectrum, where some scenarios require full trustlessness, while others only need transparency.

Liu Feng: So, do you think Ethereum's features will still be attractive to some large-scale enterprises in the future? Can you give some examples of scenarios that require this feature?

Sun Ming: It is attractive in specific business scenarios, but immutability comes with its cost, and not all scenarios require it. For example, scenarios that need to maintain complete evidence of historical events or lack of trust between nations, especially trust issues between hostile parties. In these cases, merely seeing the ledger is not enough; the ledger must be ensured to be immutable.

However, trustlessness comes with a high cost, so not all business models require this feature. Ethereum provides this capability in scenarios that need complete trustlessness, but it does not mean it can take over all the business scenarios of Web 2, which is not practical.

Liu Feng: In this case, how do we view Ethereum? How does it truly acquire this type of user?

Sun Ming: Acquiring users is a matter of business logic, but the Ethereum Foundation is not good at this. The role of the Ethereum Foundation is not fundraising but rather focusing on developing what it wants.

Liu Feng: That's also why we see companies like Etherealize emerging. Could you briefly introduce Etherealize? Have you invested in them?

Sun Ming: I haven't invested in them, I just know some. Essentially, what the founder of Etherealize is doing is because the Ethereum Foundation is not a business entity and doesn't know how to fundraise. Other projects' foundations may do those things, while Etherealize focuses on how large institutions can enter the Ethereum ecosystem.

Liu Feng: So Etherealize is helping large institutions promote Ethereum, helping them enter the Ethereum ecosystem.

Sun Ming: In some parts of large institutions' products and services, there is a need to leverage the unique value provided by Ethereum. The early work of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance was also in this direction. At that time, large enterprises believed they could not directly use the public chain, so they chose a permissioned chain. Later on, it was proven that permissioned chains were not particularly successful, but they still hold value in some niche markets.

From today's perspective, the relationship between large institutions and public chains is no longer so distinct, and in fact, they can use the public chain in some ways, whether it's through Layer 2 or other methods. Therefore, institutions like Ethereum Trust are now starting to promote to large institutions, encouraging them to use the public chain instead of a permissioned chain.

Liu Feng: This indicates that the Ethereum Foundation has begun to realize this issue. Although historically it has not been an entity focused on fundraising, it is now starting to support third-party teams and reach out to large institutions.

Sun Ming: Yes, the Ethereum Foundation has recognized this issue, and although it is not a fundraising institution, some entities have emerged in the market to fill this gap.

What Is the Ethereum Foundation (EF) Doing? Why the Backlash?

Liu Feng: Taking advantage of this opportunity, could you introduce the positioning and role of the Ethereum Foundation (EF)? In the past year or two, the EF has been the subject of criticism by many. What exactly does the EF do?

Sun Ming: Yes, because there were no other institutions to criticize, the EF became the target. Criticisms are often related to price drops, but objectively, the price fluctuation is not the EF's issue.

The Ethereum Foundation is mainly responsible for researching and setting the overall roadmap. Although it has some people working on coding internally, the main coding work is still done by third-party teams outside the EF, especially on the client side.

Liu Feng: So, the EF's work is actually fundamental research and strategic direction setting, rather than directly implementing these goals.

Sun Ming: Yes, it shares its research results openly with teams and individuals willing to join the Ethereum ecosystem. The EF does not have the authority to command anyone to do things; its primary means are through funding and inspiration. The EF's governance model is relatively unique. It does not provide subsidies to nodes, so it cannot control developers' or nodes' behaviors.

However, this model has clear advantages and disadvantages. One problem is relatively low efficiency. Additionally, over the past two years, there has been criticism of the EF, claiming it is a bureaucratic institution. This perception may be due to poor coin performance, making them a scapegoat. The bureaucratic issues mentioned in the criticism do objectively exist to some extent. Any organization has bureaucracy, and the EF is not good at internal governance and management, leading to the appearance of redundancy and bureaucracy.

Another issue is who can represent Ethereum externally. The community's misunderstanding of the EF makes it appear as the sole representative, whereas, in reality, the EF does not control anything. The community needs to recognize that the EF is not the sole representative, and other third-party organizations are also playing a role.

Liu Feng: In the past, the EF played a significant role in setting the roadmap, but the roadmap is always adjusting, which gives a sense of a problem.

Sun Ming: It's normal for the technical roadmap to adjust, and I don't think the EF has made any major mistakes in that regard. For example, the development direction of Layer 2 and subsequent ZK technologies are the right choices.

Liu Feng: Some people criticize that around the EF, some Ethereum enthusiasts have united, but in reality, they are using the EF's name to profit.

Sun Ming: This situation does exist, and it is related to the unclear positioning of the EF. The community needs to clarify the EF's responsibilities in order to better identify which projects the EF is supporting and which are not.

Liu Feng: What institutions can now take over some of the EF's functions?

Sun Ming: Some client-focused institutions are quite obvious, as well as institutions like Etherealize, which focus on commercial onboarding. The EF is clarifying its own position and responsibilities, and certain tasks that do not belong to the EF should be undertaken by other institutions.

