2025-06-13 –, Side Stage - Cinema 6
Blockchains today are decentralized networks of fat servers. Rollups also operate on fat servers for sequencing and proving. The vast majority of users of these systems run thin clients that always interact through these servers, an architecture that (1) fails to leverage the local compute capability (2) rely on (decentralised) middlemen for interaction, necessitating transaction fees for middlemen incentivisation.
This talk introduces coordination-avoidance as a paradigm shift in decentralized computing. Instead of enforcing global consensus, coordination-avoidance enables direct P2P execution among users that operate local-first clients. This paradigm unlocks a new design space for applications that benefit from decentralization, high responsiveness, and safety at the same time.
I will discuss how DRP (Distributed Real-time Programs), a new Internet protocol, constructs a new kind of BFT state from consensus-free P2P networks. This approach enables applications with novel economic models that are impractical for any existing client-server architectures, regardless if the servers are decentralised.
Thomas Hsueh (guiltygyoza) focused on designing massively parallel hardware architecture for accelerating neural network on custom integrated circuits, during his work at Harvard PhD program (2016-19) and Lightmatter (2019-21). In 2021, Thomas cofounded Topology to innovate new approaches that expand the capability of the world computer and unlock the multiplayer Internet.