ETH Taipei, organized by the Ethereum Taipei community, kicked off at the Nan Kang bottle cap factory in Taipei on March 21st. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, appeared wearing a specially designed Taiwanese-style “temple hat” and “temple committee attire” provided by the organizers. He discussed the two major centralization risks in the current Ethereum ecosystem: MEV (Miner Extractable Value) and PoS (Proof of Stake) staking.
The PoS staking ecosystem has room for improvement, and rainbow staking may be one of the solutions. MEV, on the other hand, poses centralization risks for relays and builders. Trusted intermediaries like MEVBoost are examples of such risks.
Regarding PoS staking, Vitalik mentioned that the review process for MEV relays and builders carries centralization risks. He also highlighted the potential centralization risks if a specific staked-ETH becomes the main asset.
Vitalik pointed out that the number of individual stakers (with 32 ETH) is decreasing. While the original design aimed to avoid excessive signatures on the chain and high ETH requirements, it seems that both goals cannot be achieved at the moment. More research and thinking are needed to find a sustainable staking design. In the short term, it is important to explore the possibility of changing the reward mechanism to limit excessive staking. In the long term, the challenge is to find ways to encourage “lazy ETH holders” to participate in staking.
He stated, “We rely heavily on ‘social pressure + virtue’. To what extent is this inevitable? If it is inevitable, we should be clearer about whether we rely on incentives or social pressure + virtue, rather than overly relying on the latter.”
He also mentioned the “rainbow staking” design, which may involve two types of staking. One type would sign every slot and could be punished (slashable), while the other type would sign occasionally but would not be punished.
ETH Taipei Forum Agenda:
https://ethtaipei.org/agenda#info
Registration Link:
https://app.moongate.id/e/eth-taipei
ETH Taipei
rainbow staking
Vitalik Buterin