Interpretation of Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum's latest views: Future development direction and key issues

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently shared some thoughts on the future development of Ethereum and the cryptocurrency industry on his personal blog and social media. Here are some of his key points summarized since July 2024:

Interoperability issues across Layer2 will be resolved.

Vitalik believes that the interoperability issue across L2s will soon no longer be a barrier. The entire Ethereum ecosystem (including Layer1, Rollups, Validium, and even sidechains) will achieve a seamless user experience, a development that may surprise many. He sees that the industry has invested tremendous energy and determination in this regard.

Political positions should not be based solely on attitudes toward crypto

Vitalik calls on supporters not to choose to support a political figure just because they support crypto. He believes that deeper goals and policy impacts should be the focus.

In recent years, "crypto" has become an important topic in political policy, with various regions considering the formulation of relevant regulations. While most bills are relatively reasonable, there are concerns that the government may take extreme measures.

However, Vitalik opposes determining political positions solely based on politicians' attitudes towards crypto assets. He believes this approach is risky and may go against the original intentions and values of entering the crypto space.

"Crypto" is not limited to crypto assets and blockchain.

Vitalik pointed out that the scope of "crypto" goes far beyond crypto assets and blockchain. He believes that excessive focus on the assets themselves and their free trading may overlook other important applications of crypto technology.

Cryptography originated from the cypherpunk movement and embodies a spirit of technological libertarianism. Satoshi Nakamoto emphasized that we should not overstate the risks of the system being influenced by monopolies, nor should we expect to solve all political issues through cryptography.

Cryptographic assets are just one application scenario of decentralized networks.

Vitalik emphasized that freedom is important, and decentralized networks can effectively protect freedom, while crypto assets are just one important application scenario.

He listed several technical freedoms that are as important as the freedom to use crypto assets, such as freedom of communication and privacy, privacy-friendly digital identity, access to high-quality information, and freedom of thought. In particular, freedom of thought and privacy will become increasingly important in the coming decades.

Vitalik calls for not just thinking about the issues from the perspective of crypto assets, but considering them from the fundamental goals of crypto technology and the overall policy implications.

The current crypto-friendly attitude does not represent long-term support

Vitalik reminds us that just because politicians are friendly towards crypto now, it doesn't mean they will be in the future. He suggests looking at politicians' views on crypto assets from five years ago, especially their attitudes on the topic of "supporting freedom" versus "supporting corporations."

The key is to consider whether the reasons politicians support cryptocurrency are correct, and whether their vision for future technology, politics, and economic development aligns with yours. If there is a long-term positive vision, then it is worth supporting; if not, it is better to remain neutral or seek better allies.

Views on Circle STARK

Vitalik believes that compared to regular STARKs, Circle STARKs will not introduce too much additional complexity for developers. Although the underlying mathematics is somewhat counterintuitive, this complexity is well encapsulated, and developers do not need to engage with it directly.

He pointed out that the efficiency of the base layer of STARKs is approaching its limits. Future optimization efforts may focus on higher-level tasks such as efficiently implementing basic operations like hash functions and signatures, improving recursive constructions to enhance parallelism, and optimizing virtual machine arithmetic to improve the developer experience.

Simplicity is the key to a powerful ecosystem

At the Ethereum community conference, Vitalik emphasized the importance of simplicity. He believes that to build a strong ecosystem, it is essential to keep things simple and avoid excessive complex random hooks and backward compatibility.

Although Ethereum has already become a quite decentralized and international ecosystem, there are still some weaknesses that need to be addressed. For example, becoming a validator requires 32 Ether, which is a high threshold for individuals; moreover, running a node is still technically quite complex.

Vitalik's views reflect his thoughtful consideration of the future development of Ethereum and the entire cryptocurrency industry. He focuses not only on technological innovation but also on community building and the policy environment, hoping to continuously improve the Ethereum ecosystem to make it stronger, more user-friendly, and more inclusive.