The Failure of Ethereum Governance with Lane Rettig

“Anytime you have a centralisation of power and wealth and influence in the hands of a small number of people…it’s so easy to delude yourself either as an individual or as an organization into thinking, just a few more years.” — Lane Rettig Location: New York Date: Sunday 19th September Project: Ethereum Role: Core Developer Ethereum was created to build upon Bitcoin's innovations and offer more functionality, and in 2015, Ethereum developers launched an ICO selling millions of ETH tokens, at the time worth over $18 million. Some of those funds, now worth nearly $1 billion, went to the Ethereum Foundation, which oversees the ongoing development and promotion of the Ethereum project. The foundation is a central entity that issues grants for relevant projects and employs core developers to work on the protocol. While the Ethereum ecosystem is thriving, questions remain about the technical roadmap, scalability, decentralisation of the network, and governance of the project itself. From changes in supply schedule and frequent hard forks, Ethereum governance is in stark contrast to the conservative, slow-moving and consistent nature of Bitcoin. So will the Ethereum project overcome the hurdles that lie ahead? Or is it doomed to fail? In this interview, I talk to Ethereum Core Developer Lane Rettig. We discuss the Ethereum foundation, why Lane quit, ethics, hypocrisy, decentralisation vs scalability, and building better institutions. This episode’s sponsors: Gemini - Buy Bitcoin instantly BlockFi - The future of Bitcoin financial services Sportsbet.io - Online sportsbook & casino that accepts Bitcoin Casa - The leading provider of Bitcoin multisig key security. Exodus - The world's leading Desktop, Mobile and Hardware crypto wallets. Ledger - State of the art Bitcoin hardware wallet Compass Mining - Bitcoin mining & hosting ----- WBD404 - Show Notes ----- If you enjoy The What Bitcoin Did Podcast you can help support the show by doing the following: Become a Patron and get access to shows early or help contribute Make a tip: Bitcoin: 3FiC6w7eb3dkcaNHMAnj39ANTAkv8Ufi2S QR Codes: Bitcoin If you do send a tip then please email me so that I can say thank you Subscribe on iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | Deezer | TuneIn | RSS Feed Leave a review on iTunes Share the show and episodes with your friends and family Subscribe to the newsletter on my website Follow me on Twitter Personal | Twitter Podcast | Instagram | Medium | YouTube If you are interested in sponsoring the show, you can read more about that here or please feel free to drop me an email to discuss options.