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Ungovernable Podcast – Ep.18
Recorded: May 22, 2025 Duration: 1:08:06Space Recording
Full Transcription
Thank you. Music Thank you. Thank you. Music Thank you. Music Thank you. Join the ungovernables.
No filters, no apologies.
This season we're cracking open Uniswap governance.
Welcome to a new episode of the Ungovernable Podcast.
Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Ungovernable Podcast. Today, we're
super excited to have on Stinkus and Chris from L2B. Not only do
they analyze and monitor the security of the networks that we all use daily, but they're also
active delegates and multiple DAOs helping shape policies that will define DeFi's future.
We are Joe and Austin from Alpha Growth, your premier DeFi and operations and growth firm.
Guys, thank you so much for
coming on. What else should the listeners know about you? Thank you for having us, first and
foremost. Christophe, as a more senior, do you want to start off? Yeah, first of all, thank you
for having us. Yeah, my name is Chris. I'm the head of governance in L2Bit. At L2Bit we are pop delegates in most L2 DAOs
and we try to shape the space
and how the future of the DAOs
is going to look like.
Yeah, and I'm Sinkas,
real name is Anastasis, very Greek, very difficult.
I come from
a business administration background,
I've been in Web3 since
2018,
full time since 2020.
And in 2023, I joined L2B, I joined Christoph to work with him in governance,
simply because the workload was becoming too big
for one person and it still is, to be honest.
And we're three people in the governance team right now.
We also have Manu, Manu Kutsuka, who joined us recently.
But it's still a lot of work in many different DAOs.
Any single DAO has too much work and too much context to keep up with.
Now do that times 10, and you can understand and visualize how much work we're dealing with.
Yeah, super excited to dive into the governance side of things
and what you guys do there as delegates.
But first, I kind of want to ask you guys,
what got you down the Web3 rabbit hole?
I know you both have different backgrounds.
Chris, you come from a computer science,
same case you come from business.
What got you into the Web3 space
and what really wanted to make you guys stay
yeah so like for me uh i got interested about uh in crypto by my friend um merlin who who uh was
into bitcoin very early on and i you know unfortunately i was dismissing him, pitching me Bitcoin for many, many years. I would be rich if I didn't.
But then, you know, he quit Bitcoin around 2015,
but he got interested in this cool project called Ethereum.
And then I saw this, another cool project called the DAO,
and that's what actually got me in.
That's when I understood i understood okay this is really
really interesting and this is you know this is fun uh for other reasons that i'm into DAOs right
now uh but yeah like so i i really jumped into it because of the DAO of course the DAO crashed
a month after that and it was fun to watch but i stayed i was stayed. I was involved in a lot of regulatory discussions around,
in Poland, around the ICO bubble frenzy.
And after that, so yeah, I've been involved a lot
in discussing with business enterprises,
government, regulatory bodies.
And I've been advising some startups in crypto.
And then long story short, like then L2Bit,
like I know L2Bit funders from the old days.
And when they realized that there is this governance thingy
and L2Bit is being seen as someone who should be active there uh they didn't want to handle it themselves
so they reached out to me to join out to be team to handle governance issues and that's how i ended
up here so yeah that's my story yeah way different entry from for me uh back in 2015 I was still in high school and I was doing online gigs just to make some pocket money
and for Minecraft servers I was selling services or other connecting people who were selling
services to Minecraft servers and in those forums some people had started paying with Bitcoin so I
looked at that I tried getting some couldn't figure it out and I realized that it's not for
me and then in 2018 I had a motorcycle accident I was in the hospital a lot of free time and I was
browsing the internet I saw an article about this thing called ethereum and I looked at that I looked
at Bitcoin as well and what he had done price-wise and I realized holy like this is something really
interesting and initially I got in in it for the money like oh i could maybe buy some and it goes up and i'll make money similar to bitcoin
but then i started reading more and more i realized holy this is like bitcoin on steroids
in terms of the capabilities of you know with smart contracts and automated market makers and
dexes and all that i said this is something something I wanna get more in touch with. So I started just being around the community,
joined the platform called Scent, read a lot of articles,
also wrote some myself,
like just trying to understand the space more.
And then in 2020, got my first job
and quit that in 2022, you get more,
like I wanted something even more Web3,
like at the very edge like the bleeding
edge of what's happening in the space so I figured I want to join like DAOs and start
working there and I got a grant from Optimism at the time to do a podcast and that's how
I actually met Christophe and learned about L2Beat and the fact that they were hiring
because I was researching L2Beat to have them have Christophe on the podcast that I was
hosting and that's how I realized oh this this is this job description is exactly what I was researching L2Beat to have them have Christoph on the podcast that I was hosting.
And that's how I realized, oh, this job description is exactly what I want to do.
And here we are now.
Was there anything that influenced you guys?
I appreciate you guys telling that story.
And awesome to see, you know, 2015 Bitcoin prices, Ethereum prices were all at that all-time high today.
So just wanted to call that out.
Jumping over to the decentralization and public goods side of things,
what was kind of like your inspiration and what kind of influenced you guys
to jump into like the public goods side of things
good side of things and this being something that you guys want to dedicate your time to?
and this being something that you guys want to dedicate your time to?
