Entering Ethereum’s New Era | Tomasz Stańczak

This episode delves into the Ethereum Foundation's strategic pivot under new leadership, focusing on execution, institutional engagement, and scaling Ethereum to become the backbone of a global, programmable economy, directly impacting Crypto AI investors and researchers tracking infrastructure development and real-world asset integration.

A New Chapter for the Ethereum Foundation

• The episode features Tomasz Stańczak, co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation (EF), who is currently focused on structuring the EF for "winning and delivering." This involves actively seeking top executive talent to enhance product focus, delivery, and engineering excellence.
• Tomasz describes his initial months as filled with hundreds of conversations, allowing him to identify "common patterns of complaints of asks" and gain valuable insights from the community. He views his role as a privileged position to channel this feedback into actionable improvements.
• His appointment followed discussions with EF leadership, including Aya Miyaguchi, around leadership and talent management, evolving into the co-executive director role after a series of meetings.

Evolving EF Culture and Institutional Engagement

• Tomasz addresses the perceived shift in EF culture from purely research-oriented and idealistic towards more business development (BD) and institutional engagement. He notes that historically, Ethereum always had space for both builders and enterprise, referencing the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA).
• He acknowledges a recent community complaint that the EF seemed to distance itself from "places where you can maybe win by making money." However, Tomasz emphasizes that internally, "people love DeFi and are very open to DeFi."
• A key insight for investors is the EF's renewed openness to engaging with large institutions. Tomasz highlights that institutions themselves are pushing for core Ethereum values: "Actually what we care about is privacy for our customers, is the censorship resistance... it's fun enough as the institutions that are pushing for all these values of Ethereum."
• This shift is built on a newfound confidence within the EF to maintain its core values while engaging externally, recognizing Ethereum's sufficient decentralization and the significant number of established institutions in the ecosystem.

Ethereum's Value Proposition and Network Strategy

• The discussion contrasts Ethereum's "credibly neutral" identity with other ecosystems. Ethereum's current dominance in stablecoins, DeFi, Total Value Locked (TVL – a measure of the total value of crypto assets locked in a DeFi protocol), and fees generated from DeFi is highlighted as a result of its foundational values.
• Tomasz explains that hiring a product director signifies a push to improve User Experience (UX), which he defines broadly as "the perceived security of the network" and the richness of available applications.
• A critical focus is on interoperability (interop), not just between Ethereum L1 (Layer 1 – the base blockchain) and L2s (Layer 2s – scaling solutions built on top of L1), but also "interop of Ethereum and its L2s with the traditional finance with fiat assets."
  • Strategic Implication: Investors should monitor developments in L2-TradFi interoperability, as this could significantly accelerate the adoption of Ethereum for real-world financial applications.

The "Blue Gospel" Debate: Evangelism vs. Fundamentals

• The podcast touches on Ryan Sean Adams' "Blue Gospel" concept, questioning whether Ethereum should mimic Bitcoin's "cult-like" marketing success versus focusing on fundamentals like fees and business building.
• Michael (host) believes Ethereum uniquely combines monetary premium with utility and shouldn't be confined to one box.
• Tomasz Stańczak’s perspective is that the EF's role is to ensure protocol resilience, long-term growth, and scaling. This foundational work builds confidence for a "massive global economy" on Ethereum. He states, "If I think about the Ethereum winning, it's a bit of like not a bit of everything. It's it's on the top of everything... because the economy will be there, because it's programmable, because you can execute everything with security, and because it's so globally and neutral, then you can win in all the aspects."
• Vance (host) adds that Ethereum's original values were rooted in "futurism," which naturally pairs with capital-intensive futuristic infrastructure like AI data centers and next-gen energy, for which Ethereum's deep capital markets are an ideal home.
• Actionable Insight: The EF's commitment to robust fundamentals, combined with its inherent programmability, positions Ethereum to capture value from diverse, high-growth sectors like AI infrastructure financing.

Real Economic Value (REV) and Future Technologies

• REV (Real Economic Value – a metric attempting to measure a blockchain's revenue from fees, excluding inflationary rewards) is discussed as a potential measure of an ecosystem's GDP, though acknowledged as hard to quantify perfectly.
• Tomasz emphasizes Ethereum's role as a space for the decentralization of future technologies, including AI. He mentions Vitalik Buterin's work on DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs – a data structure that can be used in distributed ledgers) and ongoing discussions about privacy, AI governance, and cyberpunk values within the Ethereum ecosystem.
• "Is blockchain the space for that safety and for additional opportunities on building something novel when we talk about AI... or blockchain is just becoming this source of slowing things down? I think it's the former." Tomasz asserts, signaling a belief in blockchain's positive role in AI development, particularly in areas like AI model verification.
• Research Focus: Researchers should explore the intersection of Ethereum's capabilities (e.g., ZK proofs) with AI verification and decentralized AI governance models.

