CADS - Composable and distributed systems group

Mon, 2 June 2025

Sharing of our experimental call summaries: AI-generated digests that have demonstrated efficacy for weekly Yak Collective live study groups. Represents a step forward in our exploration of human-machine collaborative cognition and Yak Oracle and Yak Memory systems for enhancing collective intelligence capabilities.

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Reading: https://epf.wiki/#/eps/week5

Technical Infrastructure vs. Consumer Experience

The group discussed a fundamental tension: Ethereum is evolving into deep infrastructure technology rather than a retail-facing product. Like nuclear reactors or aircraft engines, users won't need to understand the complex mechanics underneath - they'll interact through simplified, abstracted interfaces similar to how we use other mature technologies.

Scaling Roadmap Progress & Challenges

Key technical developments discussed include:

• Fraud proofs and L2 decentralization status

• Data availability sampling and move toward "statelessness"

• Blob space markets following a staircase evolution pattern

• The roadmap resembling a "Moore's Law for Ethereum scaling"

The conversation highlighted how roadmaps evolve - plans change frequently as technical challenges are solved through new approaches (like the shift from state channels to rollup-centric L2 solutions).

Competitive Landscape Analysis

• Solana: Technically compromised for speed but gaining market share; compared to Microsoft vs. Linux dynamics

• Ethereum: Never crashed, prioritizing robustness and decentralization

• Cosmos: Mentioned as an interesting horizontal scaling approach worth monitoring

Market Infrastructure vs. Speculation

Strong sentiment that the 2017-2020 NFT/retail crypto boom was largely a "red herring." The future likely involves tightly integrated applications where blockchain mechanics are invisible - similar to how Farcaster abstracts wallet complexity.

AI Integration Opportunity

AI was identified as a major "blindside force" that could reshape crypto more than other factors like quantum computing. The intersection of AI and blockchain through technologies like ZKML represents a significant opportunity.

Social Coordination Challenges

The group noted that Ethereum's success depends heavily on maintaining decentralization and social coordination - technical infrastructure alone isn't sufficient. This represents a key differentiator from other blockchain projects that lack similar depth of governance discussion.

Technical Roadmap Insights

• Fraud proofs development remains critical for L2 scaling ecosystem

• Base leading in economic security among L2s but sequencer decentralization status unclear

• Roadmap envisions blockchain as “compression for compute” - building global decentralized computing infrastructure

• KZG commitment system involves 140,000+ contributors for future improvements

• Development faces ongoing challenges from:

  • Quantum computing threats

  • MEV fairness considerations for solo stakers

  • Liquid staking derivatives impact

Infrastructure Development Trends

• Blob space market showing staged evolution pattern:

  • Initial underutilization phase

  • Market capacity discovery

  • Price stress leading to capacity increases

• Moving toward statelessness through:

  • Data availability sampling

  • Builder/proposer separation

  • Reduced on-chain data storage requirements

• Technical competition landscape:

  • Ethereum: Never experienced complete downtime

  • Solana: Higher transaction volume but multiple crashes

  • Cosmos: Alternative horizontal scaling architecture gaining attention

Strategic Direction & Market Positioning

• Ethereum evolving as deep infrastructure technology rather than retail-facing platform

• Retail interface likely to become more abstracted like Apple technology

• Current dApps paradigm may be transitional (“Toyota hybrid stage”)

• Need for vertical integration rather than horizontal wallet architecture

• Infrastructure vs retail divide becoming more pronounced:

  • Ethereum focusing on infrastructure

  • Solana positioning as more consumer-oriented

Emerging Challenges & Considerations

• AI integration represents major upcoming influence:

  • Potential for ZKML applications

  • AI market value estimated 10x larger than crypto

  • Opportunities in MPC protocols for data-private AI model connections

• Social coordination challenges remain critical for decentralization

• Need to balance technical complexity with accessibility

• Stablecoins addressing price variation complexity but fundamental security pricing challenges remain

• Committee-based development approach may lack unified vision for mass adoption

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