Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome back to today's talk. Today's guest probably doesn't need much of an introduction if you've been around Tezos for a while. Jev Bjorcel from ECAD Labs is back with us for what I believe is his fourth time, and every time we've had him on the conversation goes deeper. Jev's one of those rare guests who can talk about protocol level changes, developer ergonomics and long-term roadmaps without losing you in the jargon. So if you're a builder, a curious community member or someone trying to figure out where Tezos is headed next, this one's for you. We'll talk about what's new at ECAD Labs, what's changed in Jeff's thinking over the years and the kind of work that keeps showing up even when the headlines don't. Let's get into it. Jeff, you're basically a TezTalks regular at this point. When you think back to your first appearance, what's the biggest shift between then and now?

Speaker 2: 1:12

Yeah, thanks for having me. Biggest shift between then and now. Well, yeah, blockstream or sorry, blockchains they're starting to be adopted and, in a way, they're less on the top of everybody's minds, and I think that's a good thing. So, the further we see blockchains becoming normalized and sort of disappearing, yet being here every day. Coming normalized and sort of disappearing, yet being here every day, that means the vision of blockchains is manifesting itself and we're getting there and hopefully we're going to get to, you know, a freer, more equitable medium of exchange.

Speaker 1: 2:01

So what's the latest at ECAD Labs? What's been quietly keeping you up at night in a good way?

Speaker 2: 2:10

um, yeah, things are, things are going well.

Speaker 2: 2:13

Um so, uh, the things that are the things I'm excited about um is uh, well, there's some changes we have coming in Tezos in the latest Sol protocol we're seeing some good new features around, new encryption algorithms that are kind of unlocking potential gains in Tezos and with those new features we're getting, I mean, they're prerequisites of things we need to do to make the chain faster, faster, block times being more responsive.

Speaker 2: 2:53

But with those gains and you know you kind of typically in technology and I think, society and generally, you know we gain an advantage in one place and then that buys us some more complications than others. So it's fun with these new encryption algorithms coming into Tezos. It's called BLS and it's more modern encryption, but it changes some of the security assumptions we have around how bakers store these keys. So the traditional ways of storing these keys securely changes or shifts with these new changes. So then, in order to be responsible and have these changes come in successfully, we need to adapt and we need to make new features. We need to come up with new ways of protecting keys and ultimately securing the network.

Speaker 1: 3:56

Now you've pushed a lot of updates people rely on but never see what's something recent that felt maybe small to you but mattered big time behind the scenes um, yeah, the um.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Well, we, this year, we, um, we shipped some new features in our signatory remote signer. Uh. So it now supports Amazon and cloud HSMs, which is pretty cool, and we had some notable bakers migrate from an older signer to Signatory. On the back of that, and as part of that change as well, we had to do some re-architecture of Signatory to allow protection against double baking, this sort of thing, and in making those changes, we expanded signatory in how we can add more vault backends and double baking protections for other infrastructures. So we're not singular in a particular cloud provider. So that's when we shipped. It's not a very visible or public hoo-ha feature, but it has important lower level implications.

Speaker 1: 5:27

And I think that ties into the overall security posture of the network.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Was there a moment where maybe you realized, wait, this could break everything?

Speaker 2: 5:45

No, so yeah, I'm an overthinker by nature and I do get kept up at night thinking about things that can go wrong. So we I mean at ECAD we have a pretty strong culture of software testing and especially dogfooding, and I got chided recently because somebody didn't know what dogfooding means. I guess I better explain it. So I mean, we build software and it's important when you build something you're also a user of that thing, and so the analogy is like eating one's own dogfood, which I don't know where that comes from. But we certainly run all our own software on testnets and in mainnet and that's true for Takedo and also Signatory, and so we operate Signatory in a lot of different configurations on several testnets and we do it in simple kind of single instance deployments. We also do it in highly redundant deployments so that we can have like a real hands-on, visceral sort of to build empathy with one's users. You need to put yourself in those shoes, and often that's sort of thought of as metaphorically, but we actually wear the shoes.

