The diminishing importance of Ethereum upgrades

As protocol developers pursue Rollup-centric roadmaps more and more seriously, the importance of protocol changes on Ethereum will diminish. In many ways, the pros and cons of minimizing Ethereum's role in the ecosystem are similar to the pros and cons of minimizing the role of the Ethereum Foundation in the ecosystem.

The mentality of reducing the role of the protocol to help expand the scope of the protocol is risky, but it is also necessary for decentralization. This is a vision of Ethereum, and Aya Miyaguchi, executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, explained her vision for the Ethereum Foundation:

"The best part of Ethereum is its decentralization, and because of this, the ecosystem has its own unique challenges. I see subtraction as a strategy to achieve two main goals. ... The first goal is to find the right balance. Building an Ethereum Foundation empire and solving all problems ourselves may make us look good in the short term, but it will make others feel that this ecosystem is not built for everyone, and the Ethereum Foundation will also become a single point of failure. If we keep adding, the ecosystem will always depend on the Ethereum Foundation."

At EthCC, there was a lot of peripheral activities, which is not a new phenomenon during the largest Ethereum conference in Europe. However, this year the side events were even more important than in previous years, becoming the main event for showcasing new ideas, experimental technologies, and important discussions most relevant to Ethereum users.

While protocol developers were well represented at EthCC, and the topic of Ethereum as a protocol headlined the EthCC agenda, it was not the focus of many attendees during the conference week, as the building blocks of future finance are being built elsewhere, outside of the protocol.

Therefore, even though Ethereum protocol developers may make radical and ambitious code changes to the core protocol, their relevance in the ecosystem should diminish over time. It is time for the impact of innovative solutions and new technologies built on and beyond Rollups to surpass the importance of Ethereum upgrades.