Why is censorship resistance fundamental to Ethereum and what would it take to actually achieve it? In this episode, I sit down with soispoke from the Ethereum Foundation's Robust Incentives Group (RIG) to unpack FOCIL (Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists), a proposal aimed at making transaction censorship significantly harder. We start from first principles: what does censorship even mean in Ethereum's context, and what's the difference between weak and strong censorship? From there, we break down how FOCIL works, address recent criticisms, and explore what it could unlock [from better UX to de-risking Ethereum's scaling roadmap]. Soispoke also reflects on the EIP process and where FOCIL currently stands in being scheduled for upcoming Ethereum hard forks within the context of governance.

Timestamps

(00:00 ) - From academic to applied research
(05:39 ) - What is censorship, and why CR?
(08:43 ) - Weak censorship on Ethereum
(11:57 ) - Brief history of inclusion lists
(17:52 ) -  Fork-choice enforced inclusion list (FOCIL)
(20:07 ) - Steelmanning FOCIL
(26:06 ) - Committee size and trust assumption
(29:12 ) - Rainbow staking compatible
(30:12 ) - Addressing criticism
(35:15 ) - Improved UX for Optimistic Rollups
(37:26 ) - Reflections on ideating FOCIL
(40:19 ) - Communicating FOCIL
(43:11 ) - Defending Ethereum's moat
(49:03 ) - FOCIL improves altruism assumptions
(53:03 ) - Glamsterdam Headliner process
(58:46 ) - FOCIL + 6s slots, we can do both
(1:01:25 ) - Low hanging fruit and beyond

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.