Vitalik Talks About the Development of the Encryption Industry: Ethereum Needs to Meet Mainstream Needs

Vitalik Buterin delivered a keynote speech titled "Things That Excite Me About the Next Decade" at the TOKEN2049 conference. He believes that the current encryption field is no longer in its early stages, and Ethereum now needs to meet the demands of mainstream adoption while maintaining its values of open source and decentralization.

Vitalik pointed out that although people often say that encryption is still in its early stages, in fact, the Ethereum project has been around for more than 10 years. In the 15 years since the birth of Bitcoin, we have witnessed technologies like ChatGPT emerge from nothing, fundamentally changing people's understanding of artificial intelligence. Therefore, we must rethink the development stage of the encryption field.

He recalled his experience visiting Argentina in 2021, noting that the locals were very enthusiastic about cryptocurrency and used it widely. However, the high transaction fees became a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency. The good news is that the transaction fees for Ethereum have now significantly decreased, from $10 to less than 1 cent. Meanwhile, major Layer 2 solutions have also reached important security milestones.

In addition to the issue of fees, the transaction confirmation time has also significantly improved. With the implementation of EIP-1559, the confirmation time for Ethereum transactions now stabilizes between 5 and 15 seconds. If Layer 2 solutions are used, the confirmation time can even be shortened to one second. These improvements make the user experience quality of decentralized applications comparable to that of centralized Web2 products.

Vitalik emphasized that the benefits brought by cryptocurrency to the world are not just technological improvements, but more importantly, it has created a form of digital robustness. Blockchain enables us to establish durable and strong digital structures, much like concrete buildings in the physical world. This digital concrete can be used to construct various virtual "sky castles," including multiple uses such as asset protection, entertainment, cultural preservation, and digital governance.

When discussing future development directions, Vitalik stated that we need to meet mainstream adoption demands while maintaining the values of open source and decentralization. He specifically mentioned the importance of wallet security, believing that multi-signature smart wallets are a great solution to balance self-custody and convenience.

Finally, Vitalik mentioned some ongoing technical improvements that will make the Ethereum mainnet more decentralized and easier to validate while reducing final confirmation times and increasing capacity. He believes these advancements will lead the entire encryption industry in its development direction over the next decade.