Just finished an absolute monster of a podcast with @drakefjustin, and it’s packed with brain-melting insights on the future of Ethereum. Here are the juiciest takeaways from Part I 👇
Ethereum’s future could turn the L1 into a rollup itself and making it the best type of rollup. Justin lays out how the L1, L2s, and new designs like Beamchain, native rollups, and based sequencing all come together into a unified vision for Ethereum as the credibly neutral internet of finance.
What’s Broken Today
• L2s are siloed — synchronous composability is dead.
• Most rely on centralized sequencers, multisigs & slow exit bridges.
• L2-native assets break Ethereum’s trustless bridge model.
• Governance delays, security councils, & EVM reimplementation = attack surfaces.
The Fix: Ethereum-native Infrastructure
• Based Rollups: Use Ethereum L1 validators as the sequencer. Removes centralization risk, restores censorship resistance.
• Native Rollups: No more reimplementing the EVM. No more Security Council multisigs. They inherit Ethereum’s execution layer by design.
•Preconfirmations: Users get fast UX (e.g., instant trading feedback) via ETH-backed inclusion guarantees from L1 validators, with slashing if they lie.
• Real-Time ZK Proofs: Slot-by-slot proving is here. ZK-enabled rollups with instant finality are becoming possible.
To get there, Ethereum is moving toward real-time, slot-by-slot proving using ZK SNARKs. This enables constant-time verification and removes the need for validators to re-execute blocks. Native rollups use a new EXECUTE precompile to introspect and reuse Ethereum’s state transition function. There is no EVM emulation, no governance lag, and no reliance on Security Councils.
Preconfirmations offer ETH-backed execution guarantees per slot, priced to offset MEV opportunity loss, while based rollups decentralize sequencing by aligning with Ethereum’s validator set.
Beamchain pushes this vision further: a clean-slate Ethereum L1 design that is post-quantum secure, radically simplified (validators could run on a Raspberry Pi), and ossified through optimality. It proposes gigagas/s throughput via ZK proofs, validator statelessness, and Attester-Proposer-Separation (APS) to maximize decentralization and censorship resistance, allowing Ethereum L1 to scale as a high-performance rollup itself.
If you're building on Ethereum or betting on its future, this convo is mandatory listening.
To be continued in Part II....
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.@kassandraETH@ncsgy and others have been working hard for nearly a year on Kohaku.
Kohaku's goal is to make two twin properties:
* Security (and trustlessness)
* Privacy (read and write)
a reality on the access layer.
Security and privacy on Ethereum must be normal.
Excellent data-driven breakdown of Tradexyz volume and farming activity.
Very interesting stat: 1/4 of the top retail traders on Tradexyz are also verifiably active on @Polymarket. Seems like a truly distinct category of on-chain users emerging.
@blockchainchick You can withdraw usdt/usdc relatively easy: just swap (not borrow against, but swap) aave usdt/c to aave wbtc (right in aave) and withdraw it as wbtc, there is >$100m liquidity now.