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On The Brink with Castle Island


Sep 14, 2022

Bankless' David Hoffman joins Matt and Nic for a special episode to cover Ethereum's highly-anticipated Merge. In this episode: 

  • How David came to Ethereum and the Bankless origin story
  • The story behind the Bankless DAO
  • Whether David would ever consider focusing on other blockchains
  • What could cause David to abandon Ethereum
  • The Coinbase OFAC filtering debate
  • Why proposer-builder separation might make validator-driven censorship harder
  • Filtering transactions at the pool layer versus undertaking a ‘Treasury Activated Soft Fork’
  • Under what conditions would social slashing of major validators make sense?
  • How embedded is the social slashing consensus into Ethereum’s social fabric?
  • The significance of the new supply dynamics stemming from the Merge
  • Is the unlock something to worry about?
  • Is there a ‘crowding out’ effect from staked Ether becoming a risk free rate?
  • Does MEV pose a concentration risk post Merge?
  • Are MEV-driven yields for stakers perverse?
  • Is MEV an inescapable feature of richly stateful blockchains
  • Why the notion of Certified-Toxic-MEV-free blocks might emerge
  • How is Ethereum’s roadmap determined?
  • What’s the deal with the Surge, the Verge, the Purge, and the Splurge?
  • What are the strongest narratives coming out of the Merge?
  • Probabilities of the Merge success
  • Why the Merge may not be fully priced in

Follow David on Twitter and learn more about Bankless.

Intro and outro music: Daniel Allan's Collage #344