Education: The North Star of Navigating Ethereum

This episode is sponsored by 📷

In this week’s episode, CoinDesk’s Will Foxley and Consensys’ Ben Edgington meet up with Coogan Brennan to discuss solo staking on Ethereum 2.0.

Coogan Brennan’s passion for training is contagious as he equips new generations of developers with information. Brennan says, “Education has been the North Star for a lot of the work I have done in Ethereum.” He sees the world of crypto as “learner led” and feels that “it’s such a young industry that no one can claim to be a senior educator or developer.”

Coogan is a prime example of the learner-led culture; he first heard about crypto while running a tailoring business. After years of grappling with the many complexities related to Ethereum, he now works as a trainer at ConsenSys, which is a leading Ethereum development shop.

Join us as we discuss a series of in-depth articles Coogan wrote about becoming a solo staker on the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain.

This journey into staking required a shift of mindset. We are all familiar with images of the Proof-of-Work server farms. It’s easy to imagine that we would need a similar kind of kit to run an Eth2 staking rig.

We also take the chance to discuss the complexities of working at a company like ConsenSys. Brennan explains a bit more about his work when he says that “to be an employee of ConsenSys is to live with great contradictions.” He sees one of ConsenSys’ great survival strategies as “its ability to fund wild dreamers.”

Finally, we inevitably arrive at our favorite topic, Ethereum governance. Coogan describes Ethereum as a “dynamic, moving, evolving beast.” Does this make it ungovernable?

Coogan is “always urging people to go further and further down the wormhole.” Listen to the full podcast to catch his infectious desire for learning.

Coogan’s articles:

• My Journey to Becoming a Validator on Ethereum 2.0: Part 1, Part 2
• How to Monitor Your Eth2 Validator and Analyze Your P&L
• How To Safely Migrate Your Ethereum 2.0 Validator Client

Twitter handles:

• ConsenSys Academy: @ConsenSysAcad
• Coogan: @BEB_AND_SON
• Will: @wsfoxley
• Ben: @benjaminion_xyz