Speaker 1: 7:04

You're not pretending to wear the shoes. We appreciate that. So, in your own words, how do you define success for ECAD Labs? What tells you that you're doing it right?

Speaker 2: 7:18

Often, in a way, it's being invisible. And well, I mean, I suppose it's easy to be invisible if no one's using your software or the things that you produce, no one's enjoying the art, if you will. But you know we have a strong user base, for I mean both of our well-known open source projects, takedo and Signatory, and you know we're sort of like a no drama team. I believe that we show up on time and what we produce is of high quality. So, yeah, no drama and just being there on time so others can get busy building. And I'm happy to be taken for granted by our downstream users because that means they don't have to fret about this type of tooling and they can get on in building value for the broader ecosystem and further.

Speaker 1: 8:25

Now you've lived through the growing pains of protocol development. What's a technical hill you've backed off of over time?

Speaker 2: 8:39

Well, yeah, I mean, I've been involved in protocol, um governance, uh, since the very beginning. I have, we, we we've stayed out of actual protocol development, but we're very supportive of, and work closely with that end of things. Um, I think, especially in this decentralized world, um, it's, it's important not to be too paternalistic, um and um, you know, in the past I would uh, I mean, maybe, maybe I put more effort into like, uh, trying to get everybody like along, um aligned with a certain ideal or idea or security concern, that sort of thing. And and you know, it's, there's, there's some value in backing off in certain cases and and saying whatevs and like let them let, let, let the children, I mean, and I don't mean that's a paternalistic sort of aspect of it, but let people figure it out for themselves. And, and you know, I think about my own kids. Actually it's like you know, you can often get in there and try and get them going in the right direction or resolve a conflict. But also there's a lot of value in letting them figure it out themselves. I'm not referring to our ecosystem as children by any means. They're peers and they're esteemed peers at that, but there's value in going through the process of discourse and figuring things out. You don't always have to be a savior, and I'm certainly not. So, yeah, decentralization is a thing and it's a process and a magic. Really important ingredient to all of it is time Time for people to understand the meaning of changes and protocols or how things work, and then coming to their own conclusions, and then that generally draws to a better consensus.

Speaker 2: 10:37

So, yeah, backing off, trying to be paternalistic, I suppose, and I think there's value in that. So what do you think changed your mind? Um, well, you can tell people things, you can show people things, but it's a lot better for people to figure it out for themselves. And that goes for me too. And but you know, to keep engaging, like my opinions or my position, is also a shift, and rightly so. So we don't have it all figured out, and so thinking that we all have it figured out is, you know, imagining that I have it all like mapped out in my brain and that's the way it's going to be. That's foolhardy. So you know, uh, I'm human too, and uh, and yeah, we all, we all, that's. So I guess that's. Uh, yeah, that's when I sort of how I figured it out, I think but that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 11:48

Now, if you could wave a magic wand and change how other developers see tezos what's the misconception? You'd clear up instantly.

Speaker 2: 12:10

Yeah, so we're not North Korea of the blockchains.

Speaker 2: 12:13

You know, we're not an island and we're not insular.

Speaker 2: 12:18

We're quite welcoming and there's a lot of value in building in this ecosystem and there's a trajectory and a North Star. There's a lot of evolution happening in Tezos and that's been in its culture and its DNA since the beginning, with the notion of on-chain governance and how we upgrade and evolve. So the evolutionary aspect of it is very, very important and it goes back to the white paper with its reference to the game Nomic. So that ability to evolve is very important, and it's not only ability, because there's lots of chains that are upgrading quite quickly and quite successfully, just as TeslaSex has, but there's also a culture there as well that we need to that we, you know that we carry forward and it's valuable. So, yeah, tesla is, is here, it's, you know, in some ways it's been a bit of a sleeper and and I think we're seeing more enthusiasm and optimism around around Tezos and this roadmap and that's, you know that was evident at the recent, recent conference and so, yeah, you know that was evident at the recent conference.

