Exploring Ethereum's Future: An Interview with Ethereum Foundation Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang

Original Article Title: "ETHPanda Talk: Exploring the Future of Ethereum — Interview with Ethereum Foundation Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang"

Original Article Author: ETHPanda Talk

Hsiao-Wei Wang's Personal Growth Journey

Bruce: You initially joined as a researcher and gradually grew into your role, so I believe many viewers are interested in your personal growth journey. You mentioned earlier that you entered this industry in 2017. Were there any key people or moments that brought you here, and what prompted you to join Ethereum? Could you share some of your experiences with us?

Hsiao-Wei: My background is in computer science, and after graduating from graduate school, I entered the telecommunications field. Based in Taiwan. During this time, there was a training session within the company on blockchain, mainly focusing on Bitcoin. In 2016, there were not many blockchain startups in Taiwan at the time, mainly exchanges that allowed the general public to buy Bitcoin in Taiwan. I was considering whether it was time to switch tracks when a university classmate happened to tell me that their company was about to establish a blockchain research department and encouraged me to apply. I was then fortunate to meet a former colleague from my previous job, who later became my colleague at the Ethereum Foundation, Professor Chen Chang-wu (now at ImToken). He had joined the Ethereum Foundation as a researcher. Around 2017, the Foundation was recruiting researchers in the Asian region, so I applied as well. The Foundation was a very special opportunity for me because during my previous job, I had learned about Ethereum and experienced Ethereum's community culture. I felt that in addition to Bitcoin, there were many blockchain innovations in the world. Ethereum was particularly attractive, so I joined the Ethereum Foundation.

Bruce: In your many years as a researcher, what have you done or learned that made you feel like you suddenly leveled up, achieved a significant breakthrough, or felt a great sense of accomplishment?

Hsiao-Wei: As an Ethereum researcher, half of our research may be adopted, while the other half may not. The Beacon Chain had many roadmap changes. I felt that it wasn't until the Beacon Chain launched that we finally found a defined roadmap. Whether it was PoS or the part about Sharding, we found an integrated roadmap. Although some of our previous research was not in vain and was partially applied, I felt a sense of coming full circle at that time.

Bruce: We also know that it was in the 22nd year when Ethereum completed The Merge, transitioning from PoW to PoS, a process often likened to changing the engine of an airplane mid-flight. After being fully involved, what do you think was the biggest challenge at that time? Are there any lesser-known stories?

Hsiao-Wei: Since we already had a lot on-chain and many people were involved in this project, there were many clients, and I think coordinating manpower was really the biggest challenge. There was a little Easter egg; the Deposit Contract had many zeros at the beginning because it is an address that everyone will use for years to come, so it had to be memorable. Therefore, the person in charge of deployment spent some time calculating to generate this unique address to reduce phishing risks. We also took many measures to prevent other scammers from exploiting the Deposit to deceive people. So, some thought was put into generating this contract address with many zeros at the beginning. (Deposit Contract: 0x00000000219ab540356cBB839Cbe05303d7705Fa)

Bruce: I remember there was a panda meme related to The Merge. How did you come up with that?

Hsiao-Wei: It was a Dragon Ball reference. At the time, I was about to give a presentation introducing The Merge, and I was thinking about how to make everyone understand that we were not destroying the original chain but rather merging with the Beacon Chain containing the Consensus Layer. I came across a panda merging meme, which was an image of a black bear and a white bear merging. This was a work by a Thai artist. We used this analogy, and it became very popular afterwards.

The Merge Panda meme

So ethPandaOps was established at that time. They were a very powerful DevOps team behind The Merge, responsible for Ethereum network operations, and later they adopted the name ethPandaOps.

Bruce: In fact, over the past few years, we have seen some significant fluctuations in the entire industry, and there are often so-called Ethereum killers. Have you ever felt emo or questioned the value of what we are doing during this process? When you feel down, how do you persevere?

