Behind the Scenes of Ethereum’s Open Coordination

About a month ago, I wrote about the factors that led Ethereum to adopt a rollup-centric roadmap for scaling. In that piece, I emphasized that scaling while preserving everyday users' ability to run a node required solving two distinct challenges: increasing the network’s data availability capacity and improving the amount of execution it can verify per second. While Ethereum has made significant strides in the former, the latter has been more complex. By embracing a rollup-centric approach, rollups can leverage Ethereum's security today and help scale execution while also benefiting from future advancements in data availability scaling. Rollups have also raised billions to push forward zero-knowledge EVM solutions, which, once mature, could be integrated into Ethereum’s Mainnet. And that since these rollups rely on Ethereum’s security, they are Ethereum. You can read the full post here.

Towards the end, I touched on a common critique: Sure, but they don’t feel like Ethereum. While rollups may technically be part of Ethereum, users often feel like they’re navigating entirely different chains. This fragmentation hurts the user experience. I pointed out that the Ethereum community is fully aware of this issue and actively working on solutions, including standards to abstract away these differences.

Soon, the United Chains of Ethereum will become a reality, where the wallet handles all the chain abstraction. For users, it will feel like interacting with one seamless chain, even if bridging or other background processes are happening behind the scenes. Wallets will automatically handle the necessary logic, such as identifying which L2 a transaction is interacting with, so users won’t have to worry about manually switching networks or dealing with complex steps like bridging assets between chains. Whether a transaction is happening on Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, ZKsync, or any other rollup, it will feel like a unified experience.

In this post, I’ll dive into how this vision is turning into reality, and how it’s a massive, coordinated effort across the entire Ethereum ecosystem. I’ll walk through how the Ethereum community, along with researchers, rollup teams, wallet developers, and organizations like the Ethereum Foundation, are working together to address this user experience challenge. From identifying the problem to creating standards, forming working groups, and holding open discussions, you’ll see the unique way Ethereum solves its problems: openly, collaboratively, and with a commitment to long-term decentralization.

The first step is acknowledging the problem: from a user’s perspective, it needs to feel like using one unified chain, not a patchwork of different networks. To achieve this, we need standards that abstract away the chains behind the scenes, so users don’t have to manage them. The next step is getting the right people into a room to discuss potential solutions. Rollup projects have a strong incentive to solve this because it enhances the user experience, which will drive more developers to build in the Ethereum ecosystem. However, there’s often an issue of trust, coordination requires transparency and buy-in from multiple parties.

This isn’t just about rollups. Wallet teams play a crucial role in facilitating this chain abstraction, ensuring that users don’t even need to think about the network they’re interacting with. Here’s where the Ethereum Foundation steps in to provide the coordination necessary to move things forward. The EF includes some of the most connected and brightest minds in the ecosystem (and no, I’m not referring to myself here, think people like Vitalik, Justin Drake, Dankrad Feist, etc.).

Vitalik has been vocal about solutions like ERC-3770, a standard for chain-specific addresses, since mid-June. By the end of July, it was time to take serious action. Justin Drake created a chain-specific address working group, bringing together Vitalik, wallet teams, rollup teams, and more. 

From there, the conversation took off, people kept adding others to the discussion, and the chat rarely went silent as the group worked to find a solution.

There are even multiple proposals from different researchers across the Ethereum ecosystem. For example, Ethereum researcher Sam Wilson has put forward detailed thoughts on the topic in his proposal. Meanwhile, Marco Stronati from Matter Labs and Jeff Lau from ENS have also contributed to the discussion with their proposal, highlighting the diversity of efforts to solve this complex challenge.

The Ethereum Foundation didn’t stop at facilitating discussions. As progress was made, Ethereum researcher Josh Rudolf (if you’re not following Josh yet, I highly recommend it, he also facilitates the Stateless Ethereum calls and posts excellent summaries on X. Stateless Ethereum is an exciting topic that will significantly boost both decentralization and scalability on L1, and it’s something I’m personally very excited about) suggested holding a breakout Zoom session, and on August 10th, the first one took place. You can find the recording here. Josh also took notes, which you can check out here.

It’s easy to take this process for granted, but Ethereum’s problem solving approach is unlike any other industry. Everything happens in the open, with no secrets, and anyone in the world can join the effort. Companies like Apple would never allow this, competitors might steal their ideas. But Ethereum thrives on openness and collaboration. One of my favorite examples is Danny Ryan, one of the key architects of the Merge. Before joining Ethereum, he was, at the time, just a freelance web developer who got nerd sniped by the open discussion about the Merge and ended up becoming a pivotal figure in making it happen.

After the first breakout session, things ramped up. A second call happened (recording here) with more on the way, and all the notes are available here. The specifics of the standards being worked on aren’t the focus of this post, if you’re interested, check the links above. The problem is still being solved, but significant progress is being made, and if you want to contribute, feel free to message me, and I’ll add you to the Telegram group.

Solving problems in the Ethereum ecosystem is a complex, collaborative effort that spans multiple organizations, teams, and individuals. What sets Ethereum apart is its open, transparent process, working in public to tackle big challenges like improving user experience on rollups. Very soon, Ethereum will feel like a united ecosystem, with wallets abstracting the complexity of multiple chains. When there’s a will, the community finds a way. Ethereum’s brightest minds are coordinating across various fronts to ensure this vision becomes a reality.

Creating the United Chains of Ethereum isn't the only problem currently being worked on in the open. There are numerous ongoing breakout sessions where Ethereum's most innovative minds are tackling important topics. For example, you can follow or contribute to the breakout rooms for Distributed Block Building, EOA/AA, ePBS, PeerDAS, Verkle/Stateless, Sequencing and Preconfirmations, and EOF. Check out the full playlists here.

Let’s build a system of global digital property rights together and in the open, defying societal norms of closed, proprietary work. Ethereum is keeping the cypherpunk vision alive, ensuring transparency and decentralization remain core to its ethos.