From Technology to Philosophy: Vitalik Reveals Ethereum L1's Ten-Year Vision

On April 9, 2025, at the "2025 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival" ETHAsia 2025 event held in Hong Kong, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin delivered a keynote speech entitled "The Future of Ethereum L1". As one of the most influential technology pioneers in the global blockchain space, Buterin's presentation not only attracted the attention of developers, researchers, and industry leaders from all over the world, but also pointed out the direction for the future development of the Ethereum ecosystem. The speech focused on core topics such as the scalability improvement of Ethereum Layer 1 (L1), future planning and technology upgrades, the coordinated development of L1 and L2, and the far-reaching impact of account abstraction on user experience, showing the dual evolution of Ethereum at the technical and philosophical levels.

L1 Scalability: From the "Data Bottom" to the "Economic Hub"

In his speech, Vitalik first corrected a common misconception: with the widespread adoption of Layer 2 (L2) solutions, many people believe that the scalability of L1 is no longer a priority. However, he emphasized that even if most transaction activities occur on L2, L1, as the foundation of the Ethereum ecosystem, still plays a crucial role in performance and functional upgrades. He suggested that Ethereum L1 needs to transform from a mere "data layer" to an "economic hub," providing core services such as asset minting, cross-chain coordination, and liquidity pools for the L2 ecosystem.

To this end, Vitalik revealed a key plan in Ethereum's medium-term roadmap: to significantly increase the gas limit through a series of innovative proposals by 2026, while ensuring that the degree of decentralization of nodes is not affected. These proposals include Block-level Access Lists, Delayed Execution, and a multi-dimensional calldata design. These technology upgrades are designed to optimize the efficiency of L1 resource allocation, increase throughput, and lower the hardware threshold for running full nodes, thereby maintaining the core value of Ethereum's decentralization.

L1 and L2 Collaborative Development: The Vision of 12-Second Asynchronous Communication

Vitalik further explored the synergistic development between L1 and L2. He pointed out that one of the long-term goals of the Ethereum ecosystem is to achieve native asynchronous communication between L2 and L1 at the 12-second level. This goal will significantly enhance the coupling between the two layers, promoting more applications to deploy components simultaneously on L1 and L2. For example, users can achieve transaction delays of less than 12 seconds or better cost options through the "Intent Mode", while liquidity costs will be reduced to very low levels. This vision not only reflects breakthroughs at the technical level but also demonstrates Ethereum's focus on user experience and overall efficiency of the ecosystem.

He also mentioned that although L2 currently bears most of the transaction load, the capacity improvement of L1 is still crucial for the network's censorship resistance, L2's interoperability, and fundamental security functions. In February this year, Vitalik called for raising the Ethereum gas limit from 30 million to over 36 million on his blog, and this speech further reaffirmed that position. He believes that L1 and L2 are not in a competitive relationship, but rather are complementary ecological partners; only through co-evolution can the grand goal of Ethereum's "true Web3" be achieved.

Account abstraction: A revolutionary breakthrough in user experience.

From the perspective of user experience, Vitalik sees account abstraction as one of the core driving forces for the future of Ethereum. He stated that account abstraction is not just a technical upgrade but a revolution in user sovereignty. By blurring the lines between externally owned accounts (EOA) and smart contract accounts, users will gain greater flexibility and security. For instance, account abstraction can support multi-signature, social recovery features, and zero-knowledge proof (ZK-SNARK) based authentication, significantly reducing the risk of losing or having private keys stolen.

Vitalik illustrated that future Ethereum wallets will seamlessly integrate cross-L2 transactions, allowing users to complete payments simply by scanning a QR code or using an on-chain address, without the need to manually switch networks or pay complicated Gas fees. This "Venmo-like" experience combines the convenience of traditional Web2 with the autonomy of Web3, clearing obstacles for ordinary users to enter the crypto world. He also envisions that by 2034, the Ethereum wallet experience will achieve a perfect fusion of Web2 user-friendliness and Web3 security, fundamentally changing the way blockchain applications are adopted.

Philosophical Upgrade: The Balance of Decentralization and Cooperation

At the end of his speech, Vitalik elaborated on the challenges and visions faced by the Ethereum ecosystem from a philosophical perspective. He believes that the greatest strength of the Ethereum ecosystem lies in its diversity - from client teams to L2 developers, and to community organizations around the globe, everyone is working towards their own vision. However, how to integrate these decentralized forces into a unified ecosystem, rather than "138 incompatible domains," is the biggest social dilemma currently faced by Ethereum.

He called on the community to strengthen cooperation and standardization while maintaining the values of open source and decentralization. For example, he praised entities like L2beat, believing they play an important role in tracking project progress and promoting open standards. Vitalik stated that the future of Ethereum is not only the result of technological evolution but also a reflection of the community's shared values. "We are moving from 'fully functional' to 'fully experiential', which is not just a technological update but also a philosophical upgrade," he concluded.

From technological breakthroughs to optimizing user experience, and then to the collaborative development of L1 and L2, Vitalik Buterin's speech at ETHAsia 2025 is undoubtedly another milestone in the development of Ethereum. As he stated at the end: "The real Web3 is still on the way, but we have already taken a key step." The next decade for Ethereum will be a decade interwoven with technology and philosophy, and the evolution of L1 will become the cornerstone of this journey.

This article only represents the author's personal views and does not reflect the position and opinions of this platform. This article is for informational sharing only and does not constitute any investment advice to anyone.

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