Vitalik Buterin: The encryption industry has entered a new phase, and Ethereum needs to meet mainstream demands.

Vitalik Buterin recently delivered a keynote speech at the TOKEN2049 conference, discussing his views on the development of the encryption field over the next decade. He believes that the current crypto industry is no longer in its early stages but has entered a special period of development.

Buterin pointed out that Ethereum has existed as a project for over 10 years, and in the 15 years since the birth of Bitcoin, we have seen technologies like ChatGPT emerge from nothing, fundamentally changing people's understanding of artificial intelligence. Therefore, we must reassess the development stage of the encryption industry.

He reflected on his experience visiting Argentina in 2021, when he noticed that a group of people in the country were actively using encryption. However, the high transaction fees became a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of encryption. Buterin stated that this issue has significantly improved in 2024. The transaction fees for Ethereum have dropped from $10 to less than 1 cent, essentially approaching zero. Meanwhile, the main Layer 2 solutions have also reached important security milestones.

In addition to the fee issue, the transaction confirmation time has also been optimized. With the implementation of EIP-1559, the transaction confirmation time stabilizes between 5 to 15 seconds. If Layer 2 solutions are used, the confirmation time can even be shortened to 1 second. These improvements have brought the user experience of decentralized applications close to the quality level of Web2 products.

Buterin emphasized that the benefits brought by cryptocurrencies are not just technical improvements, but more importantly, they can create a robustness in the digital realm. Blockchain technology enables us to establish durable digital structures that are difficult to alter, and this characteristic can be used to build various types of digital councils and applications.

Regarding the future development direction, Buterin stated that the encryption industry needs to meet the demands of mainstream adoption while maintaining the values of open source and decentralization. He used wallet security as an example and proposed the concept of multi-signature smart wallets, believing that this approach can provide a better user experience while protecting user asset security.

Buterin also mentioned some ongoing technological improvements, such as reducing final confirmation times and increasing capacity, which will make the Ethereum mainnet more decentralized and easier to verify. He believes that these advancements represent the development direction of the entire encryption industry in the next decade.

Overall, Buterin's speech conveyed a clear message: the encryption industry has entered a new stage of development, which requires continuous optimization of technology and user experience while maintaining core values to meet the growing demand for mainstream adoption.