So I was involved in public goods like forever. So when I was a kid, I was already involved
in Linux and FreeBSD and I was a server admin at the time late 90s. So I was involved in
many, many different initiatives around that like was part of one of the Polish Linux distribution groups.
I was involved with Internet Society. Later, I got involved with Creative Commons, Polish chapter.
And I also got involved with like I was basically very close to many freedom oriented activists groups in IT and around IT. Around the time in high school
or after, like still in high school, I was co-designing the biggest, like right now, the biggest
Polish public goods e-book library, which is still running after 15 years and right now on the board
of the foundation that maintains this this library uh so like public goods and and free software were
like deep in my heart long long before crypto even existed so um yeah like you know, one of the reasons why I'm into governance is that back in those days, you know, I see a lot of similarities around current crypto communities and old time free software communities, you know, communities around Linux, communities around free software and free software foundation, communities around open protocols like Mozilla and other groups like that, Creative Commons.
But back then, we didn't have that good coordination mechanism.
Like I think the tokens and the value layer of the crypto that we have changes a lot in
terms of how can we coordinate on
the common goals and how can we actually run those decentralized organizations in a meaningful
way.
So yeah, that's kind of my story.
And yeah, like, you know, free software and open source and public goods were there way before crypto. And we already know there is a lot of stories around that.
So in crypto, we are just repeating some of the mistakes that we did in the past,
but hopefully we'll be able to fix it.
Chris, you mentioned you mentioned public goods quite a bit.
Would you would you mind defining in your mind what is public good?
Yeah. So there is a there is Yeah, so there is this economic definition,
common economic definition of public goods that is this,
I don't remember it exactly right now,
but it's like that it can be competitive
and it can be depleted,
but basically the common resources that we have
and we use together for a common good that we share together.
And that's kind of how I see it. So these are common resources, common infrastructure that is better if it's not monopolized by any single party.
And also it's better if it is being maintained and developed by a community that uses it
so that's how i kind of loosely define it but to be honest there is a thousand definitions of
public goods and everybody who is into public goods has their own definition and i don't think
it's bad like i think that as long as as long as it works as long as we you know get to produce value to the communities
uh i don't care what i don't care if my definition of public goods is different from
somebody else like as long as we both contribute towards you know adding value to it you somewhat
alluded to the answer here but in your mind who's responsible for keeping the lights on
of public goods?
Well, it depends.
I don't think that there is an easy answer to that. Because I don't think that being a public good requires that it's being maintained by, you know, that it's not decentralized, for example.
That it's not maintained by a single commercial entity i think
that there are there are public goods that are maintained and um and produced by commercial
entities simply because it's valuable for them and it's valuable for for them for upkeep needs
actually that's exactly how how free software got to own the world.
Even though if you look into free software,
most of the free software is owned and maintained by commercial entities.
GitHub is owned by Microsoft.
Linux Foundation is kind of aligned with IBM
because IBM is throwing a billion dollars
from every now and then into Linux Foundation.
Mozilla for many years was heavily supported by Google
and very reliant on Google.
And all those corporations,
they had a very important interest
in those public goods being available
and not owned by anybody and being neutral.
So, you know, it is possible.
However, it's not ideal because if it is reliant on any single entity,
be it commercial, you know, corporation or government,
as is quite usually with NGOs, that NGOs are sometimes really reliant on government.
And I've been there and I saw that.
And it's also an issue because if the government goes other way,
then this NGO has an issue and has a problem with sustainability.
So ideally, in an ideal world, public goods would be supported by the community,
by people who use it and the people who have interest
from them. However having said that I would say that it's extremely challenging to secure funding and secure support from the community only. It's extremely hard unless we can force people to
support some public goods through taxes it's extremely hard to make sustainable public goods with community support only.
Therefore, I don't know if that's a clear answer,
but in my opinion, it's a mix of both sources.
We need commercial entities, we need governments to support public goods,
but it shouldn't be the only source of support.
It should be also supported from the community,
from entities
that are actually benefiting from this public good existing yeah that makes a lot of sense too right
if you have one entity that's really driving that that innovation and has a lot of influence over
that public good is it is it so much a public good anymore um it becomes the way yeah yeah
anymore um it becomes the way yeah yeah it could be but simply it's non-sustainable public good
because its sustainability depends on the sustainability of this uh of this entity and
on this entity's willingness to to sustain this public good but still like there is a lot of
public goods funded mainly from uh you know some single commercial source.
Simply, it's a, you know, this is a huge risk on this public goods future.
Yeah, that's fair.
I appreciate you giving the breakdown of what a public good is
and kind of your perspective on that.
Wanted to touch on L2B.
Could you guys kind of walk through what L2B does
and just kind of give the the overview
there i want to give the very dumb down version and then chris can take it away with yeah the way
i try to explain l2beat to friends or people who might be into crypto but not really you know um
following what's happening or know what it is i
like to ask them the question like hey you have money on ethereum what makes you so certain that
you know your money is secure and you can use it at any time you can withdraw you can do whatever
you want your money and they have like you know ethereum has some security guarantees now i ask
them all right let's say you move your money to an L2 based on Ethereum, right? Optimism, Arbitrum, whatever it is, base.
