Author: derek, CEO of ZeroDev Source: ZeroDev official website Translation: Shan Oppa, Bitchain Vision

Missed the AA proposal storm?Here is a quick review for you:

A few weeks ago, core developers approved the EIP-3074 proposal, which will bring many AA benefits to EOA users and enter Ethereum’s next hard fork “Pectra”.
Since then, many in the ERC-4337 community, especially the 4337 authors themselves, have been strongly opposed to 3074, citing the issue of centralization and its incompatible with Ethereum’s AA roadmap, which has 4337 and its cousins7560 as the center (also known as “local AA”).
Last week, Vitalik proposed EIP-7702 as a replacement for 3074.It mainly accomplished the same goal – bringing many of the benefits of AA to EOA users – but is somewhat more compatible with today’s 4337 and forward compatible with “AA Endgame”” that’s 7560.
Currently, core developers are considering EIP-7702, but preliminary discussions and community sentiment suggest that EIP-7702 will likely replace EIP-3074 in Pectra.

Personally, I’m very happy with the results: EOA users will soon be able to enjoy most of the benefits of AA with the tools and infrastructure built for ERC-4337.

However, I can’t help but feel that we have achieved thisWayFar from the best, this is the point many have expressed over the past few weeks.I feel that with a better process, we can save a lot of energy and headaches together and achieve the expected results faster.

In this blog post, I think:

Determine what went wrong in the process.
Propose a psychological model to think about Ethereum governance.
Make suggestions for improvement to avoid similar governance failures in the future.

Why is this process unhappy

The whole incident made many people unhappy for the following reasons:

It took several years for 3074 to be approved.
Until 3074 finally obtained approvalback, core developers have been greatly boycotted by the 4337 community.

On the other hand, 4337’sThe author himself has also expressed their concerns about 3074 to core developers many times, but there is no result.

Now we areCancel the approval3074 and replace it with another EIP (7702).

Now, nothing above is essentially problematic:

It is acceptable to discuss for years.
It is acceptable for EIP to receive a postponement upon approval.
Once the EIP is approved, the approval can be cancelled if new problems are found.

However, we may agree that things wereCanProgress is going smoother.Imagine if this is what happened:

4337 The community is actively involved in the core developer discussion 3074.Now, only one of the following two results is possible:

Or after considering 4337 community feedbackApprove (and may modify) 3074 , in which case 4337 community will support 3074, and we will not revoke 3074.
Or, 3074 never got approval, but 4337 The community and core developers worked together to develop a proposal that everyone was happy with, like 7702.

Everyone’s voice is heard and there is no dramatic reversal.That would be great—then why didn’t it happen?

Something went wrong?

Looking back on the whole process, both sides of the debate blame each other.

Core developers (and authors of EIP-3074) believe that this is the fault of the “4337 people” who are not actively involved in all core developers (ACD) processes, and EIP has been deliberated for a long time before release.It is finally accepted by the client team and implemented into the agreement.

Some people believe that at any time during the deliberation period, “4337 people” could come in and express their concerns, rather than waiting until 3074 people have been approved.after.After all, the ACD process has detailed records, the meetings are open to everyone, and there are people like Tim Beiko who actively post summary on Twitter after each ACD meeting.So, if 4337 people care so much about this, why don’t they take the time to participate?

On the other hand, the AA team (4337 authors) noted that they had been attending ACD meetings and took every possible opportunity to postpone 3074, but the core developers didn’t listen.As for the 4337 community, most of them were caught off guard – most people thought 3074 was dead, and they didn’t even know that 3074 was being actively considered inclusion.

Many also believe that the ACD process is too opaque and is not friendly to the participation of people who have “actual work” and are unable to keep up with all ACD updates.Some also believe that it should be ACD’s responsibility to actively seek feedback from relevant stakeholders (in this case the 4337 community).

However, I don’t think either side has achieved its goal.There is a deeper problem in the work, and before we solve or at least recognize this problem, we will continue to encounter governance failures, and then futile accusations.

root cause

The real reason for governance failure is that, contrary to popular belief, ACD is not the sole governance power for the protocol update, in which case it is covered by another governance power.

