Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, shared his vision for the future of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at the Devcon 2024 conference in Bangkok, Thailand. He highlighted the significant evolution of Ethereum since 2015, including its transition to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism and the adoption of Layer 2 (L2) solutions.

The Evolution of Ethereum

Buterin opened his talk by reflecting on Ethereum’s journey. In 2015, discussions in the community revolved around “uncle blocks”—orphaned blocks created by miners that didn’t make it to the main chain. Today, the conversation has shifted to L2 solutions, which greatly enhance the network’s capabilities.

“Layer 1 is not meant to be ultra-fast or handle a million transactions per second. L1 is primarily about decentralization and reliability,” Buterin emphasized.

L1 Productivity and Decentralization

Buterin underscored the importance of Layer 1 (L1) performance, citing scenarios where compromised L2 solutions require users to move assets back to L1, which must handle the load.

He noted that Ethereum has become significantly more decentralized since transitioning to PoS. Unlike earlier periods when the ecosystem was dominated by a single client, the network now has numerous small stakers and multiple clients.

“No other network has come close to Ethereum’s current level of decentralization,” Buterin stated.

He added that anyone can become a staker by running their own node without requiring high-performance hardware. Smaller pools with friends are also possible.

Lightweight Clients and Lowering the Staking Threshold

Buterin discussed plans to introduce lightweight clients that wouldn’t require downloading the entire blockchain history to verify transactions. However, he acknowledged the risks, such as if 51% of nodes change the network’s rules and lightweight clients follow them.

Addressing the current staking threshold of 32 ETH, Buterin admitted it remains high and suggested reducing it to 16 ETH or 24 ETH. In the future, solo-validator tools like Orbit SSF could lower the requirement to as little as 1 ETH.

“32 ETH is still high, even more so than it was two weeks ago,” Buterin remarked.

Priorities for Ethereum’s Future

Among Ethereum’s key future goals, Buterin highlighted:

Strengthening decentralization and resistance to censorship.
Enhancing quantum resilience.
Scaling the network to handle over 100,000 transactions per second using L2.
Developing applications such as social networks and payment systems.

“We’ve spent a lot of time on the technology, and we’ll continue to do so. Now is the time to build. Thank you,” Buterin concluded.

Additional Context

Earlier, Buterin published a series of essays titled “The Possible Future of the Ethereum Protocol,” exploring various aspects and directions for the network’s development.