Now, do you still have the same security as you would by having your money or your assets on Ethereum?
And a lot of people fall in the trouble and say, yes, because they're an L2 and they're built on Ethereum.
But that assumption is not correct.
And the risk, there are some risks that exist.
And the risk, there are some risks that exist.
And L2Bit, what the majority that I think is known for, although we do way more than
that, is highlighting and making those risks easily digestible and accessible to the general
public through the dashboard that we have created and through the famous or infamous
risk rosette or L2Bit pizza, as some people call it.
So for me, it's like this is the very dumbed down explanation of what L2Bit does. It's like, hey, do you know if your assets are secure in this L2Bit pizza, as some people call it. So for me, it's like, this is the very dumbed down explanation
of what L2Bit does.
It's like, hey, do you know if your assets
are secure in this L2?
Well, you can go at L2Bit and check
and what exact risks are associated with your assets.
And Christoph can deepen the next explanation, I believe.
Yeah, so like what Sink has just explained
is kind of the gist of it.
However, I would like to add more nuance to this story because it's not that we just, you know, we kind of like,
we make a call, okay, this L2 is secure and this one is not. No, like what we do is we, the way we define it, we provide on-chain transparency.
And we go look into, you know the the the nice feature
about l2 systems is that they are built on top of public blockchain and which is ethereum and if we
trust ethereum uh those l2s are supposed to kind of inherit um ethereum security and provide you
the security of your funds because of the mechanisms that are published on-chain and because of the mechanisms that allow you to exit with your funds,
no matter if the L2 is censoring you or if it doesn't exist, for example.
So, yeah, the example that Sinkers gave,
that you put your money on the L2 and how secure it is is one thing.
But imagine you put the money on L2
and then for some reason you can't access it for a long time let's say that you go into some legal
dispute and your funds are locked until this dispute settles and you know you have a million
dollars on this L2 and they're all like you know right now there's more than 150 i believe l2s that are already employed on the
on the mainnet so the universal law of startups says that you know 80 90 of those l2s these are
startups so universal law of startup says that 80 to 90 will cease to exist five to ten years from
now and we don't know which ones will be those that will cease to exist so it could be
that your you know you can watch your million dollar on this l2 while this l2 simply wins down
and ceases to exist and the question is what do you have if if this l2 you know if this l2 turned
off their server and your ego gets settled and you want to take your money out and the answer is if this
l2 was kind of greenish on our risk assessment then you're probably good but if it was reddish
you are probably in trouble and like the difference between those are those nuances
uh the things that we explain in our risk assessment so you should if you have this
money on this l2 you should go into our risk assessment and you will learn what should you be watching for.
For example, should you be watching for the data availability?
Should you be watching for exit window?
Maybe you should be, you know,
worried about things going weird on this L2 and stuff like that.
And there are examples of this actually already, you know, being relevant.
DYDX is a great example, in my opinion.
Because DYDX closed shop on Ethereum late last year.
And when they turned off their servers,
there was still $40 million locked in DYDX Bridge.
However, because DYDX were a proper roll-up,
if you look into DYDX assessment on our web page,
you will see that it is kind of greenish. It was a proper roll-up. If you look into DYDX assessment on our webpage, you will see that it is kind of greenish.
It was a proper roll-up with proper security guarantees.
You can still exit with your money,
even though DYDX is no longer operating any services on Ethereum.
Your funds are still safe.
As long as Ethereum exists,
you will still be able to exit with your funds
using just Ethereum mechanics alone.
And that's the information that we are trying to expose.
In order to be able to do this, we had to analyze both the source code of those mechanisms
to see if they are implemented.
And then we monitor constantly the on-chain configuration of those systems to see if those
security guarantees are still in place, if nothing changed.
And if they change, we show it, we expose it to the users.
So, but that's one thing, like exposing those things
is one thing.
The actual mission of L2Bit is to push the industry forward
and to push those L2s to actually improve
on their security assessment.
Because it's one thing to say, hey, you are, you know,
only two out of five green and three out of five red.
But that's not the goal.
The goal is not to, you know, point fingers and say
that somebody is not meeting our, you know, our standards.
The goal is to help them and push them forward
so that they are green.
You know, in an ideal world, the mission of L2Bit is to push all those L2s
so that L2Bit is green from top to bottom.
And that's our job.
That's our goal of existence.
I appreciate the detailed breakdown there, Chris.
For users, what are some of the top risks
that you think that most people aren't aware of
when they're on different L2s?
Well, there are many.
There are many.
Like top three.
What are the one, two, three,
and you should at least be worried about these?
In terms of L2s, terms of L2 infrastructure itself,
the major thing is, okay, who is controlling it?
Who is making calls?
Who is making decisions?
Is it centralized in one entity?
Or is it decentralized with a community?
Is there a multisig that can implement changes?
Who is controlling this multisig?
Is it diversified enough?
Also from the legislative viewpoint,
can any government force those Security Council members
to upgrade the system as they wish?
