jakiro
Speaker: Vitalik; compilation: Deng Tong, Bitchain Vision
On September 18, 2024, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik gave a speech at the Token 2049 conference titled “Things that excite me in the next decade” and Bitchain Vitalik’s speech was as follows for readers.
As people often say, we are still in the early stages of blockchain development.At present, we are still building infrastructure, which is a major attempt.
We are in the early stages when encryption is truly available
You have to ask the question: Are we really in the early stages?I don’t think we’re in the early stages of the cryptocurrency industry, but we’re in the early stages of cryptocurrencies being really available.
I remember that in 2013, we were all excited about Bitcoin, the next major revolution in the payments field.People have made very amazing and serious efforts to make ordinary merchants around the world start to accept Bitcoin.Who remembers when we were in Berlin, a restaurant called felonious Monk Fish.This is actually the first Big Point restaurant I want.Back in 2013, you can be a proud Big Point restaurant and a proud Asian LGBT-friendly restaurant.So back then, people were very excited about it.So what happened?One way to answer this question is that we can see a little further.
In 2021, I have been to Argentina and this is my first time to go to Argentina.The first thing I noticed is that Argentines are not only very excited about cryptocurrencies, but are also actively using it on a large scale.
I walked around on Christmas day and the first coffee shop I noticed was open.I walked into the store, bought coffee and had desserts with my friends.
Now, they use currency, but not decentralized technology.It turns out that local Argentine people are using transfers from the traditional financial system.Why?Because the transfer of money in the traditional financial system is instant and free.I think this ultimately killed the initial wave of exploration that made everyone adopt Bitcoin as a currency.
Ethereum absolutely supports privacy-protected transactions.Therefore, it is undeniable that Gas has risen.Basically, a lot of things ended up failing because new situations emerged in 2024.
Optimism and Arbitrum are two major security milestones and are still in their first phase.Rollups are quickly becoming safer, and Rollups are actually finally affordable.In addition, another problem is the confirmation time of the transaction.
Now, this is after EIP 1559 is on the link, but this particular wallet has not actually been upgraded to EIP 1559.A large block appears every 10 minutes.So we have to wait 10 minutes, maybe even an hour, to confirm the transaction on Ethereum.In theory, the block time is 13 seconds, but because of the inefficiency in the past, sometimes you have to wait for a completely random time.If you are not lucky, it takes 5 minutes or even longer to trade.
On the left you can see the 2015 EtherTweet.It looks like a hockey fund demo.Now on the right, is Firefly (Farcaster + Twitter + Lens client).If you look at user interface quality like this – it looks like a Web Level 2 quality.This is a decentralized application.But at the same time, we’ve seen more progress this year.We are seeing more and more people using secure technology, we have better privacy protocols, and I can prove that you have a pass with zero knowledge, and then you can vote here.
Encryption technology does not equal efficiency
We think one mistake people make sometimes is to think of cryptocurrencies as efficiency technology.
Many people talked about this issue 10 years ago.So this is a random page from 2013 that just lists the benefits of accepting cryptocurrencies.Paying makes it easy to secure and control your funds, with zero or more fees or low fees to protect your identity.I think two of these four are other features unique to cryptocurrencies.The other two, they were unique to cryptocurrencies at the time.Although we have WeChat Pay, payment on centralized systems is getting better and better.However, in some places, payments and financing are still difficult.Why are they still difficult?This is not because technology is not available.This is basically because of the restrictions of global wars.
I think it’s important to remember,The benefits that encryption technology brings to the world have nothing to do with similar technological improvements.Because switching from a normal jet to a supersonic jet is a technological improvement.This is a different type of technology.
If you consider how blockchains are different from previous technologies, some of the technologies they are based on are sensational things, such as war, such as scramble.I think you will realize thatBlockchain is all about creating persistent structures that are very powerful.
The castle can be a museum that preserves the history of the whole of Europe for a thousand years.Digital castles can be likewise all these things, and digital castles of all types are things we can build on top of this area.
Ethereum’s vision: mainstream adoption + open source + decentralization
What should our team goals be?We need to meet the needs of mainstream adoption, and we need to adhere to open source and decentralized values.What does this mean?
Next, use the security of the wallet as an example.Historically, there are basically two ways to keep your money.One way is that you like crazy self-sovereignty, extremism.You write down mnemonic phrases and do everything offline.Carve your phrase on a piece of titanium, put the titanium into a lock box made of it, and you work, but put that box 10 meters underground and your cryptocurrency is safe.Another way is to take your cryptocurrencies and hand them over to someone who is trustworthy.
If you want to protect yourself from centralized actors, then you can do traditional self-management.If you really want to do this, you can put it in titanium and bury it 10 meters deep underground.So, what if you want to protect yourself from centralized exchanges?Do you want to have both?This requires a smart wallet with multiple protections.The multiple protection we do means you have multiple keys.For example, you might have six keys, four of which need to send a transaction.You can even make a rule that for all transactions, when we need a key, these keys can be any combination of keys that control existing services for friends and family.
You can actually gain the benefits of institutional trust, such as in decentralized social media, where you can set your recovery address and control your account as much as possible as your multi-signature.I personally trust my multi-signatures much more than any of my centralized accounts.
Example second payment.This is a demonstration.Example 3, Privacy Rules are used as a mechanism where users can prove they leave.Their withdrawal comes from some deposits and guarantees that their deposits are not from bad guys.
So, this is a way that allows you to provide a very high level of privacy to the average user and meet many important compliance needs.But there is actually no backdoor, for example, for zk social media, it is a zoo poll, it is a zoo pass.So we can prove that you are human, prove that you are a member of the community, solve the first-time proof problem to solve reputation issues while still protecting your privacy.You can have privacy and you can gain trust at the same time.
Example 5, If you are employer One, many technological improvements are happening that make Leader One perform better in reducing endurance, increasing time and capacity, while being more dispersed and ease-of-verification.These are the ecosystem theory and the direction I think cryptocurrencies will generally develop over the next 10 years.
We basically have two wrong paths: sacrifice practicality in exchange for decentralization and always be an ecosystem that is attractive to ourselves only.But we don’t have to be trapped in both options.We can have both decentralization and practicality.Thanks.
