You probably have heard or read about the Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians; perhaps you have seen us gathering in a circle adjacent to a conference, or read discussions of the ins-and-outs of Ethereum on the Forum.

“We” are an open collective of self-organized groups, each of which aims to help a part of the community make decisions. Usually Magicians call these small groups “Rings”, and all are welcome to organize one!

Observing us, even closely, you might ask: how does such a loose collective organize itself? At the center of the disorganization is the Operations Ring! …

And Let’s Build Them At Devcon 5!

As we navigate a world of technical choices, a platform’s roadmaps are crucial to making the best decisions about our dapps and our teams. Sometimes it is a certain set of needs we have, met by an upcoming upgrade. Other times, it is having confidence in the technology.

Thankfully, we are part of a community which enables us to be a part of the process of articulating the technical roadmap. 🎨🎨🎨

Exactly how to participate may not be immediately clear, but over time developers find ways “in”. We comment on EIPs, or on…

Success is important to individuals, particularly in those societies at the top of the food chain. Even without the social pressure of being the best, striving for success is an insurance policy against setbacks when there is not enough of a social safety net. Therefore, in the United States, China, and many other countries, there is enormous pressure on young people to become successful, to run with the accepted scheme of managing society’s economic, political, and technical power.

Here is a guide to failing in a really big way:

1. Succeed, using the well-worn approach employed in modern capitalism. Get a…

This document is to welcome economics-oriented folk outside the Ethereum community. Or perhaps you are in Ethereum, but eating a donut for a few minutes and did not see Justin Drake’s call for community feedback on interest/inflation in Ethereum 2.0.

Some background (taking a deep breath here)

The next generation Ethereum 2.0 (or “Serenity”) employs a tiered architecture and database sharding techniques in order to scale, and will operate side-by-side with Ethereum 1.0. The new 2.0 system will employ a proof of stake (“Casper”) approach to validate blocks and generally to secure the network. …

In early June 2018, I saw a discussion of scaling on Twitter stemming from a statement of Aparna Krishnan that “Plasma and Sharding are the same problem from opposite perspectives”.

It was in that reply tangle where I first proposed categorizing the main strategies to scale the Ethereum network, but using terms which would be more comprehensible to scaling experts and academic researchers outside of the blockchain world.

With some improvements, here are the strategies to scale Ethereum:

0. Network Bifurcation — separate blockchains (strategies 1–5 directly involve the Ethereum blockchain)

1. Vertical partitioning — endpoints for txn queues, relays,“JSON-RPC APIs”
2. …

Earlier this year, Greg Colvin and I wrote an open invitation in order to gather the community together to improve the Ethereum improvement process. This was the beginning of the Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians.

In this open invitation, Greg and I proposed a vision for self-organizing and maximizing technical opportunities in our community:

The Goal. To keep Ethereum The Best It Can Technically Be.

The Mission. To Nurture Community Consensus on the technical direction and specification of Ethereum.

The Work. Primarily, high-quality Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), accepted by a consensus of the Community.

We also proposed a set of principles…

Greg Colvin and I would like to invite the community to come together and participate in improving the Ethereum improvement process (and so much more).

Some notes to the reader:

• This proposal is to jump-start the process. Help us shape this effort by getting involved on the ethereum/governance Gitter channel and attending our workshop at EthCC.
• This proposal is written up in a Google Doc located at goo.gl/DrJRJV.

And now for the proposal:

✨ Towards a Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians ✨

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
— Arthur C. Clarke

We propose to create a Fellowship within which the Ethereum community can self-organize to maximize…

The issue of housing scarcity has resulted in a situation in which people born or raised in SF — as well as many immigrants to SF — are excluded from living here. This exclusion has brought to my attention a potential and overlooked basic human right: that of domicile.

If the right of domicile is intrinsic, then in cases where prices or conditions exclude others from living in a city, current residents of that city cannot simply answer: “move somewhere else”. …