Those are the things that, so that is one thing. And the other
is, how is it really working? If the system, you know, turns off their servers, what can
I do? Can I replace the sequencer? Can I replace the proposal? Can I submit, you know, a state
change? Can I even retrieve the state? Can I can i you know reconstruct the state and submit a
change so these are the things that they they are technical so like most users will still have to
rely on somebody like us to uh to you know confirm those security guarantees but it's important for
them to be there it's similar like with you know with with. You probably can't verify yourself if the car has all the security measures implemented in its systems because it's too complicated.
But there are people that can.
And you should always choose those cars that somebody actually checked that those security measures are in place.
be checked that those security measures are in place.
Yeah. If I had to identify more as a user, I would say, you know, from a user perspective,
that the most important thing that I would care on a personal level is whether if something
happens to the L2 that I'm in, if I can withdraw my funds, like if there's an escape ad.
Because like, for example, when you buy an asset like a crypto currency or a token whatever
there is kind of like the assumption that it could you know do well but it could just as well
go to zero you know rugged by the dash whatever so same can be thought in in terms of if i have
you know stables or eth or whatever like things that i'm i do not believe they'll go to zero
if something happens to the network that i'm
holding them on can i still withdraw them to ethereum for me that's the biggest uh thing that
i have in mind yeah so that's security making sure that your funds are safu and everything's okay
even if the the network does shut down yeah yeah like i have my my funds like the majority of my holdings
let's say on an l2 i won't say which but i know that if it goes down i can at least withdraw them
back with you okay interesting that's definitely good to keep in mind i feel like as a as a user
even for like myself you don't really think about you definitely think about the protocol risk right
it's like okay this is a little risky.
This could be a little scammy.
But when it comes to L2s or different networks,
you don't really always take into consideration like,
hey, is this network going to be around tomorrow or next week?
Can I still have my funds even if this thing were to go down?
Another thing that I would like to point out like it just came to my head that is
uh and something that i will be honest we are not yet us like assessing properly is bridge risk like
so how okay you've got your funds on this l2 how did they make it to that out too uh what is the
third party risk uh in terms of security of your funds?
What is the contingency of this asset security because of the bridge it used?
And this is super complicated.
It's super complex, especially with all the inter-op, inter-chain solutions that we have right now.
It's becoming extremely hard to assess what exactly do you have. Because, you know, it's different for ETH breached using canonical bridge,
and totally different for USDC breached using some third party bridge to some exotic chain. And yeah, we are trying to assess this.
It's one of our focuses for this year to do it better.
But it's becoming extremely hard and extremely important,
especially that more and more often
really significant funds are at play.
And I'm sure too, there's just so many different l2s that
are constantly being launched like i guess i'm kind of i'd love to give your guys perspective
on this why do you guys think there's so many different uh l2s being launched within the
ecosystem why like yeah why it's obvious it's obvious like because there is uh because there is a need for
those and there is there is enough people out there willing to experiment and you know take
their shot in actually figuring out the product market fit for for the l2 uh and in my opinion
in the future there's a you know enough demand for not just like the all the l2s that we
have right now today but much much more uh when you look at it you know in in in u.s alone you
have around 5 000 different bank banks and around 60 000 if i remember correctly branches and you know all of them offer more or less similar
same product right like the the services of those banks are very similar and the back end of these
branches is also kind of similar yet still there is a market for 5,000 different companies offering quite the same thing in the US alone.
If you scale it to the whole world, I'm pretty sure we would end up with tens, if not hundreds of thousands.
And the reason why this is the case is that each of those banks addresses a bit of a different customer demand,
a bit of a different customer acquisition panel, a bit of a different customer demand, a bit of a different customer acquisition panel,
a bit of a different offering specified and crafted for the very specific audience.
And I think the same will be true for L2s and L3s and all the chains that we have.
If we have to onboard the whole world to on-chain,
we need all those teams because there
is no single company that can take all those users on-chain
and provide them support and provide services that
are needed by this very specific niche.
So yeah, I believe that, of course,
it's not that all the L2s that are launching today
will survive, but I truly believe in the world
where we have much more than we have today.
I don't believe in the one chain that will rule the world
simply because people are different,
companies are different, governments are different,
people's needs and demands and requirements are different
and there will be different teams satisfying those needs.
Do you think we'll kind of get to the extreme
where everybody almost has their own blockchain network
or is this one of those where we'll start to see a lot more roll-ups and merges happen over time?
I think that there will be merges for sure.
And as I said, I think that current L2s like all of them will not survive for sure
like there will be some that will have to die in the process uh but also there will be a lot of a
lot of new ones that will you know be created on top of it uh it's kind of similar to the way as we
saw internet uh developing you know uh i remember the time when people thought that we have Yahoo and that's it
and that we don't need anything else. We already have the window to the world.
Apparently, there was so much more to the internet than that.
I truly believe that we are right now in this very early
stage of on-chain where finally governments are you know starting to
acknowledge the fact that this is happening and this is legit and you know and simply this is
technology that is superior to what we had in in the past and and you they can't stop it anymore
so uh you know you you said that everybody has their own chain.
Like, you know, I think that the next year will be the year
where everybody will have their own stable coin
on all those different chains.
