Completing the 10-year coming-of-age ceremony, Vitalik discusses Ethereum's existential value

Author: Chloe, ChainCatcher

On Monday, the Ethereum Devconnect developer conference took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina. During the event, Vitalik Buterin elevated the technical framework to a discussion on Ethereum's value across the entire crypto industry. Tomasz Stanczak and Hsiao-Wei Wang, co-executive directors of the Ethereum Foundation, focused on Ethereum’s role during its transitional phase, emphasizing reliable operations, community collaboration, and continuous innovation. Danny Ryan, former core researcher and now co-founder of Etherealize, highlighted Ethereum’s critical position between decentralization and institutional adoption from an institutional application perspective.

Moving Toward the Fusaka Phase: Foundation Aims for Seamless Upgrades

Tomasz Stanczak reviewed Ethereum’s decade-long development trajectory in his talk, noting that this period successfully established solid foundations in consensus mechanisms, diverse clients, and privacy-related tools. However, he warned that future challenges will involve strengthening user privacy, maintaining decentralization, and enhancing personalized autonomy—requiring broader participation from more contributors. Stanczak specifically illustrated the diverse participants within the Ethereum ecosystem, believing these distributed contributions are key to ensuring network security and operation.

"Ethereum’s uninterrupted operation through multiple upgrades is precisely due to the efforts of these long-term contributors."

Hsiao-Wei Wang used the metaphor "Ethereum is a ladder" to explain the foundation’s management philosophy, describing ecological evolution through the concept of "step compounding"—from research to clients, then to applications, and finally expanding into the community—each step becoming a new platform for the next generation of builders.

She stated, "This year marks a new chapter for Ethereum. After the Ethereum Foundation completed its latest leadership transition, Tomasz and I set our first priority as ensuring this transition remains stable and smooth, because Ethereum is entering a new phase."

Regarding next month’s Fusaka upgrade on Ethereum’s mainnet, she explained at the conference that moving into “Fusaka” requires focusing on three core capabilities: first, reliability demonstrated by 100% continuous block production during major upgrades; second, flexibility to allow space for diverse technological paths within the ecosystem; and third, stewardship governance—where the foundation cares about Ethereum but does not control it.

Wang emphasized that Ethereum’s decade-long accumulation stems from countless trials, errors, and perseverance. The network’s 100% uptime across all major updates reflects this reliability, enabling users to build without fear.

Danny Ryan, as a former core researcher at the foundation, shared his personal journey shifting from protocol development to institutional applications. Ryan criticized traditional finance for inefficiency—such as severe market fragmentation, T+1 settlement for equities, and T+2 for bonds—far inferior to Ethereum’s instant settlement. He described legacy institutional systems as outdated, built like layers upon layers of legal documents and paper.

Yet Ryan also discovered unexpected demand for decentralization among institutions. From their perspective, needs include decentralized infrastructure layers, 100% uptime, security capable of supporting trillions in asset classes, and mature application layers with strong privacy—all essential requirements. Ryan stressed that once the knowledge gap is bridged, institutions will recognize Ethereum’s necessity.

Ethereum Reassesses Its Position: Vitalik Explores Its Value Within the Crypto Industry

Vitalik’s talks at developer conferences have traditionally followed the "Ethereum in 30 Minutes" format, sketching Ethereum’s current state and future in just half an hour. Comparing content from Devcon SEA 2024 to Devconnect ARG 2025, Ethereum is undergoing repositioning—from minor technical roadmaps to broader values on the blockchain.

Last year, Vitalik centered on technical details of the "world computer," explaining how Layer 1 serves as a trust anchor and how Layer 2 functions complementarily like GPUs. "The reason Ethereum’s world computer stays unified is that every GPU connects via various technologies—optimistic proof systems, zero-knowledge proofs, SNARKs, STARKs, Jolt, Plonk—to the most trusted machine."

These systems ensure Layer 1 can verify what happens inside Layer 2 trustlessly, while Layer 2 can trustlessly read events on Layer 1. This mutual interaction between components is vital, said Vitalik: "Together, they form today’s Ethereum."

Last year, he emphasized decentralized technical practices such as fault-resistant multi-client architecture and staking pool diversity, reviewing the journey from the 2013 whitepaper to the Merge, and early results in the Surge phase—especially achievements in drastically reduced fees and improved transaction confirmation times (from minutes down to milliseconds), highlighting Ethereum’s scalability breakthroughs.

In contrast, the 2025 talk leaned toward principled reflection. Opening with FTX as a negative example, Vitalik criticized centralized exchanges for insolvency, underscoring the fundamental difference with Ethereum—shifting from centralized trust to systems where anyone can verify everything. He integrated cryptographic tools like zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), introducing the concept of "cosmolocal" (glocal)—emphasizing Ethereum as a global network not designed to serve any single corporation or superpower, but to protect people’s freedom worldwide.

This year’s technical outlook was more forward-looking, focusing on full-node return of ZK-EVM and quantum resistance upgrades. While last year Vitalik mentioned wanting to create SNARK proofs for the entire chain, this year he clearly announced that ZK-EVM has entered the Alpha stage. At the conference, Vitalik stated, "Data from ethproofs.org shows there are already provers capable of real-time Ethereum block proofs using just dozens of consumer-grade GPUs."

A clear shift emerges: whereas Vitalik previously focused on technology, this year he turned to exploring Ethereum’s "reason for being," reflecting Ethereum’s evolution from infrastructure building to defining its influence on-chain.

Perhaps Ethereum is completing its coming-of-age moment, as Vitalik said at Devconnect ARG: "Ethereum can become a flag, leading toward a freer, more open, and collaborative world supported by permissionless open technology and decentralized security."