Ethereum Founder Discusses the Development and Future Prospects of Blockchain Technology

Recently, at an important Blockchain summit, the co-founder of Ethereum reviewed the development of Ethereum and looked forward to its future. He emphasized that through Layer 2 solutions, Ethereum is expected to achieve a transaction processing capacity of over 100,000 transactions per second in the future, and transfers between any Blockchain based on Ethereum can be completed within 2 seconds, ultimately forming a unified user experience. In addition, he also pointed out that the infrastructure of Ethereum is continuously expanding, and the link to security is more important than EVM.

The Ethereum project began in November 2013, the Ethereum Foundation was established in 2014, and the Ethereum network officially launched in July 2015. Over the past decade, the main goal of the Ethereum project has been to refine its technology. Looking back at the speeches from 2015 to 2017, we find that the viewpoints presented at that time are basically consistent with those today. In 2022, Ethereum completed the transition from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS). Our ongoing focus has included scalability, privacy and zero-knowledge proof technology, as well as security issues.

In recent years, Ethereum has made significant progress in multiple areas:

1. Transaction fees have been significantly reduced: By introducing Layer 2 solutions and EIP-4844, transaction fees have dropped from several dollars or even hundreds of dollars in the past to around $0.01 now. This change opens up possibilities for more application scenarios.

2. Improved transaction confirmation speed: The block time of Ethereum has been shortened from the initial 17 seconds to the current 12 seconds. With the implementation of the EIP-1559 protocol, most transactions can be confirmed in a very short time.

3. User Experience Improvement: From the early rudimentary interface to the now intuitive and user-friendly application, the user experience of the Ethereum ecosystem has significantly improved.

4. Smart Accounts and Account Abstraction: Innovative solutions such as multi-signature wallets and email-based smart contracts continue to emerge.

5. Advances in Zero-Knowledge Proof Technology: From initially taking several minutes to process a transaction to now being able to complete it on a mobile phone in 1 second, the development of zero-knowledge proof technology has made its application in areas such as identity verification possible.

However, the Ethereum ecosystem still faces some challenges, especially in terms of cross-chain interoperability. Currently, the process of transferring assets between different Blockchains remains complex and prone to errors. To address this issue, new protocols and standards are being developed, such as ERC-7683, aimed at simplifying the cross-chain asset trading process.

In addition, the development of light clients is also an important direction. Currently, most users interact with the blockchain through centralized RPC nodes, which carries trust risks. By developing more efficient light client solutions, the degree of decentralization and security can be improved.

The founders have proposed several key goals for the future of Ethereum:

1. Achieve a transaction processing capacity of over 100,000 transactions per second through Layer 2 technology.
2. Achieve transfer between any Ethereum-related chains within 2 seconds.
3. Create a unified user experience.
4. Expand the technical scope of Ethereum, not limited to EVM, with a greater focus on the security of the links.

Finally, he encouraged developers and entrepreneurs to revisit the projects that did not succeed in the past. With advancements in technology, many ideas that were once unfeasible due to technological limitations may now have the conditions for success.