Hsiao-Wei: Some people use blockchain technology to do things that are not good, which may give the general public a very negative impression, causing the general public to think of Crypto as somewhat speculative. In this industry, we hope for technological progress, and this phenomenon is something that people with a better vision find rather sad. Fortunately, the atmosphere among my colleagues is very positive. Of course, education is also essential, but we may not be able to instantly change everyone's negative impressions of some aspects of the blockchain. However, there are good things on the blockchain or Ethereum. We hope to promote these positive aspects, which is where we can make a difference.

Bruce: I have also felt that choosing to be with builders, the environment is very important. However, if you are feeling down, you can gather with everyone for warmth and then engage in some research and experimentation together, which may gradually help.

Hsiao-Wei: Another point I want to emphasize is that sometimes you need to step out of the ivory tower and listen to some negative opinions. Because recently, I have been making more efforts.

Ethereum Technology Roadmap and Future Development

Bruce: We often see Vitalik update every year, releasing a complex roadmap full of various terms. Can you introduce how the roadmap is designed, set, and progressed? What is the general process like?

Vitalik's Ethereum Roadmap in 2023

Hsiao-Wei: Vitalik has released this chart for more than three years. Last year, we also urged him to release it, but he chose to write 6 articles: "Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol." His technical roadmap is a high-level guide where he outlines the direction we want to take. In fact, internally, there are three plans: A, B, C. Then, it is up to developers and researchers to think about which one is easier to succeed this year. He provides a high-level idea, which also serves as a channel for community communication, but the actual development direction is decided by our community's Core Devs. When he created this chart, it was quite simple, and researchers' ideas were incorporated. There are different options proposed on how to implement this roadmap later on.

Many EIPs may have existed for 3 or 5 years before being deployed on-chain. There was a proposal first, and the adoption time was very broad. Perhaps a few weeks ago, it was just put in, like EIP-7702 might have been adopted quite late. There is an EIP Repository on Ethereum's GitHub where anyone can submit an EIP proposal, write a proposal using the template, stating a specific change you have in mind for the protocol. Then, when this proposal receives significant attention and reviews, there is an opportunity to discuss it at the All Core Devs (ACD) meeting, allowing developers of all clients and researchers to discuss it.

Usually, there are people who particularly support this EIP who will attend the meeting to present, and others will provide feedback and signals. If this EIP gains significant traction, it is more likely to be adopted. It goes from being proposed to discussed at ACD, and then to the final EIP Inclusion meeting. Last month, because Pectra is about to hard fork in early May, everyone has already started planning the content of the next hard fork. When this EIP is very likely to be adopted, we will give it a Tag called CFI (Consider for Inclusion), sending out a stronger signal for the industry to pay attention.

In summary, Vitalik will roughly set the roadmap, but will not delve into specific details, allowing researchers to make progress in those directions. At the same time, anyone can tell the community about their desired changes by submitting EIPs, and then through ACD meetings, community feedback, improvement, finalization of EIP publication, followed by various client teams starting to develop changes, and then launching them at a scheduled time.

Hsiao-Wei: Over the years, the main organizers of the ACD have been people from the EF, and the EF is also considering how much leadership we need to provide. Each hard fork is somewhat different. For example, the Core Devs of the Pectra upgrade each have things their users want to adopt, so in the end, the scope is actually quite broad. But for Fusaka, the consensus of everyone is that we need PeerDAS, and there is a more cohesive consensus. This process is somewhat simplified, and each coordination is different each time.

Bruce: This process is very interesting. It is not like a company operation but is driven by the entire community coming together to push for a very impactful upgrade. Do you expect the Pectra upgrade to go live in May, and what actual changes do you anticipate? Which of these EIPs do you favor the most?

Hsiao-Wei: Each EIP serves its own purpose, but the one with the biggest impact on developers and applications is EIP-7702. It allows you to set code on your original EOA address, and if the original code unit is empty, you can change its value. It only provides the functionality, but whatever code, it has a very broad design space. We hope this change can unlock some of the account abstraction design and pave a very broad path. So how to design this AA contract on Layer 1, and how to design it on Layer 2, there are many choices. The Ethereum Foundation is also actively negotiating a standard that can be universally accepted by the industry. Of course, this is also very interesting, we hope to see more designs, more innovations. But at the same time, we also hope that everyone is using secure contracts.