Speaker 1: 13:38

And so, yeah, you've been doing this a long time. When the spotlight's off and progress feels slow, what keeps you showing up?

Speaker 2: 13:56

Yeah, curiosity, and I mean there's not that many levels. There's always something to work on and engage with, but yeah, I would say it's curiosity and seeing how we can make this work that we're doing around blockchains more meaningful and valuable in a broader sense.

Speaker 1: 14:18

Yeah, what would we Got? It look like for you on the ground, like in how people actually use Tezos um, the, uh, yeah, for it to be um again.

Speaker 2: 14:47

I mean, uh, this goes back. I believe it was attributed to eric schmidt um, and he used to say I believe it was him, was that like the? And referring to the internet in the early days of the internet, it was it that the internet will be here, it will have arrived when it disappears, and what he meant by that is not actually like going away, but when everybody stops thinking about it and it's just part of our daily routine and fabric. And you know back then, you know when we thought about the internet and I'll date myself here but we would be thinking about the modem, noise of dial-ups and 56K modems.

Speaker 1: 15:19

I love that sound.

Speaker 2: 15:20

Yeah, and so there's a ceremony and a process to be on the internet. Now, there's a process and a ceremony to be off the internet, and it's different, and so that's certainly here and today. To use Tezos or to use any blockchain is generally quite intentional and you're mindful of it. It's like oh, I'm going on the blockchain, I'm going to do X or Y and I think we'll have succeeded. When that disappears and it's taken for granted, it's given, and that's how things work. When that disappears and it's just, it's taken for granted, it's given and that's how things work. And uh, and the, the idea of of, um, you know, transacting in another way would feel like using a fax machine user, and it feels like today some days I wish I had a fax machine.

Speaker 1: 16:10

I really do. I don't know about you, but getting like documents from one place to another these days is quite interesting.

Speaker 2: 16:20

So my parents actually had a fax machine and so they were Swedish and they immigrated to Ireland, so they lived in Ireland and so they had friends in Sweden and different places, and I only kind of realized this after I was cleaning out my late parents' stuff. But they had a meme economy or a meme network. Back then, on fax machines they would fax each other and this was before email. They would fax each other images of comics or jokes, and some of them are just written out jokes. This was like pre-chain email, chain mail, and some of them are just written out of jokes. This was like pre-chain email chain mail.

Speaker 2: 17:03

And yeah, I mean being the late 70s, early 80s. Some of them were certainly not woke at all, but the point of bringing it up is that like, yeah, meme and memetic culture only got its name, you know, not so long ago, but it's existed for a long time and it was a thriving thing in a way in in the fax economy faxes man, there's nothing better than getting it the first time, not having to resend it or like not missing anyway.

Speaker 2: 17:31

Sorry, I'm so if you and me had a fax machine, what like, and you were going to send me a fax, you'd probably send me a joke, you'd probably send me a meme. Yeah, you'd probably send me a meme.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Yeah, it would be something along those lines, Some sort of photocopied joke that I saw or something. Yes, I do remember those. You're dating me, man. Appreciate that Now. Do you ever finish shipping something and immediately want to take it back and redo it?

Speaker 2: 17:59

um, uh, never. Yeah, I know it's happened. Uh, definitely. Um, I mean, sometimes you get so stoked on or excited about like shipping, like a feature or something that's going to like other people are waiting on and it's important. And I mean, I'd imagine like artists get this as well as like they, they get excited about like what they're doing and they they want to publish um and um, and so that exuberance and excitement can can rush it. So sometimes you need to learn to to slow down and wait on it. And yeah, it's happened that we've Not often, but we've probably. Yeah, ship something a little bit too early and then have to do a follow-up fix. It doesn't happen that much lately. We have a pretty good culture of doing betas and release candidates, but yes, there's a drive there to do it because you want to provide value, you want to please.

Speaker 1: 19:03

That's fair, and I'm sure it only takes once to never want to ever do it again, right, yeah, yeah, I mean you learn those lessons.

