Hello everyone, while the entire Web3 is arguing about whose transaction speed (TPS) is faster and whose fees are lower, Ethereum's founder Vitalik Buterin gave an extremely calm and even counterintuitive answer: "Ethereum is not meant to compete with high-frequency trading platforms; Ethereum does not strive to be the fastest."
On April 20, 2026, during the keynote speech at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, Vitalik threw out an ultimate proposition to global developers: in an era of AI explosion and approaching quantum computing, why do people really need Ethereum?
The answer he gave is: security, decentralization, and verifiability are the uncompromising bottom lines of Ethereum.
To realize the ultimate vision of becoming the 'world computer', Vitalik has detailed Ethereum's hardcore technology roadmap for the next five years.
Today, we break down the vast sea of stars of Ethereum with you.
1. Returning to the origin: What exactly is Ethereum?
In Vitalik's view, Ethereum is not merely a transfer network; it plays two irreplaceable social roles:
1. Global 'Public Bulletin Board (Data Availability).
Ethereum is an absolutely transparent and immutable super bulletin board. Anyone can pin transaction records, encrypted data, or even voting results on this board. Everyone in the network can see who published what at what time, and no one can retract it. The future killer application will definitely be a combination of 'on-chain bulletin board + off-chain processing'.
Taking prediction markets and electronic voting as examples: ballots are encrypted and posted on the chain (ensuring fair participation), but counting is done off-chain through cryptographic protocols (ensuring privacy).
2. The shared computing layer governed by code.
On Ethereum, assets (like ERC-20 tokens), identity credentials (like ENS domain names), and even control over a company (like DAO decentralized autonomous organizations) are all enforced by smart contract code. The core value lies in 'self-sovereignty'.
You do not need to trust banks, you do not need to trust Musk, and you do not even need to trust the Ethereum team; you only need to trust cold, hard mathematics and code. As long as the network is still there, your assets and rights are sacred and inviolable.
2. The three major hardcore battles in the next five years.
Since the positioning is as a world computer, the future evolution route of Ethereum is extremely clear: to enhance capacity without sacrificing decentralization, and to face two ultimate challenges - AI and quantum computing.
Battle One: Short-term smooth expansion.
Simply increasing block capacity and making Ethereum as centralized as an enterprise-level server is, in Vitalik's view, meaningless. True expansion is a refined one:
Increase Gas limits (network capacity): By optimizing the underlying pricing mechanism to allow the network to safely accommodate more transactions.
ePBS (separation of proposers and builders): This is an extremely cutting-edge upgrade. 💡 [Analysis] In the past, miners (validators) were responsible for both packaging transactions and producing blocks, holding significant power. ePBS separates these two roles: dedicated 'packagers' are responsible for selecting high-value transactions to package, while 'block producers' only confirm and seal. This greatly weakens single-point control, making Ethereum more decentralized and secure.
EIP-8141 (Account Abstraction): 💡 [Analysis] In the past, Ethereum wallets were extremely user-unfriendly, requiring ETH to pay for transaction fees. Account abstraction is like upgrading wallets, allowing 'others to help you pay transaction fees' or 'pay with other tokens', even natively supporting FaceID to unlock wallets.
Battle Two: The comprehensive arrival of ZK (Zero-Knowledge Proof).
If expansion is a physical upgrade, then zkEVM (Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine) is a dimensional reduction strike.
💡 [Analysis] zkEVM: It allows complex computations to be completed off-chain (such as Layer 2) in an instant, then only submits an extremely small and unforgeable 'mathematical proof (ZK Proof)' to the mainnet.
Vitalik emphasized that the future Ethereum should allow everyone to easily verify the operational status of the entire network. With sufficiently fast zkVM, by 2028, even your pocket smartphone or smart speaker at home (IoT devices) can instantly verify Ethereum's ledger without needing to purchase expensive supercomputers. This is true decentralization.
Battle Three: The life-and-death speed against 'quantum hegemony'.
Many people think quantum computers are still far away, but in the eyes of cryptographers, they are like the sword of Damocles hanging over the blockchain. Once quantum computing matures, existing blockchain private key encryption will be instantly cracked.
Ethereum has proactively initiated security upgrades for the **'post-quantum era'**:
Current post-quantum signatures are extremely bulky (a single signature takes up 3000 bytes and costs 200,000 Gas).
Ethereum is introducing more efficient signature algorithms (such as hash-based or lattice-based signatures) and preparing to write these complex algorithms directly into the Ethereum layer (EVM) to ensure that when true quantum attacks arrive, the assets of the entire network remain unbreakable.
3. AI Empowerment: Write code that is 'absolutely unhackable'
Security is Ethereum's highest belief.
The 'finality' pursued by Ethereum is that even in extreme disasters such as network outages or power failures, the network can still maintain consensus relying on even just 33% of nodes.
And in terms of code security, Vitalik mentioned an extremely exciting inflection point: the inclusion of AI. In the past, smart contract audits relied on human efforts, always at risk of hackers finding vulnerabilities. Now, Ethereum is introducing AI-assisted formal verification.
💡 [Analysis] Formal Verification: This is not ordinary testing, but using rigorous mathematical logic, starting from first principles, to exhaust all possible paths to prove that a piece of code 'absolutely cannot have vulnerabilities'.
Two years ago, this verification method was unable to be popularized due to its excessive human resource consumption. But now, with the terrifying computing power of AI, Ethereum is expected to write 'mathematically absolutely secure' code from the protocol level.
Conclusion: Not striving for the fastest blade, but being the most stable shield.
If you want to create a high-frequency trading casino or pursue millisecond-level latency centralized applications, Ethereum is definitely not your first choice.
But as Vitalik said at the end, Ethereum's destiny is to be a digital cornerstone that is 'always online and always reliable'.
Whether it is decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized identity (DID), prediction markets, or applications that carry the highest value contracts of humanity. When they need an 'absolutely neutral, absolutely secure' digital arbiter that can operate independently even without the support of large consortiums, Ethereum will be their only home.
The roadmap for the next four years has already been drawn. This evolutionary path of the 'world computer' may not be fast enough, but it is profound enough.
⚠️ [Disclaimer] The content of this article is sourced from Vitalik's keynote speech at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. It does not constitute any investment or operational advice, nor does it bear responsibility for the authenticity of the data. Please conduct independent research and make careful decisions.
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