Conversation

2) First, Ethereum. What ETH showed is that blockchains didn't just need to be for a single store of value -- you could in fact do basically arbitrary things with them. With smart contracts you can write code on the blockchain.

3) The possible scope of crypto when from a gold replacement, to something that could hold just about anything in the world, in one way or another. This was one of the huge revolutions in blockchain, and much of what's come after has just been iterating on that.

4) And after that, the Ethereum community made a choice: to _be_ a community, and not just a constellation of companies. This meant that so much happened out in the open. Which in turn meant everyone could learn from it.

5) And more importantly, everyone could build on it. Projects could use composability to become more than their sum. Borrow/lending + trading --> margin trading; flash loans + borrow/lending --> one-step-cross-platform-loans; yield + yield = .... lots of yield.

6) In some sense this played off of what made the internet so powerful: that it wasn't just a way for Hilton to sell hotel reservations, but instead a huge interconnected web of information, each piece linking to the others, each able to build off the infrastructure of the rest.

7) Very few communities in crypto--or anywhere else--have taken that approach. And I think that when I wear that hat, some of the protectiveness makes more sense. Not just protecting Ethereum the blockchain, but Ethereum the community, and ethos.