Speaker 2: 19:08

Yeah, that's fair. It only takes once to never want to ever do it again, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you learn those lessons. Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 1: 19:14

So what is your favorite? Forgotten Tezos moment that doesn't get the credit it deserves.

Speaker 2: 19:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:26

So the moments that have become sort of passe or normal are protocol upgrades, now In the early days and on the first five or six, especially, regardless of what time it was happening, the transition of blocks.

Speaker 2: 19:43

It might have been like being on the west coast of North America. It might have been a good time for us, but it might have been like 2 am in the morning and watching those blocks and being on the West coast of North America. It might've been good time for us, but it might've been like 2 AM in the morning and like watching those blocks and like being on a Slack channel with a bunch of other people or and watching that transition happen. And especially if you're like there's a bit of a bit of a pause with it, like the excitement and like the, the, you know, the holding of the breath, like it's like oh, it's like oh, is the chain going to hang, is it going to go ahead? So that was all to say, yeah, that's something I kind of, in a perverse way, miss. But now, you know, I barely think about it. It's like, oh, the chain is going to transition to a new protocol at like X, you know, at 10 o'clock and it does, and we don't worry so much about it anymore.

Speaker 1: 20:28

So yeah, but especially in those early protocol transitions. There's a lot of magic there, the soap opera days where you knew something was going to happen. You knew it, not that it was intentional, not that we expected anything to go wrong. But, like you said, I don't know. Maybe I'm not the only one that sits up late at night wondering about what's going to go wrong too. Yeah, I feel you on that. So you've probably been asked every ECAD question under the sun. What's one thing you wish someone would actually ask you about?

Speaker 2: 21:07

um, yeah, I'm not sure. I don't have one off the top of my head. The interviews are generally pretty good, covering all these bases. I mean yourself and your pre-ass predecessors do all this, you know you all do such a good job, so it's like there's not a stone unturned.

Speaker 2: 21:41

Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons I built Ecad or started a company on my own was so I worked in some larger corporations and they're kind of bureaucratic and political in nature and there's certain things like that. You know, there's an obvious like value path for certain things, but you can't take it because bureaucracy or politics, and so you have to take this meandering path which is just wasting time, and time is our like like. I believe time is our most valuable commodity above everything else. And so I kept a. I kept a like a, a text file of the things I do differently. If I started my own business and it wasn't, it wasn't that I was like definitely gonna start my own business, but it was just this like these bullet points of like things and values, that values that if I was going to do something myself, I would not do this or I would do these things, and partially successful. I think we have a good culture here and I think we contribute to the larger ecosystem as well.

Speaker 1: 22:52

And I think we contribute to the larger ecosystem as well. Now, did someone teach you to think like that?

Speaker 2: 22:57

Or is that a path that you sort of developed through trial and error? I mean, you know, I suppose yeah, I don't think it's trial and error, yeah it's you know you get annoyed or you get frustrated and there's energy in that. It's uh, you know you get, you get annoyed or you get frustrated and there's energy in that and um, and so you know well, there's a lot of energy in that, I agree and you know you can.

Speaker 2: 23:18

There's um the well. A lot of times it depends on the person or where you are in your age or whatever. But, like um, by default we spend that type of energy unproductively or destructively, and so you know finding ways to challenge and channel that energy into something like you know down the line that's hopefully a bit more positive. I guess that's what I was aiming for. I never really thought about it. So thanks for asking the question.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now if you could do it all over again, just from top to bottom, is there anything you would change? Are you pretty happy with how it all turned out?

Speaker 2: 24:01

In the context of Tezos and ECAD, and the ecosystem.

Speaker 1: 24:06

ECAD, tezos, everything man, just so far. You have a long history, not just with us but just in general, like from then till now. Is there anything that stands out as moments that man you weathered but were worth it? Or man, if only I just turned left.

