TL;DR
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When ETH Daddy writes, he has a habit of getting pretty darn technical. So, here’s a breakdown of what Vitalik is ruminating on in this post.
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In his blog post, Vitalik is basically floating the following question: ‘What if we were to add some/all of this functionality to the base Ethereum protocol, as standard?’
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Vitalik is essentially getting the ball rolling on development, by asking the Ethereum community which functions should/shouldn’t be added.
Full Story
Alright, so ETH Daddy (Vitalik Buterin) just dropped a new blog post – and when he speaks, folks tend to listen.
Only problem is…
When ETH Daddy writes, he has a habit of getting pretty darn technical.
So, here’s a breakdown of what Vitalik is ruminating on in this post.
First, if you could humor us…
Imagine if Steve Jobs was a cut throat minimalist. Like, so much so that when he debuted the iPhone, the only app/function it had was the ability to make phone calls. No SMS, no contact lists, no Settings app – definitely no calculator.
Instead, imagine that he wanted all of those functions and features to be created and delivered by third party developers, via the App Store.
That’s kind of how Vitalik envisioned the modern day version of Ethereum. A super minimalist, stripped down code base that did one thing and one thing only:
Process simple cryptocurrency transactions.
Everything else, like functions that reduce fees, speed up transactions, make crypto wallets function more like simple Web2 applications…
All of those functions have been built as separate add-ons, like apps on an iPhone.
And just like apps, they can plug in to the base Ethereum protocol (operating system) if needed – but they don’t come installed right out of the box.
In his blog post, Vitalik is basically floating the following question:
‘What if we were to add some/all of this functionality to the base Ethereum protocol, as standard?’
Which…feels like a bit of a let down, right? A six thousand word essay that asks a question, without then providing a clear answer.
But here’s the trick of it all…
Vitalik is essentially getting the ball rolling on development, by asking the Ethereum community which functions should/shouldn’t be added.
(Because the Ethereum community are the ones that will first have to decide on any changes, then build it all).
Would it be quicker if there were a central decision maker? Absolutely.
But when building decentralized systems, you don’t have that blessing/curse.