Bruce: I have also been looking at EIP-7702 recently, and I think the design space is indeed very large. In the past, we had to click on various pop-ups, which can now be combined into one transaction. This includes Gas Fee and Sponsorship delegation, but at the same time, I also think that if it is particularly flexible, it may bring some security risks. What are your thoughts on this, and how can we better protect security?

Hsiao-Wei: First of all, the AA contract must undergo a comprehensive audit. The Foundation has also provided implementation examples to increase everyone's trust in using contracts. In terms of wallet standards, many of our teams are working on integrating this feature into wallets.

Bruce: Actually, Ethereum scalability has been a long-standing topic. We often see terms or concepts such as sharding, ZK rollup. From your perspective, could you give everyone a brief introduction to what ZK rollup and sharding are, as well as the important work and main challenges?

Hsiao-Wei: The concept of sharding actually comes from database design. In the early designs, we had an open main chain with some Shard Chains below, but now we have a Rollup-centric roadmap, not going down but up, with Layer 2 on top. Therefore, we can see Sharding + ZK rollup scaling both up and down to scale the development of Layer 1. In the near term, the main focus is on how to increase the number of Blobs? Once the Ethereum data layer is enhanced, Layer 2 can regularly submit hash values to Layer 1 space, and we also hope to increase the overall frequency. So if we scale Layer 1, we actually help Layer 2, and the two together enhance the output of the entire Ethereum.

Bruce: What is the main challenge? Are there any ways to accelerate this development progress?

Hsiao-Wei: Recently, the main focus is on testing. We have many clients. The research part, designing cryptographic algorithms, is almost done, but when it comes to the network layer, it's an engineering issue. It requires more testing and parameter adjustments. Maybe an internal client test is okay, but when it comes to interoperability, there may be some issues. So the main goal regularly is testing. So sometimes it's good to have free time to test the network and see how it goes.

Ethereum Ecosystem, Applications, and Community Development

Bruce: The Ethereum ecosystem not only includes the protocol layer but also applications, community, etc. What applications do you think have explosive potential? Do you have any observations or thoughts?

Hsiao-Wei: Personally, I find the interesting aspects may be Identity or the design of SocialFi. Recently, I find the mini-programs on Farcaster interesting. Because you can see what your friends are using, what games they are playing and immediately share it on social platforms. These mini-programs are quite easy to integrate into the daily lives of ordinary users, but it may take some time to explode. With innovation here, you might quickly find some user groups to use it. For larger projects, in the future, I don't know if there will be interesting designs in the financial design part in one or two years. Part of it is DeFi, hoping to see more innovative application cases, and another part is what's been hot recently, RWA, should also be classified into a part of the application category.

Bruce: Many of Ethereum's communities are spontaneously formed by local Ethereum enthusiasts and volunteers. However, manpower or funds are sometimes not particularly stable. From your perspective, do you think they have a more robust, sustainable way of development? Have you seen cases where communities have done relatively well?

Hsiao-Wei: I am actually the co-founder of Taipei Seminar and ETHTaipei. Many members of Taiwan's communities are from open-source communities, some may be members of Python PyCon, or previously have had a spirit of open-source software in other communities. So many people want to use the open-source spirit to do Ethereum.

March 19 - 21, 2018 Ethereum Sharding Workshop in Taipei

One interesting thing about Taiwan is that everyone is okay with doing things for the public good. We work during the day and in the evenings, we come together to dig, fill holes, and get things done. However, this behavior pattern requires bringing newcomers in. How do you pass this spirit on? I think continuously onboarding new people is very important. Because it's an open-source community, individuals don't have a strong sense of ownership within this community; everyone does a bit of something. If no one does it, then it becomes your responsibility. Without an open-source background, it may indeed be challenging to implement this model elsewhere. The Chinese community has many interesting designs, each with its own unique style. Perhaps because Taiwan is relatively small, it seems like the same group of people are the ones getting things done. The diversity here is a bit lower compared to other places. In larger areas, new initiatives sprout up like mushrooms after the rain, and I think that's excellent.

