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 _Because debugging on Ethereum is hard._
 
+## Problem statement
+
+Smart contracts offer the fundamental promise that code execution is verifiably
+transparent. Not only is this necessary to ensure network liveness,
+but this ability to _directly observe_ the step-by-step operation of the
+Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) affords a foundation for public trust amongst
+software developers, auditors, and end-users at large.
+
+Unfortunately, direct observation of the EVM fails to connect
+low-level system behavior with any code authors' original framework of
+meaning. Humans usually write programs in high-level languages that they must
+compile to a form the machine can execute. It is
+_extremely impractical_ to reason about the machine-code that compilers
+output and the system behavior that results upon executing this code.
+
+Traditional computing platforms have largely solved this problem through the
+design, standardization, and use of **debugging data formats**[^1], which allow
+compilers a mechanism to specify precisely how to translate a program as the
+machine runs it into a program as the human wrote it. Several such formats
+exist in use today, most notably DWARF[^2], and these allow ubiquitous
+software integration between compilers, editors, and debuggers. Sadly, no existing
+format suffices to cover the intrinsic differences present in smart contract
+programming, let alone cover some of the architectural decisions that
+high-level languages have made in response to the EVM's constraints.
+
+Although it's straightforward to observe and replay the EVM directly,
+understanding the EVM and the smart contracts running on it remains within the
+domain of experts. Without a mechanism for machine-to-human translation,
+smart contract software quality comes at a higher cost, and any promise of
+trust risks erosion.
+
+[^1]: See [Debugging data format -
+  Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debugging_data_format)
+
+[^2]: See [DWARF - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWARF)
+
 ## Purpose of this repository
 
 This repository serves as a home for the working group to design