Debate: Should Stablecoin Chains Have an Ethereum L2 or Their Own L1? - Ep. 907
In this episode, Cyber Capital’s Justin Bons and Codex’s Haonan Li challenge the new orthodoxy: whether payments chains should be alt L1s or Ethereum L2s, how “neutrality” and finality matter for real-world transactions, and why fragmentation could make or break onchain dollars.
We dig into Stripe’s Tempo (and its permissioned start), what it would take for L2s to reach true decentralization, and whether stablechains undercut general-purpose chains.
Plus: the trade-offs of sequencers, paying gas in dollars, and whether protocol-native stables are the future.
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Guests:
Justin Bons, Founder and CIO of Cyber Capital
Haonan Li, Co-founder and CEO of Codex
Timestamps:
🎬 0:00 Intro
💭 1:45 Laying out the first arguments
🛠️ 12:57 What needs to happen for L2s to finally become stage 2 rollups
💵 15:40 Why Haonan chose to launch a stablecoin-focused L2 on Ethereum
🏦 30:17 Does Stripe’s Tempo L1 spell trouble for Ethereum L2s?
⚖️ 38:55 Whether Tempo can position itself as a neutral blockchain
🔗 50:02 Are L2s capable of true decentralization?
⏱️ 53:58 How important finality is for stablecoin businesses
🧩 57:08 Why fragmentation could make or break stablecoins
🔮 1:02:31 What the future of rollups should look like
⚔️ 1:05:58 The case for and against general-purpose chains
📉 1:13:12 Whether protocol-native stablecoins will keep gaining traction
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ETH Is Down Bad, While Layer 2s Are Ripping. Are L2s Parasitic to Ethereum? - Ep. 701
Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions are booming, but are they inadvertently holding back the value of ETH itself?
In this episode, Justin Bons and Ryan Berckmans engage in a heated debate over whether L2s are enhancing Ethereum's ecosystem or siphoning off its potential. They discuss the impact of L2s on decentralization, network effects, and whether Ethereum L1 can scale on its own or if the base layer and the rollups now have different incentives. Has Ethereum scaled appropriately for future usage, or was scaling via L2s the wrong roadmap for Ethereum?
Show highlights:
02:43 How Ethereum's rollup-centric roadmap consists of a decentralized Layer 1 (L1) for security with Layer 2 (L2) providing more transaction throughput
04:53 Why Justin is so critical about how L2s centralize Ethereum
14:53 Why, according to Ryan, Layer 2 solutions aren't parasitic to Ethereum but instead enhance its network effects, decentralization, and long-term value
25:35 Why Justin criticizes Ryan’s reliance on "trust me, bro" arguments, questioning the tribalism and authority in claiming the superiority of Ethereum researchers over those from other blockchains
28:15 How Justin thinks the Ethereum L1 could scale and what the tradeoffs are
39:58 Justin’s argument that Ethereum is stuck in the past and his claim that the blockchain trilemma doesn't exist anymore
46:30 Ryan’s take on Ethereum's L1 scaling focuses on solving bandwidth limitations and addressing whether L2s are going to fully decentralize
51:01 Whether SNARKS is the way that Ethereum scales the L1
59:24 Whether L2s will start accepting other tokens to pay for gas
1:05:23 Why Ryan predicts Ethereum's L2 adoption will surge, driving up L1 fees and boosting Ether's value as the leading digital money
1:05:39 Whether based rollups are a good solution for Ethereum to scale without losing all the fees
1:13:21 Why L2s would even try to decentralize and why Justin says that Solana has a better roadmap than Ethereum
1:17:54 Concluding thoughts from Ryan and Justin
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
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Guests:
Justin Bons, Founder & CIO of Cyber Capital
Previous appearances on Unchained:
Is Bitcoin Doomed to Fail? Eric Wall and Justin Bons Face Off
Ryan Berckmans, Ethereum community member and investor
Links
Previous coverage on Unchained of ETH and L2s:
Are L2s 'Parasitic'? Analysis Shows Ethereum Only Gets a Tiny Percentage of Fees
Are Solana's 'Network Extensions' Just Like Ethereum's Layer 2s But by a Different Name?
Ethereum Has Had a Banner Year in Most Areas. Except Price.
Should Ethereum Layer 2s Urgently Decentralize Their Sequencers?
Others
Justin’s thread on whether L2s are parasitic
Tweet by Zach Rynes, aka ChainLinkGod
Adam Cochran’s tweet on based rollups
Ethereum Foundation September AMA
Vitalkin on L2s
How do layer 2s really differ from execution sharding?
Layers 2s as cultural extensions of Ethereum
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Is Bitcoin Doomed to Fail? Eric Wall and Justin Bons Face Off - Ep. 398
In a heated debate, Eric Wall, crypto blogger and investor, and Justin Bons, founder and chief investment officer of Cyber Capital, discuss Bitcoin’s security model, whether there are fundamental flaws in its design, and which is the best consensus mechanism.
Show highlights:
why Justin stopped believing in Bitcoin and why he calls it “technically one of the worst cryptocurrencies”
how Eric’s views on Bitcoin changed over time
the problems they see with Bitcoin’s security
why Eric attacks BTC maximalism, even when he is a Bitcoiner
how the Bitcoin community will change in the next decades, and why the security problem is a challenge that could be solved
whether BTC should increase its inflation and whether that would break the store of value proposition
why Justin thinks that BTC fails as money and won’t play a relevant role in the future
what happened around the time of the blocksize debate back in 2015-2017
whether there’s something wrong with Bitcoin’s culture and why Eric compares it to a doomsday cult
why Ethereum has external dependencies that can impose systemic risks, according to Eric
whether proof of stake or proof of work is a better consensus mechanism
whether Ethereum is more censorship resistant than Bitcoin
why BTC is a speculative asset and what Justin believes is needed for crypto to finally flourish
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Justin:
Twitter
Eric:
Twitter
Medium
Episode Links
Previous Coverage of Unchained:
Arthur Hayes, Former Ethereum Skeptic, on Why the Merge Makes Him Bullish on ETH
With the Merge, Will Ethereum Take Over Bitcoin’s Title as Digital Gold?
Bitcoin’s Security, Blocksize and Culture
Surprisingly, Tail Emission Is Not Inflationary by Peter Todd
Justin’s thread that kicked off the debate
A (brief and incomplete) history of censorship in /r/Bitcoin
Theory On Bitcoin Governance; Three Stage Model by Justin Bons
Centralization:
Ethereum Post-Merge Centralization
Lido’s validators
BTC Centralization
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