But yeah, like I think that there is definitely a need
for many different custom chains,
but there will be also many like main ones where, you know,
smaller entities will be and entities that do not need that customization and also maintenance
costs for handling their own chains, they will be using it.
But yeah, like, you know, I think that the future is bright in that regard as i see a lot of demand in the future for many different
custom chains as well as a lot of block space needed on the chains that we have right now
your metaphor of uh of yahoo is pretty wild uh i'm probably aging myself a little bit but i i
don't even think i was old enough to be around in a time when Yahoo was the only thing on the internet that people were talking about.
That's a pretty wild thought because there was no part of my life did Yahoo have much relevance other than just like a media ad.
To make it more, you know, so, you know, later, first it was Yahoo, like for me at least.
Then it was Google. Then it was at least. Then it was Google.
Then it was MySpace.
Then it was Facebook.
Every few years, we have this one thing that was supposed to end the internet.
This is all.
We don't need anything more.
We already solved it.
But no, apparently, we still have new many many new things you know
there is a reason why there are so many apps on the internet and so many services even social
services you know why do you need any other why do you need linkedin when you have facebook
why do you need instagram when you have facebook why do you need tick tock when you have facebook
right right thank you we figured it out 20 years ago. My Twitter account is of legal age today.
It's 18 years old.
So why do we need all those other services
when we have Twitter for 18 years already?
Okay, so I would argue, though,
that it's possible that AI and the way that we interface
with the internet is going to continue rolling up to where instead of
going on Google and searching through websites now, I think more and more people are just
interfacing with ChatGPT as kind of just this be all end all one entrance point into the metaverse,
so to say. How do you think that's going to evolve with how the distribution of the interaction on
the blockchain is you think super chain is going to change anything like that
wait i don't know how did we get from top gpt to super chain
i was using it's more of an analog in terms of right now the internet is finally after many many
decades the internet now is potentially going to evolve into something that only has one entrance and exit point, which is how some people are replacing all of their internet activity with ChatGPT.
I don't believe it. So, of course, ChatGPT and other LLMs will change the world significantly.
change the world significantly. But there is a reason why we are talking right now, even though
you could also open chat GPT and have a nice chat with it, you could also generate a talking head,
and you know, talk with this talking head generated by chat GPT instead of talking with the two of us.
But for some reason, you still prefer to talk to us instead of talking to chat GPT. So I don't
believe that chat GPT will, will you know will kill the world and
eat the world and will replace everything yes it will be it is and it will be you know growingly
important thing uh in the uh web ecosystem uh but it definitely you know it will kill a lot of
things that we are used to right now but it will create ones, it will create new ways of for people to interact with
with the world and with each other. And it will not replace humans, it will not replace the internet
that we see right now, it will evolve it. Of course, it will be important, of course, you know,
other LLM's will like Grok, and you know, Gemini, Gemini, they will be like increasingly shaping and changing our reality
but i you know i think that the age of humanity is not over and uh it's not that you know you will
you will not be talking to chat gpt three years from now instead of us you will still be looking
for humans uh and other humans to listen to it instead of, you know, GPTs. So with that invite, how to translate into,
but still like having said that there is a, you know, very bright future for
chat GPT and it will definitely, you know, eat a lot of services.
The same way I think that the good enough for this is Amazon, you know,
Amazon that started as a bookstore uh online bookstore and you know right
now it's this you know behemoth that is controlling so many aspects of our lives um yet still even
though amazon is so you know so huge so important it's still not everything so i believe that the
same you know biology same things will happen in crypto.
And you mentioned super chain.
So yes, I believe that there is a, you know, there is a huge value proposal from super chain.
And I believe that super chain aligning many different services, many different entities will, you know, make a dent in crypto reality.
I absolutely do not believe in a world where superchain
is the only chain that exists or the superchain.
I'm sorry, I should probably not be saying this that strongly,
but I don't believe in a world where superchain
is 99% of the on-chain activity
simply because there is space for more.
I believe that it will be important.
It already is.
It has a strong value prop, but there is a value prop outside of it as well.
So I believe that there is space for many, many other chains,
ecosystems still to evolve.
And it will all boil down to who can bring people on it.
You know, I think that there are strong,
very strong players in the super chain ecosystem.
I think that what world is doing is,
is super interesting in terms of onboarding users,
but there is, you know,
there are interesting things happening outside of it as well.
So yeah, I don't think that the fate of crypto has been decided already. Far from it.
Definitely to echo your point, it's kind of the distribution channels and how can you get people on board
without feeling like they're using the blockchain in a way i think if we kind of go back
to you know when websites were hot in the dot-com bubble it's not saying we're using this type of
database for using that particular website we're saying we're we're using like a pet website or
something like that and i think when you're able to get down to that niche and focus on a customer, you can really bring people in.
I remember the time when I was having,
back in the late 90s, in order to host your own website
or have an email account, I had a server running in my room
with cables going out of the window to host my own website
and to host my own email address.
And I don't know that most people don't know today
that it's even possible that you can host your own email
on your computer or that you can host a web server.
People don't do this these days.
