Tending the Infinite Garden: Organizational Culture in the Ethereum Ecosystem

All right, thank you for the introduction, and thank you all for being here today bright and early. I'm truly delighted to be part of DAPCON, and I'd like to extend my sincere gratitude to the Gnosis team and the DAPCON team for putting such an amazing event together. So it's a real privilege to be able to share the research that my colleague and I have been working on. So my colleague is Dr. Paul Dylan Ennis, also known as Polar on Twitter, if you follow him.

So today we'll be presenting insights from our latest paper called Attending the Infinite Garden, Organizational Culture in the Ethereum Ecosystem. So this talk is about an academic paper. And so this presentation will be part of a larger sequence, and it will be followed by Dr. Paul Dylan Ennis, who, as I mentioned, co-authored this paper with me. So I will introduce the paper, outline our central arguments and key findings, and then Paul will basically take over and provide an update on the developments that happened in Ethereum since the paper was written.

So in this sense, my talk will set the stage and context for what comes next. So before we delve into the actual paper, let me take a moment to introduce myself. So for the past seven years, I've been immersed in the crazy world of crypto, trying to make sense of how developers and other actors in this ecosystem imagine and attempt to realize decentralization and decentralized governance. So I have a PhD in communication studies, but my roots are in anthropology, and my research has consistently centered on what we call the social layer of crypto, studying the culture of public goods in Ethereum. And so Dr.

Paul Dylan Ennis, who's my co-author and longtime colleague in this ecosystem, we were one of the earliest social scientists who started researching and producing literature around Ethereum's social layer. So I wrote one of the first papers on Ethereum in my field, and Paul wrote a book. And basically, since then, we decided to join forces and write this article together on Ethereum's core dev culture and governance. So to begin, I will give you a brief synopsis on what the paper is about and present our core arguments. We focus on the role that culture plays in shaping Ethereum's governance by exploring what we call social imaginaries of Ethereum's core developers.

Now I'll explain what social imaginaries are in a moment, but in essence, we argue that in the absence of centralized hierarchy, such as with the case of Ethereum, these social imaginaries that we identified in the paper, they step in to define the boundaries of legitimacy in decision-making within Ethereum's protocol governance. So you might be wondering, okay, what are social imaginaries? So social imaginaries is the theoretical framework that science and technology scholars like to use. So I don't want to get too philosophical here, of course. There is an element of studying people's subjectivity and people's relationships to technology.

But to put it more simply, it's really just trying to understand the collectively held beliefs, norms, and attitudes about a technology. And it derives its theoretical understanding from philosophers like Charles Taylor, who describes this as the way people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows. And so the reason why we should study social imaginaries is because it allows us to uncover the dominant ideologies and assumptions that shape our understanding of technology. So for instance, there's a widespread belief that technology is inherently neutral or that economic efficiency should always be prioritized. And so studying social imaginaries equips us to envision alternative technological futures and pathways, and it empowers us to rethink existing directions and avoid perpetuating hegemonic structures or political agendas inscribed in tech.

Because ultimately, technology is ideology, and we must not overlook the politics of technology. And of course, we're not the first ones to look at social imaginaries in the context of crypto communities. Many other scholars have done this prior, so studying the shared visions or stories people hold about money, power, and infrastructures. One of the leading voices in this space is Lana Schwartz, who helped bring the concept of social imaginaries in blockchain research. So she was looking at the early Bitcoin community, and she identified something called infrastructural mutualism, which is the idea that money doesn't have to come from the state, but instead can be built collaboratively from the ground up.

It's rooted in this ethos of open source communities and the cyberpunk love of privacy and autonomy. But she also observed another imaginary at play in the Bitcoin community called digital metalism, which is a more individualistic hardline vision where Bitcoin is treated like digital gold. This one leans heavily on libertarian ideals, which recognize value in scarcity and independence from institutions. Now Ethereum brought a whole other imaginary into the mix, known as the world computer, which was of course coined by Gavin Wood, but then it was later embraced by the Ethereum community. Now this vision sees Ethereum not just as money, but as a global platform.