Bruce: Talking about the diversity of various communities. Since 2018, you have been continuously advancing some Ethereum-related communities, including the development of ETHTaipei. What are the strengths or challenges of the developer community in Asia? What role do we play in the global Ethereum system?

Hsiao-Wei: I think Asian developers, in fact, have many talented individuals. Asia's strength lies in product development, and they are quite skilled in user experience. I feel that perhaps in Europe and America, the research history of Ethereum is a bit longer. Therefore, there are sometimes cultural differences between the two sides. I think it is essential to maintain uniqueness on one hand, but better communication is also crucial. Ethereum aims to be a world computer, so we must engage with users and developers globally. Hence, bridging the gap in cultural ideas, I hope we can understand each other through communication.

Bruce: I agree with this because there are a vast number of people in the Asia-Pacific region, and our cultures also have some similarities. So, in terms of user experience and the application layer, we may have more experience. Looking at the overall picture, what do you think is lacking in terms of driving or supporting community-related work? Or in other words, what parts are yet to be developed or are relatively blank areas that we, as a community, can push forward to improve the entire Ethereum ecosystem?

Hsiao-Wei: In recent years, AI has made it very convenient, so reading English information doesn't seem to be a big issue. Thanks to ETHPanda, they will soon provide Chinese key point summaries and translations on Twitter, and the response speed is fast. However, I think that the demand for translations may decrease in the coming years as everyone benefits from AI. We need to bring in more new blood. I've been in the community for 7 years, so I'm considered a veteran. So, how can we onboard more newcomers? For newcomers, I hope they can mainly promote in student communities.

Ethereum Foundation's Work

Bruce: Now that you are serving as Co-Executive Director at the Ethereum Foundation, have there been any changes in your day-to-day work since transitioning from a researcher to this executive role? What new challenges have you encountered?

Hsiao-Wei: The speed of change is something that you have to accept. My previous main activities were mainly at the Consensus Specs layer. Back then, I also thought that I could still come back to review PRs when I had free time. However, within the past month, the core has shifted to management. At the same time, I need to more closely discover the latest developments in research. Challenges come from all directions. I feel very fortunate and grateful for my work partner Tomasz, who is the Co-Executive Director with me. He is very proactive in collecting feedback from the community and turning that feedback into a more extensive EF roadmap. On this difficult journey, I don't feel alone.

Bruce: I can relate to that as well. Tomasz sometimes makes calls on Twitter for people to contact him. I've actually made one of those calls before, and the next day he immediately organized a meeting with a group of EF colleagues. I think this is a very positive change. Over the past quarter, or in the past few months, there have been frequent organizational and personnel adjustments at EF, including entities outside of EF such as Etherealize or new external organizations being established, enriching the diversity. Can you introduce the background and goals of these changes?

Hsiao-Wei: I can first introduce the general EF architecture. First, we have the Board of Directors, followed by the Management Team. Below that, there are three business clusters, which are loosely defined departments. The first is the Operations department, including Finance, HR, and Legal, which are necessary for the daily operation of a company or foundation. The second is the Development department, and after some recent major spin-offs, it now mainly focuses on Protocol R&D, with the Research Team also in this development department. The third is the Eco Dev department, which is related to ecosystem development. This part may include departments that provide grants like ESP and the Next Billion Fellowship.

Bruce: Can you give a brief introduction to some of the external organizations related to EF, such as Etherealize?

Hsiao-Wei: If I remember correctly, Etherealize was actually established last year. The Foundation and Vitalik provided some support to them in their early days. They are mainly active on Wall Street in the United States. This also reflects the global political shift towards Crypto. Their establishment allows them to operate on Wall Street and do things that are very helpful to us, things that the EF may not directly execute. Their BD team can better address U.S. users and traditional financial institutions or large companies in the U.S. I think it's very beneficial.