Speaker 2: 24:26

Yeah, I mean, generally, I think we're in a good place, but you know, and like, hindsight is 2020. So it's like it's not always like productive, but you know, within the ecosystem and sort of strategy, we've had a couple of reboots where we nearly threw the baby out with bath water, um and um, uh, you know, maybe some of that wasn't all necessary. We could have been, uh, we could have avoided some uh, but you know, we could be further ahead than we are. But like that's life, um, and and I think it's uh, it's unfair to try and like, try and point fingers back at things or certain events. And yeah, we're stronger for those trials and scenic routes, if you will, that's fair.

Speaker 1: 25:25

Now, you didn't mention CAN. You just came off of TESDEV. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Speaker 2: 25:32

Yeah, so TESDEV this year was in the French Riviera, cannes, just in the beginning of July. There and, yeah, no shade on Paris or Belgiumium, which were the previous host cities of that, uh, that conference. But uh, but yeah, I I appreciated being in canada. It was a lovely, a lovely venue and a lovely setting. Um, the conference itself was was excellent. Um, uh, there's like so, so much uh and the. There is a certain and I don't want to denigrate the previous year because there was optimism there as well but there's, yeah, there's definitely like more cohesion within the ecosystem, the attendees and the talks. There was more energy there and more optimism, which was, you know, that's what conferences are for, in a way, and so I think everybody came away like a little bit more excited and hopefully aligned as well.

Speaker 2: 26:38

You know some of the. There's great announcements. You know the keynotes were good around the how TessasX is evolving. You know there's a time and a place to show receipts and there were some receipts showed on our progress between last year and this year around the Tesla's X roadmap. So that was excellent and it proceeds. And there's a lot there to be excited about, some super interesting stuff around the arts and especially gaming. So some really cool announcements and yeah, like I always, I'm always when attending a well-run event, I'm always very grateful that I'm not in. My profession doesn't involve event management and setting these things up, because it's hard work. And to the people who organize and execute it. On the TestDev event this year their second time, it was really slick, really well run and I was very impressed.

Speaker 1: 27:38

Now I hear they did an art thing they normally don't do at TezDev. Normally, isn't it just a tech feature? Isn't it just usually roadmaps and tech updates?

Speaker 2: 27:49

Yeah, I think there was definitely more tech feature. Isn't it just usually roadmaps and and tech updates? Um, yeah, I think, um, yeah, there was definitely more more. Yeah, they're they have been like an art area and um, uh, I believe I mean they had so the, um, uh, the, the people from um objectcom were on several panels and some other artists. So, yeah, there's, there's a good representation of artists there, which is great to see and um, uh, yeah, I think that makes it uh, makes it richer. You know, if it's all very dogmatic like tech, uh, tech focused, um, uh, you know it's, it's good to have, um, it's good to have the arts as a counter to that. You can't be all ying and no yang, um, so, yeah, it was nice to see all right.

Speaker 1: 28:32

Well, you came away from that feeling pretty strong. What's one insight you hope people walk away with today?

Speaker 2: 28:41

um, yeah, the uh. Well, you know I'm, I'm, uh. So, yeah, the bigger picture of Tezos X, like it's happening. We have you know I'm down in the weeds to like thinking and talking about, you know, tz4 addresses and BLS and stuff and like that's. But like that's down at the lower level and we need to think a bit more higher level, a bit more abstract. So Tezos X is happening.

Speaker 2: 29:15

The canonical roll-up vision is being executed upon. Etherlink is here to stay and the other roll-ups, such as Tezlink and Justice there's palpable progress on those as well. And, yeah, this unlocks a lot of things. It's going to be exciting for the future and it makes Tezos more accessible to the larger blockchain ecosystem as well in terms of asset transfer and and so, yeah, there's, there's exciting things ahead. So, you know it's. There's all this value being being early and, yeah, I'd encourage people, as a takeaway to, to re-engage with Tesla's. If you've been away for a while or if you haven't been here before, like come, come, try things out and get and get like, show up early well, that's going to do it for this episode of test talks.

Speaker 1: 30:18

Big thanks to jeff for coming back on and sharing what he's been building and thinking behind the scenes always a solid conversation when he's here. Thanks for for watching. We'll see you next time. Thank you, blart.