Start contributing to economic protocol development by Julian Ma | Devcon SEA

[Music] introduction uh I'm Julian I'm a research scientist at thean Foundation but two years ago uh I was a volunteer at Dev connect in Amsterdam so I'd like to share something that's uh an Insider's perspective on how to start contributing to economic protocol research so first of all what does protocol research mean what it means contributing to ethereum's Future what it is is via decentralization efficiency or sensorship resistance using tools from cryptoeconomics um to help make decisions so I think industry research very much is about research as a tool for decision making and here it means we need to find what are the properties that we want for ethereum so these are normative questions and then answer these with uh given these properties what economic mechanisms are optimal and here you can see a picture of the scourge which is part of italic road map which is the main part of cryptoeconomic research that we're focusing on now so where to start it might seem a bit daunting uh to read the road map because the road map is about all parts of the uh ecosystem uh and then if you continue and you read some other posts uh some of them may to a bit may be a bit too in debt I think uh the best way to start is simply by finding some researchers who work you really really like uh and often in their post they'll say something like these are limitations of my research or there is some opportunity for future uh research here uh and then try TR to identify some way how you can extend upon their research and then very importantly which is very um important in crypto is just contact them with them with your idea because everyone is open to find new people so when you're trying to find a problem make sure to take into account tractability and innovativeness so uh tractability means how well can I answer this question and innovativeness means how Innovative Innovative is my uh answer uh and tractability depends on your skill set if you've been uh programmer before perhaps something is easier that's involves a lot of development whereas if you're coming from Academia maybe you're better at answering questions of these are the properties that we want and what is the optimal mechanism uh to use but also um find some some trade off there so let's say that this is the uh optimal Frontier find some problem that should in principle be ideal but then be aware that um this is actually very difficult to do don't spend too much time looking for the optimal problem um just get your hands dirty get familiar with how Works um and do this by finding some problem that's maybe not on the frontier uh but that's at least tracable to your skill set and has uh a smart a small contribution as possible it's important to get to know the protocol before you start doing something because the protocol is very large and very complex um and getting to know all of it first is simply too too time time consuming that being said I think uh ethereum very much has a culture of just come in everyone is very open and is actively looking for active contributors who are here for the long term and I think this is this is our unique property as an ecosystem we want to be decentralized we want to be geographically decentralized and decentralized in terms of who brings which ideas so please just come in so that was my pitch thank you very much if you've heard Justin's talk yesterday about beam chain this will need a lots of new people looking at various different subjects of the Ean protocol so if uh you feel you're interested uh and you have some idea of where you can contribute uh and your idea is maybe not on the frontier but it's tracable and it's Innovative then email beam. chain ethereum.org thank you so now we have time for some questions do you want to okay I can are there any questions over there watch out for the computer well one very much appreciate your time I just wanted to ask for the spelling of that email real quick um let me see if I can go back or not no okay so it's just Beam Beam dochain ethereum.org beamj beam. chain any other question no we have a bit of time so over there uh hello I'm a researcher from University and uh in University there are some ground to uh ensure researcher can uh do their jobs so if we want to work with someone in E ecosystem how this kind so how how can we uh uh you know uh uh uh make the ground works in the University because I think the traditional academic institution and not accept the etherum foundation or something yeah um okay yeah that's a great question so um for how I can speak a bit to how grants work from etherum foundation and more how they work in the the broad ecosystem so first of all in the broad ecosystem there are lots of places willing to give grants uh and I think most of them are focused in like this mindset of research for decision- making um so there would be some specific question that needs to be answered and sometimes academic work is a very very good way to answer this question uh within the ethereum foundation we give out academic grants uh and they can be structured as grants or as gifts um if it's incompatible with your University I'm sure that we can work um something out um the the application process is usually a bit different so uh proposals don't have to be as formal as they are are usually in Academia uh but again they I think the most valuable ones for us are clear like that you have some understanding of how the prot scol works for your question so it's clear that the question is tracable and it's clear what the contribution is so what is the decision that you're trying to motivate or what mechanism are you proposing thank you uh there's another question in the front thank you for the talk um you use the term economic protocol is is the same as talking economic design or is um I would say um the the terms that I use in this slide are are not set in stone uh so um we would be open for uh research in various directions um so yeah I wouldn't adhere too much to what what's like the exact words in the slide uh we'll be open to uh any economic uh ideas that you have for ethereum thank you we have time for one more question is there any any more questions