Bruce: I just heard that EF does not have a Marketing team, is that right?

Hsiao-Wei: Yes, we only handle Communication. Because as Josh Stark said, Ethereum doesn't have a BD team, Ethereum has one hundred BD teams. Other applications, whether they are Layer 2 or some Dapps, their BD teams are also like our BD team.

We don't see Ethereum as its own brand. For example, on Twitter, we recently had some account changes. Starting from early this year, we now have a Twitter account for Ethereum and one for the Ethereum Foundation. I think it's nice to separate them because in the past, every time we wanted to post something on the Ethereum account, people would think it represents the Foundation's views, which was very limiting. Now we use this account to do BD-like activities, help the community understand major events, and I think this separation is good, allowing both accounts to serve their respective purposes.

Bruce: This also brings a lot of convenience to our work. Because Ethereum's official account is a great source for us to translate and introduce content, providing access to the latest changes. It can better promote the community. You just mentioned ESP, which is a very important part of EF and has been playing a catalytic role in the development of the entire ecosystem. With this new architecture, EF's budget allocation design, are there any changes in the areas ESP will focus more on?

Hsiao-Wei: I just mentioned that we have different departments such as Eco Dev and Development. The Team Leads of developers and researchers in these departments already have the ability to manage fairly large Grants. ESP and other Eco Dev Teams are other parts. In the main areas, one might be AGR, which is not internal to ESP, but somewhat linked to ESP, it's the academic research part, with a Grant once a year. The application for this year should have ended, and it's currently under review.

In other areas, I think ESP is actually the facade for receiving Inbound Requests, so I think their choices are quite broad. They won't necessarily specify how much budget to allocate for an activity, and they may not have such strict definitions. Sometimes, what the Ethereum Foundation wants to support is not necessarily through Grants, not necessarily the financial part, but rather through the Foundation's Shout Out (promotion and dissemination). When the Foundation considers whether to grant an activity, sometimes it's not just about how many direct users the activity can bring us, but rather which Grant allocation can have a greater impact, which activities or projects only the Foundation should support, and it's useful, providing some public goods that can be helpful to everyone.

Bruce: In summary, for such activities or projects, the Foundation may be the only organization willing to support them, and the thing itself is necessary. I've also seen the EF introducing more external organizations to participate in decision-making, such as the recent Silviculture Society?

Hsiao-Wei: They are a bit like a board of directors; we have selected some Advisers who are very public interest oriented in different fields. We are very grateful to them, so I think they mainly represent the spirit of Cypherpunk, and also focus on security and privacy.

The EF Silviculture Society

If we consider Ethereum as a business, and with Business Advisers, we can actually easily hear a variety of opinions. How can we better listen to the voice of the community? This is the significance of the composition of this council. In other aspects, we have also recently been listening to opinions from some DeFi experts. And recently, EF has done a lot of Twitter Spaces to have active exchanges with successful projects, whether it's on Layer 2 Interop or some Dapps. At the same time, external project team leaders also come to give Seminars internally at EF. Through these methods, we listen to expert opinions and community feedback.

Bruce: Some people have been suggesting that the Ethereum Foundation should generate revenue through DeFi rather than continuing with public coin sales. What is your view on the EF's funding operation model, and what are some potential revenue streams to ensure the Foundation's long-term sustainability?

Hsiao-Wei: This year, the Foundation has actively started to participate in DeFi. In early February, we had a wave of deployments where we started experimenting with ETH DeFi Lending, and the second phase is also in the works. We are evaluating whether to increase our investment in Lending or explore more creative ways to leverage ETH assets. The second significant area is Staking. We are also exploring different Staking options and considering whether EF's participation in Staking can bring positive benefits. The third point is still in the exploratory stage, which is Tokenization, such as participating in some RWAs. Our participation is mainly in some more conservative funds or funds that are good for L1.

