Josh Stark: the Ethereum Foundation & Atoms, Institutions, Blockchains

06/14/22 • 76 min

Here is my conversation with Josh Stark.

Josh has a long history in the Ethereum ecosystem going back to the early days of the community. He cofounded one of the first L2 scaling protocols with Counterfactual. He also cofounded ETHGlobal which is a much-loved series of hackathons/events that brings the community together and which acts as an entry point into the ecosystem for many people. And nowadays and most relevant to our conversation, he works in a leadership capacity at the Ethereum Foundation.

In this conversation, we talked about two topics: one being the Ethereum Foundation, and two being the question of why blockchain is matter — this being something that Josh has spent a lot of time thinking about and which he's written about in a long form piece titled Atoms Institutions Blockchains.

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) - intro
(00:03:50) - subtraction
(00:07:22) - creating a self-sufficient crypto ecosystem
(00:12:33) - the property of ‘hardness’ for blockchains
(00:17:47) - understanding decentralization
(00:23:11) - Atoms, Institutions, Blockchains
(00:26:00) - blind men and an elephant
(00:33:06) - our civilization’s infrastructure
(00:43:33) - digitally-native hardness
(00:59:38) - how the EF operates
(01:06:21) - challenges with decentralized coordination
(01:12:08) - infinite players have nothing but their names

Links:
Atoms, Institutions, Blockchains: https://stark.mirror.xyz/n2UpRqwdf7yjuiPKVICPpGoUNeDhlWxGqjulrlpyYi0

Into the Bytecode:
- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab
- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab
- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com

Disclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed.

Here is my conversation with Josh Stark.

Links:
Atoms, Institutions, Blockchains: https://stark.mirror.xyz/n2UpRqwdf7yjuiPKVICPpGoUNeDhlWxGqjulrlpyYi0

Into the Bytecode:
- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab
- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab
- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com

Previous Episode

0age: Seaport, and protocol development with OpenSea

0age is the Head of Protocol Development at OpenSea, and this was a conversation about Seaport, the new marketplace protocol for buying and selling NFTs.

0age takes us through a tour of the Seaport protocol, talking about how it's architected; how conduits and zones work; and we even get into the low level gas optimization work they've done on the contracts. I hope this can be a helpful resource for anyone looking to understand the Seaport protocol or anyone who's building with NFTs more broadly. I also consider 0age to be a true veteran of the space, and hearing him talk through the design of the protocol can be an educational experience in its own rights.

Timestamps:
(00:01:42) - why build Seaport
(00:10:20) - the Seaport architecture
(00:12:44) - EIP712 signatures
(00:14:17) - the global concept of a nonce
(00:16:02) - EIP1271 and bulk listings
(00:17:18) - the Executor and conduits
(00:25:08) - zones, additional rules that can be applied on top of an order
(00:29:47) - implementing English auctions via zones
(00:32:17) - layers of the stack
(00:36:05) - fulfillment
(00:40:42) - gas optimizations and understanding the low-level behavior of the EVM
(00:58:40) - the interaction between OpenSea the product and Seaport the protocol
(01:07:06) - criteria based items, and partial fills
(01:17:50) - ideas to build on top of Seaport

Into the Bytecode:
- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab
- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab
- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com

Next Episode

Pedro Gomes: WalletConnect v2, account abstraction, and building a communications protocol

Pedro Gomes is the cofounder of WalletConnect, a communications protocol that enables wallets and apps to securely connect and interact.

In this conversation, We talked about WalletConnect v2 and its architecture, account abstraction, potential downstream effects of a crypto-native chat protocol, and other topics.

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) - intro
(00:08:00) - developing the user experience before creating the product
(00:10:23) - account abstraction and the spectrum of security and convenience
(00:20:39) - WalletConnect APIs and “Log in with Ethereum”
(00:28:55) - how WalletConnect works
(00:37:45) - light clients and generalized messaging protocols
(00:45:36) - the politics of making big changes to the Ethereum protocol
(00:50:14) - connecting wallets with WalletConnect Chat

Links:
WalletConnect - https://walletconnect.com/
EIP2938 (account abstraction) - https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-2938
WalletConnect APIs - https://docs.walletconnect.com/2.0

Into the Bytecode:
- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab
- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab
- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com