What’s the value of pursuing ‘Wen Moon’ if we destroy every other gain? We’re all caught up on price, last I looked Ethereum was at $1600, waiting for that moonshot! While all of this is exciting, let’s not lose sight of the magic that originally captured our hearts and imaginations with Ethereum. Remember the early days? The ideal of an open-source, collaborative, decentralized world, created by a community of big-hearted free-thinkers. It seems like an exaggerated race to the top for DA supremacy. I can’t help but wonder what this cost competition comes at.
Community's Values Being Diluted By Revenue?
The central argument that seems to be circulating is that making Ethereum’s future based on DA ultimately comes down to making fees from DA. Now execution fees are moving to Layer 2 solutions and MEV is going down. Therefore, DA are expected to be the golden goose and the sole sustainable revenue source. Fine. When we zoom into revenue, blobs, EIP-4844— are we losing sight of the forest for the trees? As we work to implement, let’s not get bogged down in the minutiae and lose sight of what is really important.
Think about it. At its core, DA is the storage and bandwidth required for chains to function. It's plumbing. Important, yes. Sexy? Not particularly. So, we’re banking the future of this incredible emergent technology on… plumbing connection charges? In this frenetic competition for DA supremacy, are we just inadvertently building a system that’s open only to the rich? This has the potential to re-centralize huge amounts of power and money, completely renouncing the intent of decentralization in the first place. Are we turning into the monster we were trying to kill?
This is like when your favorite indie band signs to a major label. They receive more resources, a larger platform, but all of a sudden, their sound feels…off. Sanitized. Commercial. Are we sanitizing Ethereum?
The Unintended Consequences Of Competition
Let's talk about Celestia. To lure users to their new projects, they’re promising larger block sizes and lower transaction fees. L2s are flocking to them. It’s a pretty competitive market and competition is good, or so we always hear, right? What happens when competition drives everyone to zero out their prices? The race to the bottom would more than cancel out these potential gains from being made competitive. Are we trading off security, robustness, and decentralization itself to get DA at a lower cost?
This unyielding requirement for cost-effectiveness creates an environment entrenched in monetized incentives. Because of that, innovation abounds, but it lacks the real will to build a new, more equitable future. The spirit of open-source collaboration, of building together, risks being replaced by a cutthroat competition where everyone is trying to undercut each other.
Remember Hyperliquid? They've dominated the perpetuals DEX volumes. And why? Rapid token listings and better UX. Great! But then came that JELLY misadventure, shining light on the dangers hidden within their HLP. It’s a good cue to remember that jumping for growth at any cost can create weaknesses and make costly trade-offs.
The question we need to ask ourselves is: are we building a sustainable ecosystem, or are we just optimizing for short-term gains, potentially sacrificing the long-term health and viability of Ethereum? Are we all so concerned about defeating Celestia that we’re forgetting to concern ourselves with being better.
Is Scalability Worth Losing Our Soul?
I understand the need for scalability. I understand that Ethereum needs to scale to process more transactions, to decrease gas costs, to become truly inclusive. Yet I refuse to accept that in order to do something at scale we need to abandon our fundamental principles.
We need to be asking tougher questions. How do we make sure that DA solutions are not only inexpensive but safe and decentralized? How do we create a community where creative collaboration, disruption, and innovation are more important than anything else? How do we ensure Ethereum doesn’t become simply another centralized platform, owned and operated by a small number of large, powerful players?
Many like the idea of DA, with Justin Drake of the Ethereum Foundation saying it’s the only sustainable revenue source. Maybe he's right. But revenue shouldn't be the only consideration. Success must be measured by more than the citation fees we’re bringing in. Instead, let’s make our measures about how many people we empower, how decentralized we become, and how much better we make the world.
Ethereum was never just about the technology. It was never about the money, it was about the concept, the vision, the commitment to a better tomorrow. Let's not lose sight of that. To put it in more humanistic terms, let’s not sacrifice our soul on the altar of data availability. With all of these new initiatives underway, let’s not forget why we all got into this in the first place. Let's ensure that the pursuit of scalability doesn't come at the cost of our humanity.