The problem is that other governance powers are rarely recognized, despite the fact that it has a greater influence on Ethereum’s most important affairs, such as AA and expansion, than ACD.

In this article, I call this power a “roadmap.”

As I will argue, the entire 3074/7702 legend is nothing more than an example of the power of the roadmap overwhelming ACD’s power.If we talk about governance, then whenever we notice that invisible forces overwhelm tangible forces, we should be very worried because invisible things are irresponsible and must be made public.

What is a roadmap?

Anyone in the Ethereum community must often encounter the term “roadmap”, such as “Rollup-centric roadmap”, “ETH 2.0 roadmap” or “AA roadmap” in this debate.

To illustrate my point, let’s imagine an ACD meeting where core developers are discussing how to scale Ethereum:

Core Dev Bob: I support EIP 1234, which recommends that we speed up block time by 10 times, increase block size by 10 times, and reduce costs by 100 times.
Other core developers:…Are you crazy?

Let’s think about it.Why did the core developers directly reject what Bob said?He just proposed a very legal form of extension.Solana and many other L1s do this, resulting in a huge expansion effect.

Of course, the reason is that this fictional EIP violates Ethereum’s own “Rollup-centric” expansion roadmap, which shows among other things that allowing ordinary users to run nodes is crucial to blockchain decentralization.Therefore, the imagined EIP is impossible because it will greatly increase the barriers to running nodes.

I want to use this example to illustrate that the core developers involved in the ACD process and decide on the protocol updates are what I callRoadmapThe higher power of guidance.There are expansion roadmaps, AA roadmaps, MEV roadmaps, everything you can think of – they together form the core developer decision-makingEthereum Roadmap.

When core developers are inconsistent with roadmap

Since the roadmap is not a formal component of governance, there is no guarantee that core developers will be consistent with the roadmap.In particular, not all roadmaps are considered equally legitimized because there is no formal process for “approval” the roadmap.The researchers behind the roadmap need to work hard to promote their roadmap to core developers and the larger community to gain legitimacy and thus support from core developers.

As far as AA is concerned, Vitalik himself has repeatedly promoted the AA roadmap centered on 4337, but overall, it is mainly the 4337 team, especially Yoav and Dror, who are in conferences, online forums, and ACD meetings.

However, despite these efforts, some core developers strongly oppose the 4337-centric AA roadmap.They believe that the 7560 (the native version of 4337 that the client must eventually implement) is too complex and is not the only viable candidate for “AA Endgame”.Ultimately, ACD decided to approve 3074, despite the opposition from the 4337 team, as it would split the AA ecosystem by creating an alternative and less decentralized AA technology stack.

However, after 3074 was approved, the entire 4337 community responded strongly, forcing core developers to re-enter the 3074 debate.The debate then fell into a deadlock, and neither the author of 4337 nor the author of 3074 was able to convince each other until Vitalik intervened at the last minute and proposed EIP-7702 as an alternative to 3074, clearly compatible with the “AA Endgame” centered on 4337, thus pushing the conflict towardFavorable for the direction of the AA roadmap.

Vitalik’s role

Although Vitalik positioned himself as a researcher, the legendary story clearly shows that Vitalik brings a very different governance power than other researchers.Then this raises the question – what role does Vitalik play in Ethereum governance?

Personally, I find it helpful to think of Vitalik as the CTO of a very, very large company.

(By the way, for the purpose of this analogy, the company does not have a CEO.)

If you’ve worked in any tech company with over 50 employees, you know that it’s impossible for a CTO to participate in every technology decision.Technical decisions on a certain scaleSurelyBecome a fragmented – Each area of a company’s product usually has a sub-team, and the sub-team is basically free to make its own decisions about specific implementation details.

Furthermore, the CTO is not necessarily the most important expert on every (or any) topic.There are likely to be better engineers in a company than CTO in a specific field.Therefore, in technical debates, it is often the engineer who makes the final decision.

However, the CTO has developed the company’s technology vision.The execution of the vision is left to the developers.

While this is not a perfect analogy, I think it justifies Vitalik’s role in the ecosystem.Vitalik is not involved in all technical decisions—it is impossible for him to participate.He is not a top expert in every field either.But he has an overwhelming influence in developing a roadmap for all key aspects of Ethereum (capacity expansion, AA, proof of stake…) not only because of his technical expertise, but also because he is the ultimate judge of whether the roadmap is feasible.Consistent with Ethereum’s vision—His vision.

