Future Development Directions of Ethereum

The original intention of Ethereum has always remained unchanged: to create a global, censorship-resistant, permissionless blockchain. This is a free and open platform for decentralized applications, built on the same principles as great open-source projects like GNU+Linux, Mozilla, Tor, and Wikipedia.

In the past decade, Ethereum has also developed another amazing characteristic: in addition to innovations in cryptography and economics, it is also a social technological innovation. The Ethereum ecosystem demonstrates a new type of more open and decentralized way of building.

After ten years of effort, Ethereum has widely provided practical value to people. Millions hold ETH or stablecoins as savings, and even more use them for payments. It has practical privacy tools, a decentralized DNS system ENS, Twitter alternatives, and DeFi tools that provide high yield low-risk assets for millions.

We need to continue building the technology, social attributes, and practicality of Ethereum. If we only have the former without the latter, we will devolve into an ineffective "anti-mainstream" community. If we only have the latter without the former, we will fall into a Wall Street-style "greed is king" mentality.

Currently, we are expanding Ethereum through the Layer 2 network (L2s). The L2 of 2025 is vastly different from the early experiments of 2019: they have reached critical decentralization milestones, securing hundreds of billions of dollars in value, and increasing Ethereum's transaction capacity by 17 times, while fees have correspondingly decreased.

L2 faces two major challenges: scalability and heterogeneity. We need more blob space to meet the demand. At the same time, interoperability and user experience between different L2s also need improvement.

To achieve this, we need:

1. Accelerate the expansion of L1's blob capacity
2. Moderately expand L1 EVM and increase gas limit
3. Improve the security of L2
4. Improve the interoperability standards of L2 and wallets.
5. Accelerate L2 deposit and withdrawal time
6. Maintain the heterogeneity of L2 while meeting basic interoperability requirements.
7. Ensure that ETH continues to accumulate value in a world dominated by L2.

We should accelerate the blob expansion process and make it a primary goal. At the same time, promote two technical routes: native Rollup and multi-prover + formal verification, to enhance L2 security.

In terms of interoperability, we need to implement functions such as chain-specific addresses, standardized cross-chain bridging and messaging, and quick deposits and withdrawals. As long as these standards are met, L2 can still maintain their respective characteristics.

For ETH economics, we should adopt a multi-pronged strategy: consolidating ETH as the main asset of the ecosystem, encouraging L2 to support ETH, partially supporting Rollups based on Rollup, increasing the number of blobs, etc.

The future of Ethereum requires active participation from everyone. Whether you are an L2 developer, a wallet developer, or a community member, you can contribute to the development of the ecosystem. Let's work together to push Ethereum towards a more free and open future.