Bruce: It seems there are still many new ideas and experiments in this direction. In fact, the community has provided some feedback, including occasional sales of 100 ETH, although it does not cause significant selling pressure, it may have some impact on everyone's sentiment. What is the Foundation's internal view on this?

Hsiao-Wei: Well, for us, it is a must-sell because we now have two to three hundred people in the Foundation, and about 75% of the expenses require fiat currency, and 25% is in Crypto. So, the first point is that the Foundation needs to operate, so it needs to rebalance its assets. The second point is that the community may be very aware that we have this need, and we may need to strengthen our communication. There is also one more thing to clarify; when we sell coins, it's not necessarily at a high point. Many times it's actually at a low point. When it's at a low point, everyone didn't highlight it, so we don't have much intention behind this.

Bruce: There have also been community suggestions about using OTC or other more discreet methods; how do you view this?

Hsiao-Wei: Our primary Treasury is actually very open and transparent, so while doing this in the short term might be possible, major Treasury changes are visible to everyone.

Bruce: Regarding the work of the Ethereum Foundation, some speculate that the EF may gradually fade out or dissolve after achieving a certain mission or milestone, allowing the community to drive Ethereum's operation. What is your view on this direction? If that day truly comes, how do you envision the Ethereum community operating?

Hsiao-Wei: First, regarding the Foundation, this year is a particularly important year. We have allocated a significant budget to the organization's transformation. Perhaps next year, if the Foundation finds that other entities within the community are increasingly able to take on the Foundation's role, we can operate in a more conservative, scaled-back manner. What is interesting is that we need to adjust our strategy every year. The Foundation's focus each year may be different. Perhaps when the Foundation focuses on the Protocol, its presence will be stronger.

So, in the future, if the focus shifts to the application layer or wallets, we may not need such a strong presence. Therefore, this presence changes every year. **Personally, I hope the Foundation is constantly thinking about how we can enable others to do what we are doing today.** What are the things in the future that only we can do? Maybe we will continue to do those things. For example, the coordination aspect heavily depends on various changing factors in the future and some support from the community. If the community can do well, the Foundation can pivot to more complex matters or things that are receiving less attention.

Bruce: We are approaching the end of this interview. We have discussed a lot, including personal experiences, the technical roadmap, the community, and the work of the Foundation. Let's conclude with some lighter topics. Because our audience includes students and young developers, and you are considered an "elder" in Ethereum, what advice do you have for these newcomers or those considering entering the field?

Hsiao-Wei: Many people say that choice is more important than effort. I believe you can add that you should choose where you have more choices. Ethereum has a large and vibrant community, with very active developers who have paved the way ahead. I hope new members can develop in this field. Whether you are a developer, educator, product developer, or user, you can find mentors in the community to give you more options.

Bruce: Please recommend some literature or resources that are helpful for cultivating a Web3 mindset or personal growth.

Hsiao-Wei: The most commonly read is probably Vitalik's Blog Post. Because if the level of thinking is at level two, then you may need to see how someone at level four of thinking thinks, like someone whose thinking is squared. Recently, I have also been reading books on management. There is a book called "Principles," which lays out some general directions and principles. I think the key takeaway from this book is that you need to establish your own principles. His principles may not be as applicable to me, but what's important is that you need to establish principles. If you can establish principles and follow them, then what you do afterwards may be much simpler.

Bruce: Outside of work, do you have any favorite sports or other leisure activities?

Hsiao-Wei: I am very much a homebody, mainly watching TV series, playing chess, all static activities. But recently, my leisure time has been significantly reduced, with a lot of work to do.

Bruce: Thank you for sharing with us today, Hsiao-Wei. Thank you very much for bringing to everyone some interesting and profound thoughts. Thank you all for watching or listening to this episode of ETHPanda Talk. Special thanks to Hashkey for providing us with a free venue. If you enjoy our content, please feel free to follow, share, and support us. See you next time!

This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.