Every successful product begins with a vision

If my opinion that Vitalik is an Ethereum CTO is not controversial enough for you, then the most controversial part comes: We should accept Vitalik as a CTO.

As a startup founder, I think behind every successful product—yes, Ethereum is a “product” because it solves real problems for people who are realistic—has to have a coherent vision.A consistent vision must be formulated by a few people, such as the founder of a startup, and usually only one founder.

The beauty of Ethereum is that despite being such a complex system with so many mobile parts, these parts are perfectly combined into a fully functional decentralized computer that moves billions of dollars worth of every day.value.We’re not herepassDesign of the committee.It’s exactlybecauseVitalik is actively leading through his vision that we can achieve a coherent and beautiful product, which is today’s Ethereum.Ethereum was Vitalik’s creative idea in 2015 and still remains the same.

Of course, this is not to downplay the contributions of other researchers and engineers, who should earn much of the credit for Ethereum’s achievements today.However, this is not inconsistent with the fact that Ethereum is the realization of Vitalik’s vision, and it is orders of magnitude more than anyone else’s vision.

To be honest, can you complain?When you are attracted by the openness, censorship resistance and innovation pace of the Ethereum ecosystem, do you complain that it began with Vitalik’s vision?Maybe you don’t do this because you don’t think so – but now you do this, yourealMind?

So what about decentralization?

But but, you said, how about decentralization?If one has such overwhelming power over Ethereum, how can we say it is decentralized?

To answer this question, we must go back to this classic article about the meaning of decentralization by Vitalik.The main point of this article is that decentralization is divided into three types:

Architecture decentralization: How many nodes can be compromised before the system stops running?
Logical decentralization: Can the system’s subsystem evolve independently while keeping the system running normally?Or do they have to be closely coordinated?
Political Decentralization: How many people or organizations ultimately control this system?

Given these definitions, Ethereum is obviously architecturally decentralized, and considering the lack of strong coupling between its various components (such as consensus and execution), it is fair to say that it is also logically decentralized.

As far as political decentralization is concerned, the good news is that no individual or organization can shut down Ethereum, and even Vitalik can’t.One might say, however, that given Vitalik’s important role in setting its vision and thus defining its roadmap, Ethereum is not politically decentralized as one might think.

However, I think if we want Ethereum to continue innovating, we have to accept Vitalik as the de facto CTO, even if it means sacrificing some political decentralization.

If Ethereum “stabilizes” to form an almost immutable blockchain like Bitcoin, Vitalik may retire.But before we reach the final stage, it is crucial to have an authority respected by all parties, and people believe that he can not only make technical decisions based on the strengths of technologyJudgment, and also judgment can be made based on whether they are consistent with Ethereum’s vision.

Without characters like Vitalik, only two results are possible, both of which are vividly illustrated in the 3074 legend:

Ethereum governance could fall into endlessdeadlock, neither side is willing to compromise, and no one can make any progress, just as the 3074 debate has been at a deadlock until Vitalik stepped in.
Or, Ethereum may eventually becomeDesigned incoherent frankenstein monster, as we are very close to showing that 3074 and 4337 are two substantially incompatible parallel AA stacks.

The role of the community

We are very close to having a complete Ethereum governance mindset model, but there is a clear omission in our discussion so far – the community.

If Vitalik defines the vision, then the roadmap defined by researchers, and the roadmap is implemented by core developers — what role does the community play?Surely not nothing??

Fortunately, the community actually plays the most important role.The reason is, before you have a vision,Values.We come together as a community because we are united around certain values and ultimately Vitalik’s vision must be consistent with it or else the community will be lost.

Maybe this is your growth experience.Maybe this is what happened in your last job.But at one point everyone in the Ethereum community believed that having a decentralized computer that everyone can access, cannot be censored, trustworthy and neutral is a piece of work for the world.Good thing.We maintain and confirm these values every day through the work we do on Ethereum and provide Vitalik, researchers and core developers with the vision, roadmap, and code generated by Vitalik, researchers and core developerslegality.

