A popular bear case for eth, currently championed by the Canton CEO in this screenshot and trad folks like Austin Campbell, is that institutions will never fully embrace ethereum because they can't or won't suffer the loss of control from permissionlessness. Dead wrong. This bear thesis makes a fatal mistake in that it ignores how the world actually works. Regulators, politicians, bank execs, etc. can't look at the world in black and white over a long time horizon, even if the current regulations are black and white. Every market participant naturally evaluates their alternatives holistically, looking at full spectrum costs and benefits. Nothing is truly off the table over the long term, even if today's rules or cultures say it's off the table. Ethereum's permissionlessness has always been theoretically an attractive alternative for banks/institutions because of the two great benefits of a decentralized global hub: The first benefit of Ethereum is that while you can't subvert permissionless contracts, they can't either. In practice, "they" is a whole lot of parties with conflicting motivations, and now they can trust each other in ethereum agreements by virtue of having removed the trust element. Humanity has never before had a perfect trust vehicle for digital contracting and exchange. The implications of this are staggering. The second benefit of Ethereum is access to the world's highest density, freest, and most globalized marketplace. Institutional participants come for the technology and security/decentralization, but they often stay for the markets. This is because, as Adam Smith wrote, when you reduce the risk and extend access to a marketplace, the offered goods & services become cheaper, higher quality, and of greater variety. Ethereum is already the best place for many in the world to shop for yield, dollars, euros, gold, certain instruments, etc. This goes 10,000x from here. We've known for a ~decade that these two benefits of eth (counterparty risk minimization and denser markets) were the theoretical carrot for institutions to voluntarily suffer the stick of reduced control. How is that theory measuring up as growth progresses? Well, in the past few years, the theory has begun being proven by empirical reality. In many jurisdictions around the world, corps, institutions, and governments are actively tumbling down the slippery slope towards permissionlessness on ethereum. The only way to win to play. Any country that sits out of Ethereum will cede monetary sovereignty and growth to the countries and institutions that take full advantage of the world's new economic hub and its permissionless distribution. Ethereum is growing to global ubiquity. A big part of that will be banks adjusting to the new reality of wanting to opt into permissionlessness - because eth's an amazing opportunity for the early movers and an inevitability for the latecomers. The fact this is controversial is a big part of why we're still early. ETH

Vitalik has taken an overly rigid and tight view on Eth's L1+L2 model with his near-exclusive focus on tech and decentralization. In this, he's setting us back in the real world. Vitalik is missing (or knows but didn't say) two crucial things about Ethereum that will drive our hypergrowth going forward: 1. Vitalik tends to ignore the role of non-tech factors in L2 flourishing. A copypasta evm L2 with a distinct business model (or distinct strategies, partners, customers, apps, culture, etc) qualifies as "bringing something actually new to the table". Non-tech factors are extremely high leverage. When we judge an L2 (or app or token), we should take the broadest view of the full spectrum package of tradeoffs/characteristics, and not look just at tech/decentralization. For example, most ppl tend to think of Base and Arb as "generalized L2s", but if you look closer and broader, they are extraordinarily different from each other. 2. Vitalik's writing postures as if centralized L2s/apps on Ethereum are bad, undesirable, or illegitimate. An is anti-centralization stance in the app layer is straight up wrong. We always say "Ethereum is for everybody". Well, that includes (relatively or fully) centralized apps, tokens, and L2s. Centralized users love that the L1 is credibly neutral. They don't want to be rugged. It's a match made in heaven. Ethereum's commitment to maximum decentralization and credible neutrality is wonderful and world-changing. It's why I'm an eth person. Asking devs to build decentralized apps, protocols, and tokens is great. We need these. I use many. Celebrating what makes Ethereum special (credible neutrality) is fantastic. We do it often, and we should. But, tech and decentralization don't have to step on the neck of business and centralization to succeed. It's decentralization🤝centralization, not decentralization vs. centralization. Ethereum uniquely lets users choose their tech, business model, and level of decentralization. This flexibility will be a driving force behind our growth to global ubiquity. Let's embrace it.