Connecting On-Chain and Off-Chain Worlds

• A significant theme is the increasing connection between the on-chain crypto economy and the off-chain traditional economy, particularly through Real World Assets (RWAs – tokenized representations of tangible assets like real estate or bonds).
• Michael notes that the 2021 bull run's limitation was its circular, on-chain nature. Now, tangible connections are being made, starting with T-bills and extending to financing AI data centers and energy projects on-chain.
• Tomasz highlights that traditional finance (TradFi) has been waiting for regulatory clarity, and the "massive unlock" is happening now, with institutions excited about Ethereum's global, borderless nature for on-ramps, off-ramps, and financial system connectivity.
• He also foresees a resurgence of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), driven by Generative AI (Gen AI) and the need for ownership in emerging digital realities and metaverses.
• Investor Watchpoint: The tokenization of RWAs, especially those related to AI infrastructure (e.g., GPUs), represents a major growth vector for Ethereum.

Practical Example: GPUs as NFTs for Financing

• An anecdote shared involves a company tokenizing GPUs as NFTs on-chain. These NFTs represent legal ownership of the physical GPUs (under UCC - Uniform Commercial Code), allowing them to be used as collateral for loans.
• This example impressed a traditional banker, underscoring the tangible utility and potential of blockchain in real-world finance.
• Strategic Consideration: This model of financing physical AI hardware via on-chain tokenization could become a significant market, leveraging Ethereum's deep capital markets.

DeFi on Ethereum and the Consumer Market Challenge

• The discussion addresses why DeFi (Decentralized Finance – financial applications built on blockchain) has remained "sticky" on Ethereum, while Solana has seen more traction in consumer applications and memecoins.
• Tomasz attributes Ethereum's DeFi strength to pre-existing liquidity and composability. He admits Ethereum L2s "arrived maybe just like a few months too late" for some recent consumer trends but asserts that L2s are now ready to compete.
• The EF plans to support new builders and founders on Ethereum through "super team-like structures" and welcomes experimentation, including in trading and gaming.
• Opportunity: As Ethereum L2s mature, there's an opportunity for projects to build consumer-facing AI applications that leverage Ethereum's security and growing scalability.

Real-Time Proving and ZK Technology Advancements

• The announcement of real-time proving (generating cryptographic proofs quickly) by Succinct and Uma, achieving ~9-second proof times on Ethereum for many blocks, is a major topic. This has significant implications for L2 interoperability, making it cheaper, faster, and more secure.
• ZK (Zero-Knowledge) proofs allow one party to prove to another that a statement is true without revealing any information beyond the validity of the statement itself.
• While Vitalik Buterin offered cautious optimism (noting it's average-case, still costly for home provers, and gas limits need to increase), Tomasz highlights that ZK technology has consistently exceeded expectations.
• This progress unlocks discussions around native rollups and ZK-based base rollups, strengthening the entire L2 ecosystem.
• AI Relevance: Advances in ZK proving are foundational for zkML (Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning), which enables private verification of AI models – crucial for secure, decentralized AI. Investors should track ZK hardware and software developments.

Scaling Ethereum L1 and Ambitious Goals

• Tomasz emphasizes the EF's commitment to scaling L1, targeting a 3x increase in the gas limit (a measure of computational effort on Ethereum) each year, aiming for 100 million gas this year and eventually a 100x increase.
• This ambitious goal necessitates re-evaluating all aspects of Ethereum's architecture, including the VM (Virtual Machine – the environment where smart contracts run) and consensus mechanisms.
• The EF is adopting a new approach: setting audacious goals first, then finding or developing the EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals – standards specifying new features or processes) and technology to achieve them.
• Regarding block times, Tomasz mentions Dankrad Feist's exploration of 6-8 second slot times, with a longer-term directional goal of even faster user experiences (e.g., 250 milliseconds for pre-confirmations). This is part of the Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade discussions.
• Strategic Implication: Aggressive L1 scaling, if successful, will dramatically improve Ethereum's capacity and reduce costs, making it more viable for compute-intensive AI applications and high-frequency trading.

Circle Acquisition Rumors and Stablecoin Landscape

• The rumored acquisition bids for Circle (issuer of USDC stablecoin) by Ripple and Coinbase are discussed.
• Michael suggests that if Ripple acquired Circle, they might favor Ripple rails, potentially slowing USDC integration on Ethereum. However, this could create an opportunity for other stablecoins like Tether.
• Tomasz believes any acquirer of a major stablecoin issuer will ultimately "get closer to Ethereum" due to its central role in economic activity. He also hopes for more decentralized stablecoin alternatives.
• The advancing "Genius Bill" for stablecoin regulation in the US Senate is noted as a significant development.
• Investor Note: The stablecoin landscape is crucial for DeFi and RWA markets. Regulatory clarity and the strategic moves of major issuers like Circle will heavily influence liquidity and adoption on Ethereum.

Tomasz's Vision for Ethereum's Future

• Short-term, Tomasz is excited by the "new energy" and ecosystem support for the EF's execution-focused agenda.
• Long-term, his vision is profoundly futuristic: "seeing all the autonomous economy like autonomous machines agents everything landing together in Ethereum and start integrating physical and digital world... creating some kind of crazy economy."
• He believes solving Ethereum's current "down to earth problems" with the network is key to unlocking this next stage of technological exploration.

Conclusion

The Ethereum Foundation, under Tomasz Stańczak's leadership, is aggressively pursuing enhanced execution and scalability to solidify Ethereum's role in the future of finance and emerging technologies like AI. Crypto AI investors and researchers should monitor L1/L2 scaling progress, RWA integration, and ZK advancements, as these will directly shape opportunities at the intersection of crypto and AI.