VVRC model of Ethereum governance

Well, here is the complete mental model of Ethereum governance, which I call the Values ⇒ Vision ⇒ Roadmap ⇒ Customer Model, short for VVRC:

V == Values == Community
V == Vision == Vitalik
R == Roadmap == Researchers
C == Client == Core Developer

They work together like this:

The community revolves around certainValues come together.
VitalikExplained in line with these valuesVision.
ResearchersDeveloped according to the visionRoadmap.
Core developersImplementation according to the roadmapClient.

Of course, reality is much more chaotic than any simple model can capture.For example, the core developers in reality are the only ones who can “vote” any decision by implementing the client.Vitalik and other researchers only serve as consultative roles, and sometimes their opinions are not accepted by core developers, which is why 3074 is approved.

That said, I think the VVRC model reasonably captures how Ethereum governance works in good situations, and it’s up to us to “debug” the process so that it doesn’t fail like 3074.

How we improve Ethereum governance

Now we have Ethereum governanceHow to work mental models, here are some ideas for improving governance processes so that we can avoid the kind of whip we experienced in 3074/7702.

Those ecological industrial parks that are actively considering inclusion must have more visibility.The entire community should never be “surprised” by EIP acceptance, and that’s the case with 3074.

Contrary to what you expect, the “status” of an EIP on an EIP site does not reflect its status in the ACD process.That’s why it still says 3074 is under “review”, although core developers have voted to approve it, and there is little indication that it has ever been considered for inclusion.
Ideally, when EIP is about to be accepted, EF will post information loudly and clearly on social media to increase community awareness.

Sometimes core developers may underestimate the impact of a particular EIP on downstream projects and users, which is the case for the 3074 and 4337 communities.Since ACD meetings are limited and must be coordinated across time zones, it is understandable to emphasize that only “relevant people” can speak at the meeting.That is, allocate some time every once in a while for community members to comment on the downstream impact of certain EIP proposalsmay beMeaningful.

If researchers think the core developers are not accepting their opinions (as is the case with the 4337 team), they can involve community members to reinforce their perspective.

It is crucial that core developers and researchers recognize each other that they are both governance powers, albeit with different strengths.The “client power” of core developers is the only power that can truly “vote” by implementing the client.As researchers actively talk about and write their roadmap, researchers’ “roadmap power” often gains more public support.

When two powers conflict, it is easy for core developers to simply overturn researchers’ opinions, such as when core developers overturn opposition from team 4337.However, such overriding may lead to power conflicts, as power is unstable in conflict, as the following dramatic events after 3074 is approved.
Similarly, it is easy for researchers to give up contact with core developers when faced with resistance, which, in my opinion, is one of the reasons for creating the RIP process and why native AA (7560) is now driven primarily as RIP rather than RIPOne reason.An EIP.While it is indeed beneficial to help L2 try protocol updates, we cannot regard RIP as a replacement for participating in the EIP governance process.Researchers must continue to work with core developers until they fully fit the roadmap.

in conclusion

The legend of 3074/7702 reveals the governance of EthereumReally workingWays – In addition to the explicit governance power of the EIP/ACD process driven by core developers, there is also the implicit governance power of the researcher-driven roadmap.When these forces are out of balance, we see deadlock and whip, which may require another force – Vitalik – to reverse the balance.

We then prove that Vitalik represents a unique force, the “vision” of Ethereum, which is the basis for the legitimacy of any roadmap.We compare Vitalik with the CTO of a large company and acknowledge that his role as a pseudo-CTO is necessary for Ethereum to keep pace with innovation without degrading to designing an incoherent Frankenstein system.

Finally, we propose a mindset model that regards Ethereum governance as VVRC: Values (Community) ⇒ Vitalik ⇒ Roadmap (Researchers) ⇒ Customers (Core Developers).We then suggest various ways to fix “errors” that sometimes cause the process to deviate from this model in practice.

Ethereum governance is the “machine that builds machines” – in order for Ethereum to be correct, we must make governance correct.Therefore, 3074 provides a valuable case study for governance errors, and I hope I can learn some useful lessons from it so that we can improve Ethereum governance in the future.