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Matter Labs co-founder and CEO Alex Gluchowski has proposed an Ethereum court system<\/a> resembling a hierarchical court system similar to the real world.<\/p>\n In a Sept. 2 post on X (Twitter), Gluchowski floated<\/a> the idea for an \u201cEthereum Supreme Court\u201d \u2014 which would work similarly to the United States Supreme Court \u2014 serving as a final stop for parties to dispute smart contract issues rather than needing to take matters to a traditional lawyer or court.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important function of such a system will be to protect protocols against political inference from the outside. It will serve as a great deterrence mechanism, and will elevate the role of Ethereum as a powerful network state,\u201d said Gluchowski.<\/p>\n Smart contract implementation risks remain the biggest unsolved problem of Defi. L2s are equally affected.<\/p>\n Let me pitch an idea: L1 Fork as the Court of Final Appeal.<\/p>\n First, why existing solutions don’t work:<\/p>\n 1) Time-locked upgrades are great for scheduled changes, but\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/EcaogkZBH9<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Alex G. \u220e (@gluk64) September 2, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to Gluchowski\u2019s concept, disputes and emergency upgrades would be handled by a hierarchical system of on-chain courts. The final stop, however, would be an Ethereum layer-1 soft fork as the \u201cCourt of Final Appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n Gluchowski said that in this system, every protocol would have its own governance with normal and emergency upgrade mechanisms, and would also designate a special contract which can trigger an appeal. <\/p>\n When there is an emergency upgrade to a protocol, there would be an appeal period, during which any user can submit a challenge to the higher court. However, they\u2019ll have to put up a pre-defined bail deposit. <\/p>\n Each court specifies the higher court to appeal to, with the Ethereum Supreme Court serving as the final destination for challengers, Gluchowski said.<\/p>\n Let’s chat. The main idea of the post: no human-driven court should be able to say the last word. The final appeal must always be an L1 fork.<\/p>\n \u2014 Alex G. \u220e (@gluk64) September 2, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n An example court heirachy would see protocols like Aave and Uniswap would contest matters in a court such as CourtUnchained or JusticeDAO. After those courts reach a decision, a party can appeal to the Ethereum Supreme Court.<\/p>\n However, there would need to be a strong social consensus for the on-chain court system to work,<\/a> Gluchowski acknowledged.<\/p>\n He added that it would be expensive so that only \u201ctruly extraordinary\u201d cases will be brought before it.<\/p>\n \u201c[It will need to be] worthy of the attention of the entire Layer-0 (the social consensus) of Ethereum. Think of a bug in @Uniswap,<\/a> a major L2, a Defi protocol with a systemic risk, etc.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Related: <\/em><\/strong>On-chain tool to seize crypto is a purist\u2019s nightmare but a must, says CEO <\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Gluchowski noted there were several existing solutions to such disputes already but argued that they aren\u2019t effective.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, enabling time-locked features on smart contracts isn\u2019t suitable in emergency situations and introducing a security council can mitigate the problem, but won\u2019t solve it, while carrying its own risks. <\/p>\n \u201cA security council could only freeze the contract temporarily, requiring a token governance approval for an emergency upgrade. But now a malicious majority of undercollaterized stakers could perform an evil take-over upgrade and steal all the assets,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Gluchowski said that he and the team at zkSync \u2014 an Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution created by Matter Labs \u2014 will happily fund research into the proposal.<\/p>\n Magazine:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>\u2018Moral responsibility\u2019 \u2014 Can blockchain really improve trust in AI?<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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