(aka Layer 2s as cultural extensions of Ethereum) by vitalik .

1. The most important difference between blockchains is **cultural .**
2. culture affects who is attracted to an ecosystem and who is repelled. It affects what kinds of actions people are motivated to do, and what kinds of actions people can do. It affects what is considered legitimate - both in protocol design and at the ecosystem and application layer.
3. important areas that a blockchain's culture has a great impact on include:

• what gets implemented into the protocol: including quantity, quality, and direction
• The protocol's ability to remain open, censorship-resistant and decentralized
• The ecosystem's ability to attract high-quality protocol developers and researchers
• The ecosystem's ability to attract high-quality application developers
• The ecosystem's ability to attract users - both the quantity of users, and the right kinds of users
• The ecosystem's public legitimacy in the eyes of outside communities and actors

1. examples of this cultural effects on blockchains

• If you value having a blockchain that remains decentralized- you need to look at how well the culture values those goals. If a blockchain's culture does not value curiosity and openness to new technology, then it may well fail at both decentralization and speed
• If a blockchain becomes publicly understood as being "the casino chain" and nothing else, it becomes hard to get non-casino applications onboard and hard to get non-mercenary contributors hard to attract.

1. current (partial ) sub-cultures of Ethereum :

• Cypherpunk: A cypherpunk is committed to open source development and a certain DIY or punk attitude. taking neutral stance on how the infra is used .
• a regenerative approach to building technology - engage in governance experiments designed to reinvigorate, improve or even replace contemporary institutions. such as herberger tax , retro funding, and donating memecoins emissions to charity .
• Degens- Users driven purely by speculation and wealth accumulation at all costs