It's a kind of like open playground where anyone can build apps and experiment with new economic primitives and models and reimagine how we live and collaborate. Then there's the hacker engineer imaginary. This one channels the energy of hacker culture and DIY tech, so think rebellious, anti-corporate, and anti-surveillance. It's a reminder that blockchain didn't just spring from markets. It also carries the radical DNA of peer-to-peer networks.

And so Paul Dylan Ennis and his collaborators also proposed the imaginary known as productive money. So unlike Bitcoin, where the ideal is to hoard or hodl, as we say, Ethereum's native currency, Ether, is always in motion. It's used to pay gas fees, secure the network, and reward contributors. So Ether isn't just sitting on a mattress, right? And this is where our contribution comes in.

We added a new one called the infinite garden. Now this idea sees Ethereum as a living, breathing ecosystem, which is organic and involving and full of potential. But like any garden, it needs care, and it can grow wild or grow stale. And while it invites endless experimentation, it also faces the risk of becoming fixed and less of a garden, more of a monument. So we'll dive deeper into this later, but for now, just know it's a metaphor that captures both the hope and the tension at the heart of Ethereum's future.

So for this research, here's our research approach. We interviewed key figures from Ethereum's core development group, and what's interesting about Ethereum core devs is that they're part of a porous group, so anyone theoretically can be a core dev through consistent contributions, and there are no formal barriers. So our interviews weren't limited to just developers. We also spoke to researchers and coordinators, and here are some of the people we interviewed, including Vitalik, Danny, Pooja, Tim, Alex, Ben, and Trent. And our interviews were semi-structured, meaning we had a set of open-ended questions that allowed for deeper exploration of topics as they came up.

Now I don't have time to fully dive into how Ethereum governance works, but here's a quick overview of the key stakeholders involved. So we have the core devs, the full nodes, the stakers, the media, the dApp builders, and the end users, and this structure forms what we call a polycentric governance system. Essentially, it means that multiple overlapping decision-making centers operate autonomously but interact with each other through cooperation, competition, and conflict resolution. No single entity holds control, but governance happens through coordination among these decentralized bodies. So now, having said all that, and doing some of the context setting for the research, I'll discuss some of the key themes that emerged.

So the cyberpunk theme is one that was pretty prominent. For anyone who doesn't know, the cyberpunk movement began in the 1980s. It emerged from online hacker culture as a protest against the growing power of the state to monitor its citizens through digital networks. So they were a group of advocates who, they basically used cryptography as a route to non-violent direct action and social and political change. So we found that some of these values still permeated in the worldviews or imaginaries of Ethereum devs.

We had quotes by Ben Eddington stating things like, we are for decentralization, we are against political control, and we are for credible neutrality, and making Ethereum robust against capture in all its aspects. And so while it's still surprising that Ethereum's roots are tied to cyberpunk ideals, what stood out in our findings is how many of the people we interviewed see themselves as part of a broader lineage of the cyberpunk heritage. And this traces directly back to the infrastructural mutualism social imaginary that's grounded in open source collaboration and decentralization. So there is a deep resonance in Ethereum core devs where they view their work as an extension of the cyberpunk principles and broader historical lineage. Now another key theme that emerged during our research was conflict resolution, specifically how core devs managed differing perspectives within their group and within the wider Ethereum community.

So our interview took place around the time of a major Ethereum protocol upgrade known as Shapella, which went live on April 12, 2023. And this upgrade allowed for participants in Ethereum staking mechanisms to withdraw the ETH they had locked up during the transitions from mining to staking, which was a huge milestone for the ecosystem. So many of the developers we spoke with emphasized the clarity of the decision-making process, reflecting Ethereum's collaborative governance approach. Despite some setbacks and maybe back and forth discussions on the technical side, we found that the considerations were relatively straightforward, as Alex Stokes put it, and the process was pretty streamlined. And Danny Ryan also reinforced that decisions were largely based on rough consensus, meaning that complete agreement is not required, but a general alignment is reached among participants.