It's obstructed away on many, many levels.
Even the whole notion of running your own server
is something that is kind of weird that you use AWS
or Google Cloud or whatever.
And that's the way you use it.
So yeah, I think that this will be simplified,
and this will be abstracted away uh and that's how people will
start using it yep yep that that definitely i agree with that that definitely is a future where
you where you start to not know what you're actually interacting with um i do want to
click on like the governance side of what you guys do for l2b um i appreciate the the l2b
overview the security risk that you guys do uh and2B. Appreciate the L2B overview,
the security risks that you guys do,
and diving in there on what's important to different users
and what to look out for.
You guys are delegates for protocols
like Uniswap, Arbitrum, and StarkNet.
How do you guys decide when and where to get involved
when and where to get involved as a as a governance delegate well as long as it's
as a governance delegate?
on ethereum and mostly we are active in l2s um so as long as it's on ethereum and it's an l2
most of them like they just asked us to right or we received voting power um through you know one
way or another um could be through the airdrop or
just someone delegating to us and if we have a voice and we are asked to participate then we do
it's a good signal showcasing that you guys add a lot of value to different ecosystems and people
want to be you to be a part of theirs yeah no no As long as we can help, as long as we can add something really,
you know, even simply due to participating in the discussion,
like we are happy to do it as long as it's relevant to us.
So, you know, we are active in L2DAOs, obviously,
because L2DAOs are relevant to what we are doing
and we can help
guiding on what they should be doing and you know we are materially interested in their success uh
you know we like if if l2 succeed we have a bright future if l2s do not succeed then we will have to
pivot or or find something else to do so we are really interested in those l2 succeeding
all of them actually um because then you know then we have a job we we you know then assessing
those l2s uh there is important and there is a need for it uh you know and we are also participating
in those dows where if they are not necessarily L2s, but they are
also important and our voice there could be important. That's like Uniswap or Hop or
Everclear, where, you know, where we simply we find asked to add something valuable. And
that's where we want to participate. But I think I said, like we are usually asked to add something valuable. And that's where we want to participate. But I think I said, like we are usually asked to
participate, we, we don't necessarily seek for being
active in like, okay, we want to be active in every L2DAO,
simply because as I said, like, it's in our best interest to
make sure that those DAOs succeed, and those L2 succeed.
But for example, if there is some DeFi protocol that we do not really feel like we can add
something, and there were cases in the past where we were asked to participate in some
DeFi protocols or like NFT DAOs. So even though we have huge respect for them, and it's nothing that we don't like about them,
but simply we don't think we could contribute meaningfully to them.
So in those cases, we pass.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I feel like when you align your values,
what you need to do becomes really clear.
And I feel like serving at several different DAOs
and being as a delegate, you've seen a lot of different governance systems. Which DAO has been the most effective governance system and why do you believe that?
I think it's very difficult to answer,
but the reason is not because it's difficult to select one,
but rather because I think we have ways to grow on all of them
to be able to consider any of them efficient or better structured.
I think most of them are different,
even though they might use like similar tools like snapshot
or tally or agora and similar processes you know like post the proposal in the forum and we vote
on it and token voting like the the actual cultural difference is too big and it plays
a significant role in how governance takes place in all these DAOs.
And also like the underlying protocol that they govern, for example, it's way different,
the decisions that you have to make in an L2 like Optimism or Arbitron, than on an app like Uniswap.
Right? So it's very difficult to say that one is more efficient than the other. I think all DAOs
are kind of figuring it out still and we as well are kind of
like learning as we go and taking those learnings and you know if we learn something doesn't work or
does work from one dow given our position and the fact that we are in many different days we try to
bridge those learnings over say hey like let's not try this because we have you know it doesn't
work in this doubt didn't work in this
doubt didn't work in this ecosystem so why replicate the same thing or vice versa right
this works so might make sense to also implement here yeah like you know if I were to answer it if
I were to be honest I would say that none of them like if we really if I would really have to say
like which DAO is efficient I would like I would have to say that none of them.
But not because, I'm not blaming them.
It's simply, DAOs are pretty new in the space.
And we were learning how, and I treat DAO as a kind of a management,
tool management framework and decision-making framework.
And usually people look at DAOs and governance as vote.
That's the governance.
When we have a vote and we have to cast our votes
and then there is an outcome.
But in my opinion, this is just one actually even optional step
in the whole governance process, which is decision-making
and management of the thing that we govern.
So there is, I believe that right now we are not realizing even like 20% of the potential that lies in the DAOs and the coordination mechanism that we could have implemented there and the way how we can, you know can contribute as participants of those systems,
of those ecosystems and of those DAOs to bring value, to create value for those ecosystems.
As I said, I think that we are right now realizing only maybe up to 10 to 20 percent of the potential
that I'm expecting to surface in the future. That's why I would say that none of them are efficient.
But at the same time, I would say that all of them,
because I guess that every single DAO out there
that we are present at, and we are contributing to,
has something, some unique feature that,
they did this one twist, at least,
that improves how we do stuff in general.
So all of them have something interesting in them that moves the world forward
and that pushes the whole industry, the whole governance space forward.
