The Root of Trust: A Case for Optimism in Ethereum's Future | Matthew Keil | ETHTaipei 2026

So, today I have a little bit of a spicy topic. And I have, more importantly, a call to action for the builders in the space. So, my name is Matthew Gould, and I'm the engineering manager of the Loadstar team. Loadstar is one of the consensus clients that that provides surety for the chain. We do the proof of stake.

Yeah. I'll just Okay. Next slide. Trust was broken. The people who invented blockchain technology lost faith in the people that print our money.

The Chancellor on the brink of second bailout for the banks. The funny thing, though, is it wasn't just the people that we lost faith in. We lost faith in the money itself.

[laughter]

Got to go with the right. All right. And the funny thing about money is money is an illusion. It's something that only becomes real when we all agree. If you and I both see that piece of paper as money, it becomes gold.

And it's that shared belief that transforms it from paper or simple plastic into something more critical to society. Blockchain is digitized trust. It's the digitization of that same belief, that same trust, that makes this technology special. The most fundamental thing that we digitize was not the money, it was the trust that makes it work. And while money was the first use case of this digitization of trust, the underpinning and the primitive is much much much more important.

[snorts] [laughter]

Okay. So now, before we go any further, I want to ask you guys a question. I'd like a couple of people to raise their hands. Who wants to raise their hand? What is trust?

Who wants to give an answer? What is trust? Yes. What is trust? Go for it.

First.

Yes.

Uh what is trust? I think trust is something that you believe the other side won't violate you.

Okay.

That's the general sense. Well, it's trust, right? So, you know, they they have the capability to violate you.

Okay. Also part of it. All right. Who else?

But you trust them that they you won't be violated. That is trust.

And this is a very interesting thing. Notice that you use the word trust in the definition of your or or when defining the thing itself. And this is the part I want you to take from this. When I asked that question, what is trust? I guarantee you felt it in your bones.

You knew immediately what trust was. However, when you go to put it into words, it's a little bit more muddy. It's a little bit more complicated. And I think one of the fundamental things that is plaguing our ecosystem today is we are so hyper focused [snorts] on what we're trying to build, we're we're losing sight of the importance of the technology that we're building on top of. Okay.

Now, this is my answer to what trust is. It's our ability to gauge a synergy. Do we want to engage or participate with another individual, another institution? Do we want to uh how do we announce that I'm a good partner? And this is where I'd like to open up the design space.

It's this sentiment that I want you to carry with you when you're looking to explore what is next to build. Blockchain is a tool in the architectural toolbox. And a good architect starts with the problem, not the technology that they want to solution for. As an example, I wouldn't say I want to build with Kafka and then start designing around the use of Kafka. I would first ask the question, is push a better technology to use than pull?

And do I want to do pub sub or do I want to just do polling in order to get the information that I need? And this is the same way I want you to view blockchain technology. I challenge you to arc around architect around the problem and leverage what Ethereum does effectively.

[snorts]

And this is where leveraging Ethereum is important. Not everything needs to be on chain. I know that's a spicy topic in the Ethereum community. But not all application logic needs to be on chain. Not all data needs to be on chain.

And counterintuitively I don't think all data should be fully transparent. The important architectural question is where is Ethereum needed as the root of trust? Now imagine an otherwise um otherwise conventional application. One where application logic lives on a server and data lives in a database. However, the database is special.

This database has blockchain reporting for access to the database so that you know who and when people are reading from that database. You can event it. And the data structure itself that underpins the database is a merkalized structure. You can create provable state. You can see all transactions and this gives you the ability to do the root of trust that I'm talking about.

And if this sounds familiar, it's because we're borrowing it from the idea of rollups. Where not all application logic lives on chain. It lives somewhere else and the security guarantees are rolled back up to Ethereum where the the the root of trust can be imbued on the rest of the process. And a perfect example of this is uh building a voting system. ZK voting has inherent flaws.

It's why we don't use it today. The problem with it is that you can't solution around how do I not sell my vote? One of the critical pieces of voting is that you should not be able to prove what you did and I will have the witness in ZK voting. So, it opens the door to collusion, coercion, and vote buying. This is why we don't ZK vote today.

However, using this mixed architectural pattern, it gives you the ability to solve around the problem that uh and and use the blockchain for what it's best for. So, instead of waiting for moon math to catch up to the future we dream of, we can build for the reality of today. Now, that is not Oh. Oh, one more. Okay, that is not the only use case of one of these mixed architectures.