And also Ben Eddington has highlighted how decisions are generally made through discussions where descending opinions are welcome and heard. You know, this very much aligns with how developers work, which is based on this pragmatic engineering ethos that is committed to excellency and precision. Another key theme that emerged was market pressures. So one of the key research questions we had for developers was to understand the extent to which market pressures influence the decision-making of Core Devs. And what we found was that after Ethereum's transition to staking in September 2022, developers did not initially prioritize enabling withdrawals of staked ETH.

However, other participants within Ethereum's polycentric ecosystem, notably stakers, media, and end users, felt that unlocking staked ETH should be the top priority. And so in response, the Core Devs adjusted their focus, deprioritizing other upgrades, and shifting their efforts to enable withdrawals through the Shapella upgrade because they wanted to deliver on that promise, and they felt the imperative to deliver on that commitment. So we specifically found Ben Eddington's remarks important because he emphasized how developers have a degree of autonomy from market pressures, and they do not allow to sway them from their core mission, stating, mercifully, we've been free of commercial pressures. Core Devs are pretty resistant to being told what to do, and we will make our own minds up. Okay, that's pretty cyberpunk-ish, right?

Okay, so now we come to the term Incident Garden, right? So this is the imaginary that we are sort of contributing to the broader literature of imaginaries. So the Incident Garden, this term was coined by Ayame Aguchi, which was the former executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, and it perfectly captures the essence of Ethereum's ethos in Aya's own words. She describes Ethereum as a protocol for human coordination. Coordination is a game, but not that one is played to win.

Coordination is more like tending a garden, where one works only so that the garden continues to thrive. So this analogy reflects a temporal dimension to the thinking of Ethereum core devs. Social imaginaries provide a way for understanding our place in time and space, among others, and within history. Beginning in 2020, Ethereum's co-founder Vitalik Buterin introduced what is often referred to as the Ethereum Roadmap. However, it's important to note that this roadmap is not an official or formal document.

Everyone must follow. So rather, it collates various long-term research trends of Ethereum's protocol development, and the roadmap converges towards a sort of endgame, the point where Ethereum's protocol will be so mature that it will no longer require major upgrades, and its development will stabilize. So for core devs, their primary task is tending the Incident Garden, and just like any Incident Garden, there is always maintenance to be done, but at the same time, seeds are being planted for the long term. So you might be wondering, okay, so what's Incident Garden, great, what does this all mean? Okay, well, I think this is interesting because while clear structures of processes and practices in the Ethereum exist, such as EIPs, all core dev calls, and research forums, we found this particularly social imaginary important because beyond EIP-1 and a README text, Ethereum lacks a formal constitution or governance document.

And these social imaginaries, we argue, serve as the essential enabling conditions for Ethereum's governance to function seamlessly. So in the absence of formal guidelines for off-chain governance, these imaginaries play a vital role in defending the boundaries of acceptable actions and behaviors. As a result, core devs lean heavily on these implicit imaginaries to ensure cohesion and within the Ethereum community, they guide them by fostering a shared sense of foundational values, long-term alignment, and nuanced understanding of the ecosystem's collective expectations, which is important for a collective without a formal hierarchy for maintaining legitimacy. Which is to say, also, let's not overlook the role of culture in Ethereum's governance. So the Infinite Garden suggests an imaginary, it's an imaginary that suggests a dynamic ever-evolving ecosystem where growth and transformation are ongoing, but a key challenge we discovered was for core devs in maintaining cyberpunk values as the ecosystem grows.

And these concerns reflect an underlying anxiety, as Ethereum grows, the original cyberpunk ethos could become diluted. For the core devs, this growth signals success, but it also invites the possibility of new visions of Ethereum that may diverge from the foundational values they aimed to embed into the protocol at the origins. So these are the findings of the paper. The paper is currently in publication, and of course we are always happy to continue the conversation and hear out your ideas. Feel free to reach out to me or Pollr on Twitter, this is my crypto Twitter.

And yeah, I will now hand it off to my colleague, Dr. Paula Villas-Ennis, who will speak with you on the developments that occurred in Ethereum since this paper was written. Thank you so much.