From Believer to Observer: An Ethereum Scaling Dilemma in the Eyes of a Multicoin Co-founder

2025-12-15 07:00:14

【Crypto World】Multicoin co-founder Kyle Samani recently shared his story with Ethereum on social media. He admitted that Ethereum was his gateway into the crypto world and also the main source of his early wealth accumulation. However, at the Devcon3 developer conference in Cancun, Mexico, in November 2017, he made a significant decision—abandon Ethereum.

Regarding his reasons for quitting, Kyle pointed out a phenomenon that was widely discussed at the time. Ethereum had just become the fastest asset in history to reach a $100 billion market cap, marking a milestone in the crypto industry. However, as network usage surged, Gas fees began to rise sharply. This contradiction sparked an unprecedented sense of urgency in him—a network capable of supporting a multi-billion dollar market cap was facing serious scalability bottlenecks in everyday use.

This observation reflected a core dilemma in Ethereum’s early development: innovative application scenarios and transaction demands far exceeded network capacity, making ecosystem expansion an urgent issue to address.

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EthSandwichHero

· 2025-12-17 21:54

Haha, Kyle, this was really a timely stop-loss. At that time, the gas fee was ridiculously high, and the transfer fee ate up the entire amount, who could withstand that?

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GrayscaleArbitrageur

· 2025-12-15 16:42

Honestly, Kyle's recent reflection is somewhat interesting. Back then, the Gas fees were indeed outrageously high, and the promised world computer still made even simple transfers ridiculously expensive. But on the other hand, if it weren't for these scalability dilemmas, how would Layer2, Arbitrum, and similar solutions have been inspired? Instead, they have become catalysts for the Ethereum ecosystem, which is quite ironic.

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MevTears

· 2025-12-15 07:30

The decision at the time was actually quite bold... Most people wouldn't dare to give up the Golden Goose, but gas fees are indeed a hurdle that can't be bypassed. --- Kyle's insights are quite sharp; scalability issues have been on the table for a long time, but later they were overshadowed by layer2 solutions. --- Honestly, the timing in 2017 was a bit ironic. Being able to walk away unscathed at the peak of the storm, looking back, it's a bit regrettable. --- I just want to know what he invested in later... He definitely wasn't sitting idle. --- What does this story tell us? Faith and practical issues are still two different things.

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GovernancePretender

· 2025-12-15 07:28

Haha, Kyle's review this time is really interesting. It's understandable that he was eager to escape back then, but now that Layer 2 has taken off, he probably needs to reflect again... Forget it, everyone who should run has already run.

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ZkProofPudding

· 2025-12-15 07:27

Honestly, Kyle's words really hit the mark. The gas fee surge back then did indeed discourage a lot of people, including myself... A transfer fee was almost as much as the principal, who could handle that? But now that Layer2 solutions are up and running, it feels like Ethereum has finally regained momentum. I just wonder what Kyle thinks about the current progress in this area.

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LiquidationWizard

· 2025-12-15 07:24

When I sold ETH, I certainly didn't expect that Layer 2 would come to the rescue later on... But that said, Kyle's vision is truly sharp; during the gas fee explosion, everyone could see it clearly, but most people were still in a daze.

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StealthDeployer

· 2025-12-15 07:08

Early all-in then rushing to exit, that's Kyle's story. To put it simply, he just didn't like the ETH gas model. At that time, no one expected layer2 to advance so rapidly.

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just_another_wallet

· 2025-12-15 07:03

I should have known earlier. I should have run with Kyle back then. Who can withstand such outrageous gas fees?

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