So for that, I believe that all of them have some value.
They're all unique snowflakes, right?
What are some of the innovations or processes that you've seen outside of the Uniswap DAO
that you believe that Uniswap should implement or at least explore?
That's a hard one.
I will think about it and sink us throw something in while i'll think
yeah it's difficult because i think to an extent some of those things that we see in other dows
also kind of already happen in uniswap one way or another or like for example
like for example um you know like the grants programs we have the uni our grant program for
example or uh incentive programs we also had that like it's difficult to say that we didn't have
any of the initiatives that we're seeing now that dows is working and if you are to talk about
structures or like operational differences
in terms of how Uniswap does things compared to other DAOs I wouldn't say like for example the
way we tackle uh deployments and the record keeping of that with the Uniswap accountability
committee right for example Arbitrum has had a case where we needed to add a token to the protocol for the bridge,
like RARI back in the day. And now there is also another proposal being in work and it's
a more tedious process in Arbitrum. Like it has to go through a governance vote and it's
way less straightforward than compared to Uniswap. So in that regard, like for example,
Uniswap is already doing something better, let's say, or more efficient. But it's also kind of different.
Yeah, so, you know, when I had the time to think about it,
I will not name one mechanism from any one specific DAO,
but what Uniswap could improve on
is taking more responsibility from, like,
as token holders and delegates,
taking more uh responsibility
and more control over what the like in the ecosystem because right now it seems like
most of it have been delegated to labs and foundation and there is an expectation of them facilitating everything and then you know pushing things
forward while in order for and at the same time you know when when those entities are not
acting the way that some delegates would like them to act. And I don't know, I'm not revealing enough information
or I'm not taking steps that delegates would like to see taken.
You know, there is this dissatisfaction and confusion.
And I think that the reason, like right now the DAO is kind of toothless
because the, you know, the power and the execution of capacity lies only in those entities.
I believe that there is a world in which the DAO grows its own executional capacity and grows its own autonomous.
own execution or capacity and grows its own autonomous.
I don't want to say bodies or entities, but capabilities.
Let's put it like that in a very abstract way so that the DAO can make reality and not
just confirm and ratify reality set by others.
So I know that's a kind of philosophical statement,
but that's what I think. The DAO should be more autonomous in a practical sense and not
in just theoretical sense of the token voting. The DAO as delegates, as the community, as
the collective should be able to set the reality and not just ratify it well it's challenging but it's
possible in my opinion yeah what what do you think that reality looks like is that kind of following
the foundation's priorities or footsteps is that creating their own initiatives to really drive growth and progress in different areas like what
should the DAO really be focused on yeah so as this is that public appearance I need to be very
political and like watch my words uh but I yeah I think that the DAO could be like, I true. So first of all, I truly believe that the foundation and the labs
are doing great job so far. And like, anything that I will say is not going against foundation
and labs, but I simply think that foundation labs should not be expected to do everything.
But right now, it is like that if you want something to happen, we kind of expect Foundation to do that, or Labs to do that, or both.
And if there is no alignment, if they don't see it that way,
then people are frustrated that Foundation is not helping us.
And that shouldn't be the case.
I don't think we should be expecting them to do anything, really,
especially in the current legalish setup but i do believe that there is
a possibility and that could there is a possible autonomy that would grew inside the dial so that
would make it happen that uh that we could fund uh third party into this or we could fund third-party entities or we could fund initiatives that would take responsibility for certain things
and would grow the DAO capabilities outside of what the labs and foundation is doing.
is doing not to compete with it it's very important i don't mean for the sake of competing
Not to compete with it, it's very important.
with uh well what they what they're doing but rather for extending their capacity and i know
i'm kind of philosophical but yeah like i i expect this to happen in daos over time in general
all the time in general.
Yeah, I think it's about the DAO working with the foundation and labs,
but having more ownership into leading that kind of collaboration,
not necessarily waiting for the labs or the foundation to come up and say,
hey, we're working on this, and then the DAO wakes up and says,
yeah, we want to contribute to that or spin up our own initiative,
or why shouldn't it be in the control of the DAO
the DAO can do things
yeah and also sorry to me also the DAO is not it's not just like random abstract body
the DAO is is made of token holders and delegates and delegates represent token holders and you know token holders are individuals but
they are also entities uh and you know the reason why i have token based governors and governance
at all in those protocols is that if somebody wants to shape the future of uniswap they can
at least theoretically uh buy enough tokens to you know, to incentivize
Uniswap going in a certain
direction
and this, you know, so those ways
in which Uniswap is going, does not have to
go from the DAO
like from the Uniswap itself, it could be
you know, others should see
Uniswap and all the other DAOs, all the other
protocols controlled by tokens as well
as tools that they can build with.
And, you know, if I can build something that can use Uniswap and I can then buy enough
tokens or, you know, influence the governors in a way so that Uniswap will be aligned
with this thing that I've built,
with this thing that I've built, that is something that I think would be interesting.
that is something that I think would be interesting.
Yeah, and I think that, you know,
as Uniswap has had that shift from just being a DEX
to now being a core piece of infrastructure
with Unichain and Univ4,
there is a large shift in priorities.