Jack: If the number of participants in the Ethereum ecosystem increases, does it mean that the technical roadmap can also be discussed by more people?

Sun Ming: This is a very good governance issue. There is no successful precedent for decentralized governance, and the EF is exploring how to achieve better decentralized governance. One of the core tasks of the EF is to develop a roadmap, but Vitalik's opinion is also important in it.

Jack: If large Wall Street institutions want to compete for Ethereum's technological direction, what will they do?

Sun Ming: They may establish a second foundation similar to the EF to develop their own roadmap. If they cannot coordinate, theoretically they could choose a hard fork, but whether the forked project can gain consensus is a question.

Liu Feng: This is actually a typical decentralized organization, but decision-making is still centralized, and everyone looks to leaders like Vitalik.

Sun Ming: In terms of developing the roadmap, Vitalik's personal charm and community consensus are important foundations.

Is Layer 2 a Vampire?

Liu Feng: We have been discussing issues related to the Ethereum Foundation, and now we are back to the scalability solution mainly based on Layer 2. This solution seems to have sparked a lot of controversy, with many criticizing Layer 2 for "vampirizing" Ethereum. What is your view?

Sun Ming: This criticism does exist, and many people believe that Layer 2 has not paid enough "rent" to the Ethereum mainnet. This is indeed an objective issue, which cannot be said to be entirely right or entirely wrong.

The objective fact is that Layer 2's rent paid to the Ethereum mainnet is indeed very low, possibly below expectations. From Vitalik and EF's perspective, they do not wish to charge too much rent, as it could disrupt the overall ecosystem balance.

Vitalik emphasizes the concept of a public good, hoping to charge only a small fee for each transaction. However, the centralization of Layer 2's sequencers allows them to earn more profit. This has led to an alignment issue between the Ethereum mainnet and Layer 2, which could be a significant concern in the future.

Mainnet rent may not be as low as imagined, but the fees charged by Layer 2 are indeed too high. The EF's philosophy is to leave the value to the end-user, so Layer 2 should charge less.

The decentralization process of Layer 2 is also lengthy. I believe that Layer 2 may not be fully decentralized; it may only become more centralized over time.

Liu Feng: Does this mean that their sequencers are also not decentralized?

Sun Ming: Only a small portion of Layer 2 may move towards decentralization. This is a very challenging issue, and even the EF is powerless.

Liu Feng: Vitalik's idea is for the mainnet not to charge too much, but in reality, the benefits have not flowed to end-users but rather remain with Layer 2.

Sun Ming: Moreover, the fee structure of Layer 2 is opaque, and the EF cannot control their behavior. Unless the problem is alleviated in the future through competition between Layer 2 solutions, which is not a definitive solution either.

If all Layer 2s are classified as generic Rollups, indeed, there may be a winner-takes-all situation. However, in the future, various different Layer 2 solutions may emerge, each with its own unique business scenarios.

Liu Feng: Ideally, the Layer 2 ecosystem would achieve coexistence of users and revenue and could support the mainnet. However, in reality, this situation does not seem to exist.

Sun Ming: I think that in the future, some completely centralized commercial companies may operate these Layer 2 solutions, such as examples like Base. However, if Ethereum can offer more technical choices, perhaps it could mitigate the current issues, but ultimately, it depends on market choices. But I have always believed that Ethereum is not actually suitable for the average user.

Is the New Narrative of "Institutional Adoption" Reliable?

Liu Feng: Today everyone has been talking about the story of Ethereum, which is that Ethereum is actually more suitable for institutions, more suitable to become a settlement layer, whether it is for so-called RWAs or other truly institutional use cases. Ethereum is the best settlement layer, and this is a bit like their new narrative today.

Sun Ming: Yes, at least in the DeFi field, it still has some irreplaceable advantages because DeFi does indeed require it.

Liu Feng: Completely neutral, completely tamper-proof, truly able to ensure asset security. I can see that when Etherealize is promoting Ethereum to institutions, this is the word they like to use the most, "This is the safest chain apart from the Bitcoin chain, and it truly is a platform that can achieve decentralization and trustlessness." Just like you said, Ethereum may not be very suitable for retail investors, so in the future, its core is to target large institutions, especially financial institutions.

It goes back to the original question, we initially liked Ethereum because it had great potential; it could cater to many native developers, especially native users of cryptocurrency, and was an attractive platform. But following its new narrative, its new logic, it seems like we are going back to a world where we are trying to please Trump again. Isn't that contradictory?

Sun Ming: I can only say that this is actually a market choice because ordinary people will not sacrifice their own interests for revolutionary ideals.

Liu Feng: If you ask me again, I think the most attractive point of Ethereum to me, especially during the process from 2019 to 2021-2022, was the emergence of a large number of particularly native DeFi experiments. It was completely an era of Crypto native victory.

According to this new narrative, this new consensus, it seems that Ethereum is not very suitable for that vibrant ecosystem anymore.

Sun Ming: I think the community has not yet found what the next step of DeFi should be, what it should be doing. The institutionalized products and services that many people have already seen, they feel more certainty in those.

