Ethereum Founder Envisions the Future: Layer 2 Will Achieve Ultra-High Transaction Speeds

Since the launch of the Ethereum project in November 2013, it has undergone nearly a decade of development. At a recent blockchain summit, the co-founder of Ethereum reviewed the project's development history and looked ahead to the future.

Since the project's inception, Ethereum's main goal has always been to improve its technological foundation. From 2015 to 2017, the core focus of the Ethereum team has remained largely unchanged, including aspects such as scalability, privacy, and security. In 2022, Ethereum completed the transition from Proof of Work ( PoW ) to Proof of Stake ( PoS ), marking an important milestone.

In the past few years, Ethereum has made significant progress in several areas:

1. Transaction fees have been significantly reduced. With the introduction of Layer 2 solutions and the implementation of the EIP-4844 proposal, transaction fees have dropped from several dollars or even hundreds of dollars in the early days to about $0.01 now. This change creates possibilities for more application scenarios.

2. Improved transaction confirmation speed. By improving the protocol and introducing Layer 2, the transaction confirmation time has been shortened from several minutes initially to just a few seconds now, and in some cases, it can even be under 1 second.

3. User experience has significantly improved. From the early rudimentary interface to the now intuitive and friendly application, the user experience of the Ethereum ecosystem has undergone a qualitative leap.

4. Advances in smart accounts and account abstraction technology allow users to manage their assets more flexibly.

5. The development of zero-knowledge proof technology has transformed it from a theoretical concept into a practical tool, with widespread applications in areas such as identity verification.

Looking ahead, the development direction of Ethereum includes:

1. Achieve a transaction processing capacity of over 100,000 transactions per second through Layer 2 technology.

2. Achieve transfers between any Ethereum-compatible chains within 2 seconds.

3. Create a unified user experience and simplify cross-chain operations.

4. Expand the technical boundaries of Ethereum, not limited to EVM, with a greater focus on the security of connections.

The founder of Ethereum emphasized that current technological advancements offer new possibilities for many ideas that once failed. He encouraged developers and innovators to revisit projects that did not succeed in the past, as the current technological environment may yield different results.