Combining Ethereum's Reach and Solana's Speed, Eclipse w/ Neel Somani

Neel Somani is the Founder & CEO of Eclipse and has an ambitious vision to build Ethereum’s fastest Layer 2 blockchain by tapping into Solana’s Virtual Machine (SVM) as the execution environment. We start our discussion by deconstructing the landscape of L2s in order to better understand where Eclipse fits in and why Neel views Eclipse’s approach as preferable. We also dig into Neel’s conscious design decision to tap into ETH’s massive network effects while simultaneously leveraging Solana’s high-throughput execution environment. Eclipse’s unique position amongst L2s may ultimately prove to be mutually beneficial to both the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems, and we unpack why that may be the case throughout the interview.
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Time Stamps

0:00 - How did you get to this point

3:21 - Who are Eclipse’s stakeholders

8:37 - Comparison to OP Stack

14:03 - Rollup fundamentals

19:29 - Tradeoffs from losing EVM comparability

22:22 - Key unlock of local fee markets

24:21 - Eclipse positioning across ecosystems

27:14 - Can Eth retain network effects

30:51 - Does Eclipse destroy Eth’s value accrual

33:40 - Would Eclipse ever turn away from Eth

34:50 - Do L2s need tokens

36:42 - Go-To-Market strategy

39:44 - Do L2s need to decentralise their sequencers

43:10 - Who wins the L1 wars

46:40 - How will people use crypto products

49:20 - Which verticals are most bullish

53:32 - Crypto and AI

55:49 - Eclipse roadmap

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Podcast Resources

Follow Sal: https://twitter.com/Sal_The_Bull

Follow Dave: https://twitter.com/SolBeachBum

Follow Unlayered: https://twitter.com/UnlayeredPod

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or Google: https://unlayered.io/

Clips on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UnlayeredPod

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Episode Resources

Follow Neel : https://twitter.com/NeelSalami

Follow Eclipse : https://twitter.com/EclipseFND

Eclipse website : https://eclipse.builders

Eclipse blog : https://mirror.xyz/eclipsemainnet.eth

Neel’s personal blog : https://www.neelsomani.com/blog/