“The more things change, the more they stay the same” (in French, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”) - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. This quote is relevant to why my initial view supports this expansion, though it takes a few steps to explain how and why I arrived at that support.
After years of working at Tier 1 ISPs, I tend to see many things through the lens of telecommunications, and this includes how blockchain will evolve. One trend in telecom was the commoditization of offerings, with only a short lag between providers when implementing new features and services like L3VPNs and SD-WAN. Much of this was driven by industry organizations like the IETF, which helped set standards across the industry with participation from all the big names. I think that this type of cross-industry collaboration is currently missing in blockchain—but it will come. We are already seeing the beginnings of blockchain commoditization, such as EVM compatibility, L2 scalability solutions, and similarities between cross-chain communication protocols. While it’s very early in this process, and a lot of the different options are still yet to shake out, the different rhymes sure do seem to be sounding more alike.
There’s also been a similar trend in cloud computing. When I first started working on major public and hybrid cloud projects, the focus was on which hyperscaler had the right features in the right locations for the specific workload or app. Over time, as features and footprints converged between providers, the conversation shifted to which option was the cheapest to implement and maintain, (with exceptions, of course, but the trend held). If blockchain follows a similar path, then given that Moonbeam has marketed itself as a chain for cross-chain interoperability and making it easier for builders to onboard web3 applications, expanding to Ethereum makes perfect sense, if done in a sensible way.
I could see part of this direction evolving into doing something akin to what cloud-agnostic IaC tools like Terraform did for cloud deployments, and if Moonbeam can continue to abstract some of the more nuanced differences in the web3 infrastructure layer for builders, then I’m all for it. ‘Multi-chain deployments’ should simply become ‘deployments’ for builders, and retail and end-user consumers of apps will continue to be indifferent to ‘what’s a Polkadot’ or ‘what’s an Ethereum’(which is also why I don’t think putting L0/L1 logos on a sports jersey is a good use of money, other than for the real effect it has on the spirit within a community—but that’s off-topic).
In the past, I did not support a similar move (Deploy Moonbeam On Ethereum As A Layer 2 - #2 by Jim_CertHum). It’s wild for me to look back and think about how much things have changed in just a year. And while I still think costs need to be carefully looked at and assessed compared to the benefits of the expansion, when the facts change, I am open to changing my mind.
Finally, I want to address what I see as flawed logic that seems pervasive in some corners—that if some change or advancement on the surface seems to benefit one chain or chains, it will harm another. If this strategic direction is handled correctly (which I have full faith it will if it goes forward), it will benefit both the Polkadot and Ethereum ecosystems. There are countless users yet to be onboarded and many apps yet to be integrated into web3. If the industry grows as all of us web3 advocates expect, this move won’t take anything away from anyone. Quite the opposite.