Discussion on the Technological Development Direction and Future Opportunities of Ethereum

A review of history reveals that cutting-edge technology discussions within the Ethereum developer community often evolve into everyday application products, such as DEX, lending, rollup, and DA, among others. This not only reflects the trends in technological development but also suggests potential investment opportunities.

At the beginning of 2025, we can gain valuable insights from Ethereum's roadmap, the recent DevCon conference, and the upcoming Pectra upgrade. This article will organize and discuss these aspects.

Ethereum Roadmap Analysis

The Ethereum roadmap has always been an important reference for observing the future development direction, including phases such as The Merge, The Surge, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge. Each phase has its specific goals and improvement plans:

• The Merge: Completed the transition from PoW to PoS and includes some consensus protocol improvements.
• The Surge: Focused on scalability improvements, supporting rollup development.
• The Scourge: Committed to addressing MEV-related issues.
• The Verge: Improvements to underlying data structures and the Snarkification of the EVM.
• The Purge: Reduce node pressure through data optimization.
• The Splurge: Explore cutting-edge technological advancements.

Highlights of the DevCon Conference

The recent Ethereum DevCon conference discussed the challenges currently faced and possible solutions. Among them, the proposal of Beam Chain attracted widespread attention, although its completion will take about 5 years.

Topics related to Rollup remain popular, especially discussions about cross-rollup liquidity and interactivity. In addition, the technical maturity of L2 projects, chain abstraction, pre-confirmation, and other issues are also receiving attention.

Pectra Upgrade Preview

The Pectra upgrade, expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025, will bring several significant changes:

1. EIP-7702: Provides all EOA accounts with the ability to temporarily convert to smart contract accounts, expected to improve user experience.

2. EIP-7691: Plans to increase the number of blobs per block, further reducing rollup costs and enhancing Ethereum's DA competitiveness.

3. EIP-7251: Proposal to raise the staking limit from 32 Ether to 2048 Ether, simplifying operations for large stakers.

Future Opportunity Analysis

Based on the above technological changes and discussions, we can foresee potential opportunities in the following several areas:

Improved Interoperability Between Rollups

Solving the liquidity and interoperability issues between rollups has become a key focus for developers. Currently, there are various solutions:

• Based rollup: Achieves sequencing functionality through L1, ensuring the atomicity of interactions between L2.
• Shared sequencer: Allows multiple L2s to share a sequencer group.
• Cross-chain intents: Utilize intents to meet cross-rollup needs.

These plans are actively being promoted, and the market is expected to show results in 2025.

Account Abstraction Development

The implementation of EIP-7702 will bring new opportunities for the Account Abstraction (AA) project. Combined with chain abstraction and intents functionality, it may lead to more complex cross-chain or multi-chain interaction applications. After the Pectra upgrade, teams that are well-prepared may encounter growth opportunities.

Cryptography Application Expansion

The application prospects of cryptographic technology in the Ethereum ecosystem are broad. The zkEVM and zkVM frameworks are maturing, and the combination of ZKP with MPC, FHE, and other technologies may bring more innovations. In addition, verification applications such as ZK Email and zkTLS may gain wider adoption. As regulatory attitudes towards certain privacy applications change, this field may welcome new development opportunities.