The ETHShanghai 2024 Summit, co-organized by core members such as ETHPanda, TinTinLand and ChainFeeds, has come to a successful conclusion in Shanghai on October 16. As the third grand event of the ETHShanghai series of summits, this event not only continued the success of the previous two sessions, but also achieved new breakthroughs in scale and influence. The event attracted nearly 1,000 people to sign up , 340 people attended in person, and at the same time, the number of online live viewers was nearly 3,000 . The atmosphere on site was warm, and everyone was full of expectations for the future of Ethereum and Web3, and witnessed the successful holding of the conference together.
Among the many attendees, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is undoubtedly one of the most eye-catching heavyweight guests. As a leader in the Ethereum community, Vitalik Buterin has always been respected and sought after by global developers and industry leaders for his deep expertise and unique industry insights. At the ETHShanghai 2024 Summit, Vitalik Buterin delivered a keynote speech entitled "The Future of Cross-L2", which brought participants deep insights and valuable thoughts on the future development of the Ethereum ecosystem. Next, let us review the highlights of Vitalik Buterin's speech that day and appreciate his deep insights and outstanding vision for the future of the industry.
🚩 Friends who missed the live broadcast can watch the replay on TinTinLand video account [🆔 OurTinTinLand ].
After ten years of hard work, Ethereum has made great achievements
Ethereum has gone through a decade of development , from the launch of the Ethereum project in November 2013 to the establishment of the Ethereum Foundation in 2014 and the launch of the Ethereum mainnet in July 2015. Looking back, Vitalik pointed out that the main goal of the Ethereum project in its early days was to build a solid technical foundation. Although the technical vision at the time was not much different from today, Ethereum has made significant progress in terms of technology.
Significant reduction in transaction fees
Vitalik pointed out that the transaction costs of Ethereum in the early Layer 1 stage were high, and users sometimes even had to pay up to $800 to complete a transaction. However, with the introduction of Layer 2 technology, this situation has been significantly improved. In particular, after the implementation of the EIP-4844 proposal in 2023, the transaction fee on Layer 2 dropped to about $0.01 . This change opened the door to many decentralized applications, especially in AGI applications and small payment scenarios. The extremely low fees greatly improved the user's willingness and experience.
Improved transaction confirmation speed
Ethereum has also made significant progress in terms of transaction confirmation speed. Initially, Ethereum's block time was 17 seconds. Although it was later shortened, users still faced a long waiting time. However, with the development of Layer 2 technology, users can now confirm transactions within 0.5 seconds, which greatly shortens the waiting time for operations and improves the overall user experience. Users can now complete cross-chain transactions almost instantly, which has greatly promoted the popularity of decentralized applications.
Improved user experience at the application layer
If we want digital currency users to truly become blockchain users, we must solve these user experience problems.
— Vitalik Buterin
In addition to transaction fees and transaction speed, the user experience of Ethereum applications has also been greatly improved. From the early EtherTweet to the current Firefly and other clients, we can see that the interface design is more friendly and the functions are richer. At the same time, these applications not only improve the user experience, but also attract a large number of non-blockchain users to enter the Ethereum ecosystem.
Smart Accounts and Account Abstraction Breakthrough
In the development history of Ethereum, smart accounts and account abstraction technology have always been an important force driving the development of its ecosystem. Vitalik mentioned that multi-signature wallets such as Safe have been widely used, and zero-knowledge proof technology has also played a key role in projects such as ZKEmail. These innovations make users' asset management safer and more convenient, laying the foundation for the further popularization of blockchain.
Widespread application of zero-knowledge proof
Vitalik emphasized that he began to explore the potential of zero-knowledge proof as early as 2015. Today, this technology has gone from theory to practical application. In 2016, the first transaction initiated by Zcash took 90 seconds to 2 minutes to complete, but now, a user can initiate a transaction based on zero-knowledge proof on a mobile phone in just 1 second. The application of this technology has greatly improved transaction efficiency and reduced the risk of privacy leakage.
For example, Zupass is an identity verification tool based on zero-knowledge proof that ensures user privacy. Rarimo verifies the information in the user's passport through zero-knowledge proof, avoiding the privacy risks in traditional verification methods. Other projects such as Railway and 0xbow have also adopted zero-knowledge proof technology in different application scenarios, greatly improving the security and scalability of the system.
Improved wallet user experience
Vitalik specifically mentioned in his speech that with the advancement of Ethereum technology, the user experience of wallets has also been greatly improved. The early Ethereum application interface was simple and the operation was complicated, but today's decentralized social platforms such as Firefly have provided users with more intuitive and easy-to-use interface designs. With the introduction of smart accounts and zero-knowledge proofs, the wallet's functions have become more and more abundant, and its security has also been significantly improved.
Current Challenges: Towards a Unified Cross-L2 Ecosystem
The future of Ethereum is a unified ecosystem, not multiple independent chains.
— Vitalik Buterin
Although Ethereum has made significant progress on the technical level, Vitalik also emphasized some challenges facing the current ecosystem. Today's Ethereum network is more like 34 different chains . Users need to go through a complex process when operating across chains, which not only affects the user experience, but may also lead to erroneous operations. In order to solve these problems, Vitalik pointed out that the future Ethereum should develop into a unified ecosystem, breaking down the barriers between chains and enabling users to enjoy a seamless cross-chain experience.
The core question he raised was: " How to improve the cross-chain user experience? " This has become one of the key issues for the future development of Ethereum.
Evolution of chain-specific addresses : Vitalik showed two possible future address formats, one is to use a prefix (such as oeth:) to identify the L2 address, and the other is to add the L2 chain identifier (such as @optimism.eth) after the address. Such as oeth :0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045 or 0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045 @optimism.eth ) These new schemes will simplify the operation process of users on different chains.
ERC-7683 cross-L2 protocol : Vitalik emphasized the importance of developing a universal cross-L2 protocol to standardize the interactions between different L2s, simplify developers’ work, and improve the interoperability of the overall ecosystem.
Improvements to light clients : Vitalik emphasized the importance of light clients in the future. He pointed out that current light clients (such as Helios) only support L1 , and will need to support L2 bridge contracts in the future. Through the merkle proof verification function, a more universal and efficient cross-chain mechanism can be created.
SNARK aggregation : The development of zero-knowledge proof technology is a force that cannot be ignored in the Ethereum ecosystem. Vitalik mentioned that SNARK aggregation will further improve the processing efficiency of on-chain data and provide better solutions for privacy protection at the application layer.
In addition, Vitalik specifically mentioned the innovations of Oracle and ENS in the application layer. On Layer 2, improvements in L1sload and staticcall will greatly improve the performance of Oracle, making on-chain data more accurate and efficient. At the same time, he also pointed out that the improvement of ENS in cross-L2 integration will further enhance users' decentralized domain name service experience.
The future of Ethereum: unified ecology and cross-L2 development
Looking to the future, Vitalik Buterin outlined the grand vision of Ethereum through L2 technology: Ethereum will be able to process more than 100,000 transactions per second, greatly improving transaction throughput. At the same time, the speed of cross-chain transfers will also be significantly improved, and users will be able to complete transfers from one chain to another within 2 seconds , enjoying a smoother experience. Vitalik emphasized that the future Ethereum ecosystem will provide a unified and seamless user experience and will no longer be limited to the operation of a single chain. In addition, the future Ethereum will not only rely on EVM, but will also surpass EVM in security, building a more robust and secure ecosystem to ensure the widespread use of Ethereum around the world.
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