Liufeng: So, looking at it this way, how long do you think this current trend of aligning everything with institutions, boldly embracing Wall Street, and embracing politicians will continue?

Sun Ming: Maybe it will last until the end of Trump's term.

Jack: Actually, I have some feelings about this. When I saw Solana back then, it was considered by the market as a potential Ethereum killer of that year. Shortly after Trump took office, it changed its banner from its original promotional material to the American flag, positioning itself as an American chain.

After Trump steps down, this chain may still face some political challenges. Will it not face political backlash?

Sun Ming: It's not just them; almost everyone did the same. Those who get involved in politics will surely face a reckoning someday, that's for sure, including the Trump family itself.

However, looking at it from a short-term perspective, indeed, many people prefer to do so because it is a common choice driven by real interests. I think it's understandable, even rational.

The Ethereum issue is quite unique. Are you really choosing Ethereum or the EF? Strictly speaking, actually, no one can represent Ethereum. You'll see that within the Ethereum community, many people are moving in one direction, but surely there is another group moving in a different direction. It has no specific representative. Institutionalization now has little to do with the EF. The EF itself is not particularly concerned about this; it is still focused on its roadmap.

Liufeng: Currently, I have found that in this respect, it is not as diverse as it seems. Ethereum may actually experience a situation where everyone is moving in the same direction. Everyone is now cheering for the establishment of DAT companies for Ethereum. Everyone is celebrating companies like Etherealize no longer having to pitch Ethereum to institutions. On the other hand, everyone is hoping that Ethereum will transition to complete commercialization.

Blue-collar, is there anything else you would like to talk about, especially with so much criticism, misunderstanding, and even attacks on Ethereum this week?

Sun Ming: I think criticism is necessary, even if it's misguided. Although I believe that last year and the first half of this year's criticisms mostly stemmed from price drops, these issues are fundamentally present and will not disappear just because the price rises. Price increase does not necessarily mean you are doing exceptionally well; they are completely unrelated.

Liufeng: Do you think the fundamentals of Ethereum have changed?

Sun Ming: I don't think there has been much change, but the price drop is definitely due to mainstream funds changing hands. This year is a phase of concentrated turnover, so this is actually unrelated to the Ethereum Foundation (EF).

Liufeng: First, it has nothing to do with the EF, and second, there hasn't been much change in the fundamentals, right?

Sun Ming: Yes, the EF cannot possibly affect the price. The narrative power of the price has long been in the hands of Wall Street. EF has no influence on the price. Although EF has many issues to address, from another perspective, they have been exploring decentralized governance, encountering many obstacles. The main Ethereum protocol has been evolving, with major upgrades every year, which contrasts sharply with Bitcoin's stability. Bitcoin's main protocol rarely changes, making governance decisions relatively easy, while Ethereum needs to make major decisions regularly, which is indeed very challenging.

Jack: You mentioned that Ethereum has already been taken over by Wall Street. Do you think the mission of the Ethereum Foundation has ended?

Sun Ming: Of course not, the EF's mission has nothing to do with Wall Street taking over. They still mainly have their own technical roadmap to accomplish, and price is not that important to them, although the price itself brings external pressure.

There are very few things the EF can control, they do not control the nodes, and the coins are not in their hands. They have very little power in the entire ecosystem, so there is no need to mention the EF too much.

Jack: So is it possible that the Ethereum Foundation will become less and less important for the Ethereum ecosystem in the future?

Sun Ming: It is possible in the future, but it is still very important in the short term because they are still responsible for the roadmap. If one day Ethereum is considered to have evolved to a fully settled state and no longer needs major changes, the EF may not have a significant role. However, they still play a decisive role at the technical level, after all, they determine the direction of the technical roadmap.

Jack: Aren't you worried that large institutions will take away this technological narrative power? I think this is the trend now.

Sun Ming: If the technical roadmap is taken away, there is a high probability of a fork, creating a new Ethereum chain. In fact, large Wall Street institutions also do not have internal consensus, as each company has its own technical roadmap.

Liu Feng: Personally, I think the choice of the technical roadmap is more seen from a business perspective. If everyone's interests are tied together to vie for influence, it is not particularly meaningful. Of course, there may be some controversy, but it is actually more about the common good.

Sun Ming: Actually, seizing influence is meaningless. With your own roadmap, you can do it however you want, without worrying about how others see it.

Jack: I asked this because Ethereum as an asset has already been recognized by Wall Street. They will want to find a new story for their hoarded assets, driving up the price, etc. Will this affect the fundamentals?

Sun Ming: This is not so much related to the fundamentals. Just like if you hoard a lot of Bitcoin, it will not affect the core team's leadership of Bitcoin.

Liu Feng: The point of interest contention here may be in the formulation of the economic model and the impact of changes in the technical roadmap on the economic model. This situation may arise, but Ethereum's governance feature does not rely on token voting; rather, the influence of developers' choices and social consensus is greater.

Sun Ming: This model may not be the best, but it is definitely the currently effective way. Other projects can choose different governance methods, and even extreme on-chain voting is also a governance model, but its effect may be limited.