Do you guys feel, in your opinion,
do you feel like the DAO is focused
on those two priorities, or do you
feel it's still thinking about
Uniswap as a DEX?
I think it's hard to say.
Yeah.
But I would say, right now, from
the DAO's perspective, not Lags or Foundation
and the things they do in the DAO,
I would say more so in terms of a deck still.
Yeah.
I guess do you see any challenges to start to prioritize V4
and Unichain from a DAO perspective?
At least for Unichain, like, I remember back when it was first announced, the discussion in the forum was the fact, was there like dissatisfaction with the fact that the DAO was not involved in the process of Unichain, which I'm kind of like things and pursue their own ventures and unitary as one of them but the other time on the other hand i do understand delegates
who say hey like if we're not involved in the mix and only learn after the fact of this new thing
called unichain then what are we even doing here so it's kind of like hard to say, but at least from back then, the sentiment I feel has been that.
And it hasn't like, you know, we haven't done things to actively change that, I feel.
Apart from the proposals to incentivize Unichain, of course.
Yeah, and so speaking about that, I feel that I would love a world in which we would have many different Unichains built and using Uniswap.
And that the Uniswap DAW would, you know, because right now we don't have a choice really.
Like, we can reject Unichain, you know know we can vote to not support it what for like you
know it's kind of like stupid but i love a world in which there will be a competing
organization for example in which uniswap could as a dow that we could choose for example to to
to go a bit with that one and a bit with the other one.
And support for the best of the DAO, to optimize for the DAO value and the token holders value.
And I think that that world is coming sooner or later, probably later. But yeah, in that world, the DAO would because right now, it's kind of a,
you know, illusion of a choice. But I feel that the world that we will live in five years from
now will be the world in which the DAOs will have a real choice, you know, a choice of what exactly
which route are we actually going to go, and which will give us more value in the future.
So if you had one wish for the Uniswap DAO
in, let's say, the next 12 months,
what would that look like?
I would say...
One wish.
Yeah, very difficult to answer,
but I would say more community-led initiatives
for the growth of,
like my personal thing would be growth of V4,
but also in tandem with Unichain as well.
And like my wish would be for like all the people out there that are not using crypto, not using Uniswap and Unichain and all the great good things that we are seeing, and, you know, acknowledging
all the all the amazing things that can be built on top of Uniswap and using Uniswap.
So that, you know, a year from now, we would be in an abundance of people and entities
interested in becoming active in governance because their business is reliant
on Uniswap and their livelihood is reliant on governance doing one thing or the other.
What is the most underrated layer two, in your opinion?
We're children the same.
Yeah.
So it's kind of challenging to ask us that.
But I will try to answer it.
Like I already mentioned it.
I think that the world is underappreciated.
Not because like the one thing that I really
think that the world is doing different is like I can,
if somebody like I'm right now in Poland, in Warsaw,
and I will be attending an event just after this call.
So if at this event somebody asks me, okay, how do I go
and join this crypto thingy?
How I get on board.
I can point them to the very, very physical location,
like a kilometer away from where I'm sitting right now,
where they can go and scan their eyeballs,
and there will be someone who will help them
create a world account using World App.
There is an on-site facility that that helps people do that
because they have this stupid you know retina scanning and they have to do this but there is
a place where i can you know i i can guide normies to go and uh and talk to a human being that will
guide them through the process i don't have to do it myself.
Like there is someone whose job is exactly that.
And I think that this is something that world is doing.
And it is very interesting.
And, you know, we don't need retina scanners to do that.
Like why is nobody else doing that?
Really.
So that's why I think that world is underappreciated and underrated um
yeah and let's let me end here because i don't want to say too much
i appreciate it i feel like that yeah new distribution channels i think is a good note
for other l2s to start thinking about how they can onboard
different people into crypto um chris and zinkas where can people best follow your work
so we're kind of bad at socials but um we try our best we are always available on telegram to anyone
who wants to reach us reach out to us i'm at sinkes5 and Christoph is at caereste.
And we can also drop them in the comments, I guess,
after the recording.
And on Twitter, we post our stuff on l2beat.gov.
We have a dedicated page for governance, of course,
next to the l2beat account that is more broadly for l2beat.
account that is more like broadly for L2Beat.
Yeah, but basically we are easily to find, like easy to find,
really, if anybody wants to talk with us about anything,
just hit us on Telegram and find us somewhere, and we will respond.
Like, it can take some time, so don't hesitate to ping us like twice or three times
if we don't respond but
at some point we will respond yeah well on the follow below that you that was briefly shown yes
well appreciate you guys coming on thank you so much and that's a wrap of another ungovernable
podcast episode thank you so much for your time, expertise, and commitment to building more transparent and accountable DeFi ecosystem.
For our listeners,
don't forget to subscribe on Spotify and YouTube.
We're dropping new episodes every week and give us a follow on X at grow
Uniswap to stay updated.
This has been another podcast from the ungovernable series.
We're Joe and Austin,
and see you next week.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for having us.
This was the Ungovernable podcast
by Alpha Growth.
Watch all our episodes on YouTube
or Spotify or weekly live on X.