And supply chain is another great example. So, I built a proof of concept for [snorts] uh the cotton industry. They needed to prove that cotton came from one part of the country or one part of the world and not another. And the rub that caused it to not be used is that nobody wants to spill their competitive advantage. When you look at supply chain, it's very easy within an organization in order to understand where the flows of things go to and from.

However, where blockchain really becomes uh useful is at the boundary between organizations, when things move from one company to the next. And that's where the competitive advantage is. I don't necessarily want to say who I'm buying from or what price I'm buying at or at what frequency I'm purchasing. This is why nobody wanted to adopt the system. I built something that wasn't based in reality.

And this is the part that I think is most important. Building for the reality of today. We can wait for the maths to catch up. We can wait for systems to be more efficient, for ZKVMs to be more uh more timely. But, a theoretical system that no one will use is useless.

Privacy is not incompatible with Ethereum. Trusted components are not the enemy of blockchains. Using blockchain for more than DeFi is will also solve one of our biggest problems. And I know that is not the focus of the builders here today, but this is exactly why I'm giving this non-technical talk today is that I want to call to action for the builders to build the pieces of technology that will solve one of the biggest problems that blockchain has. We have a trust problem.

Most of the people in the outside world do not trust blockchain. I think that is hampering the adoption of the technology that we love so much. There are plethora examples of people doing value extraction and meme coins and and just generally uh the worst parts of the world just on chain. And this is the part that makes my mom not want to use it. So, this is where my call to action comes into play.

Trust can be restored. We can use this technology for amazing things, whether it be voting, supply chain, credential management, insurance products, real estate investment. Government accountability though is one of the things where I think it has the most potential. And this is the part that is really a really critical for us to take away here from today. The people who are being watched do not want to be watched.

Governments will be hesitant in order to create their own oversight. However, we can do that. Using these mixed architectural patterns or building on blockchain technology in order to create this trust that we created in order to solve the money problem can solve so many other issues. And this is where I challenge you today. Think outside the box.

Use blockchain as an architectural solution that can create egalitarian uh an egalitarian world. Trust was broken. We built tools that will fix it. And I challenge you to find a problem worth fixing. Questions?

Uh I have a question.

Yes.

All right. Well, first of all, thank you for the talk.

THANK YOU.

[applause]

UH IS THERE ANY QUESTIONS YOU'D LIKE TO ASK? Raise your hand. Feel free.

Hopefully you're inspired. Not very technical today. Are you inspired?

I have a question.

Are Are you Yes.

yeah. Um so, what do you find the problem worth fixing in your opinion right now?

There are several. And I think one of the most important uh is actually starting to bubble up on Twitter. Is uh there is funding issues that are on the horizon when it comes to client development and uh development of uh the chain itself. And this is where there's also a trust issue. Is that we trust the community is going to fund the common goods, and the community trust that we are going to do it because we just should.

And while many of us, and I I work on an amazing team of people that is proud to be working on Ethereum. As a matter of fact, I see another gentleman who is also very proud to be working on Ethereum. And we would do it for free. But that's not true of everybody. And this is where I think one of the most important trust issues comes in is building an on-chain governance management system that allows for funding to be able to flow in a egalitarian way and meritocratic way towards the development of Ethereum.

It's something that that I am starting to work on. Yes.

I was quite inspired by your talk. Very intriguing and very inspiring.

Thank you. But

But in the beginning I don't really understand what is the you said trust was broken and we you challenge to find problems to work working with. But what exactly is land? A good example of a broken trust problem in our days.

I'll give you the perfect example and the reason why I put voting up here. So I'm an American if it if it wasn't apparently obvious. I'm an American and I live overseas and I faxed my vote in for the last for the last election. And I faxed it three times. I got verification that the fax went through.

So I know it got to that machine and my vote was never counted.

How how do you know it is not counted?

You can look online.

Okay. Okay.

Like there's a voter record and it basically said that my vote was never counted. I know I sent it. I have verification that I sent my vote and it was a very slim win in that district that I live in for the person I did not vote for. And this to me is a caustic force on democracy. Why should I vote if my vote doesn't get counted?

Yeah. Thank you. So, it reminds me of Yeah, I do have some similar experience. Yeah, thank you.

All right, any other questions? One last one?

Who wants to go build something that changes the world?

Everyone.

I know I do. Let's go change the world.

Pretty sure everyone here is going to.

Let's do it. Let's do it together.

Let's do it.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

[applause]