Written by: Techub News Compilation

Introduction

Recently, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin attended the "Level Up" podcast hosted by Medici Network in Singapore and participated in a live interview. This event comes at a pivotal time when the Ethereum ecosystem technologies are continuously evolving, and application scenarios are constantly expanding. As the spiritual leader of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin's remarks not only clarify Ethereum's current dual-track development logic of "commercialization" and "innovation" running in parallel but also respond to hot community topics such as Layer 2 development models, ETH value capture, and institutional influence, providing important insights for understanding Ethereum's next stage of development.

Summary

• Divides Ethereum applications into two main categories: "low-risk DeFi" and "experimental innovation," which support each other and together form a dual engine for ecological development.
• Low-risk DeFi has become the economic pillar of Ethereum, with its security significantly improved; experimental fields (such as decentralized social, prediction markets) represent Ethereum's long-term transformative potential.
• Optimistic about Layer 2's development, he emphasizes that it should form a synergistic relationship with the Ethereum mainnet, rather than a "parasitic" relationship, and supports a moderate increase in mainnet revenue through proposals.
• Believes the value of ETH stems from its "triple attributes" as the core collateral in DeFi, a native value store, and a means of paying transaction fees, and this composite narrative is its advantage.
• Holds an open attitude towards institutional adoption but warns of the need to pay attention to leverage risks and asset concentration issues, encouraging more decentralized staking methods to enhance network decentralization.

The Duet of Ethereum Applications: Low-Risk Pillars and Innovative Frontiers

In the interview, Vitalik Buterin first systematically articulated his observations on the current Ethereum application ecosystem. He categorized it into two main types, vividly outlining Ethereum's pragmatic yet ambitious dual nature.

The first category is "low-risk DeFi." This type of application does not aim to create products that do not exist in traditional finance but provides basic financial services such as savings, payments, and transactions in a more open, permissionless, globally accessible, and secure manner. Vitalik Buterin pointed out that in the early days of Ethereum, these applications inevitably had speculative characteristics due to the insufficient testing of technology. However, the situation has largely improved today. He cited data showing that in the past five years, the proportion of losses from DeFi hacking attacks relative to the total value locked (TVL) has dramatically decreased, indicating that the entire ecosystem has become more secure and reliable. Low-risk DeFi constitutes the economic pillar of Ethereum and its many participants, and is an important support for the value of ETH assets.

The second category encompasses all interesting and experimental things. This list is long and includes decentralized social media, prediction markets, zero-knowledge identity proofs (ZKID), Ethereum Name Service (ENS), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO), and many more. Many of these ideas were even mentioned in the Ethereum whitepaper, alongside many entirely new explorations. In Vitalik Buterin's view, this area is where creative energy shines, representing Ethereum's long-term, truly transformative potential—namely, exploring how to do things that benefit the world more than just "making it easier for people to hold US dollars."

He emphasized that these two categories are not separate but rather mutually supportive, forming a virtuous cycle. Low-risk DeFi provides a stable economic foundation for the entire ecosystem, while experimental innovation continuously explores boundaries and injects vitality. More importantly, as projects within the experimental category gradually mature, they have the capability to "migrate" and become part of low-risk DeFi. Ultimately, if everything can successfully migrate, low-risk DeFi will evolve into "low-risk civilization." This bidirectional engine ensures that Ethereum can currently provide significant value to users while continuing to be a hub for financial, social, and cultural innovation.

From Uniswap to Decentralized Social: Remembering the Breakthrough Moments from Zero to One

When asked about the iconic "from zero to one" application breakthroughs in Ethereum's history, Vitalik Buterin shared several examples that impressed him.

First and foremost is Uniswap. He specifically mentioned Uniswap V1, praising its ability to achieve seamless trading between different tokens on-chain with minimal technology (under 200 lines of code, with gas costs per transaction below 60,000), transforming the process from "very difficult" to "easy," being both clean and powerful. Vitalik Buterin believes this truly launched the entire DeFi wave.

Another example is the prediction market platform Polymarket. He is excited that Polymarket not only attracted the attention of crypto-native users but also successfully drew in mainstream audiences, including some political intellectuals who had previously criticized cryptocurrencies as "useless scams." This transformation from concept to large-scale practical application and the cognitive breakthroughs it brings feel remarkable to him.

In addition, the development of decentralized social media has also inspired him. From the initial concept to the emergence of operational platforms like Farcaster and Lens that provide excellent experiences, Vitalik Buterin stated that his frequency and enjoyment of visiting these platforms have even surpassed mainstream alternatives like Twitter. They effectively combined many advantages of decentralization.

Expanding the Low-Risk DeFi Landscape: Asset Diversification and User Experience Leap

How can the benefits of low-risk DeFi be brought to the next wave of tens of millions of users? Vitalik Buterin believes the key lies in two aspects: asset diversification and comprehensive enhancement of user experience.

In terms of assets, besides USD stablecoins, he looks forward to seeing more local currency stablecoins emerge, such as euros, yen, Singapore dollars, and currencies from African countries, and to achieve direct trading between them. Additionally, the introduction of synthetic assets (for example, weather-tracking assets that are practically useful for farmers and other groups) and traditional assets like stocks will significantly enrich the ecosystem.

In user experience and scalability, continuous improvement of the entire technology stack is required. He mentioned excellent work by teams like Celo in serving emerging economies while also noting that the Ethereum mainnet (L1) itself has improved its transaction processing capacity by 50% this year and will continue to grow. Vitalik Buterin drew an analogy to the development of the internet: audio and video calls were theoretically possible in the early 2000s, but it was only after continuous improvements in bandwidth, software, hardware, and all underlying technologies broke the critical point in the 2010s that it truly exploded. He believes that each sub-field in DeFi will follow the same path, and when all conditions are ripe, pre-existing ideas will rapidly gain popularity.

The Path of Synergy for Layer 2: From "Parasitic" to "Synergistic"

Addressing the hot development of Layer 2 (L2) within the ecosystem, especially the "enterprise-grade L2" launched by institutions like Coinbase, as well as community criticisms that "L2 is parasitic," Vitalik Buterin provided clear distinctions.

He believes there are "bad" and "good" ways to construct L2. The bad way is when a project bears all the work and costs of operating a completely independent network, but only nominally "proclaims" a connection to Ethereum, with no substantial close ties in reality. The good way, however, fully utilizes the security provided by Ethereum, ensuring that if L2 encounters issues, users can safely withdraw their assets and migrate elsewhere or operate on L1. Many newer L2s are actually doing this: they do not attempt to replicate the whole of Ethereum, but focus on genuinely being a "supplement" that works in synergy with the mainnet.

To achieve this synergy, a series of technical supports are needed, such as issuing assets on L1 to ensure cross-L2 portability; and the foundation is working to promote technologies that enable faster transfers and transactions between L2s. When these conditions are met, L2 can shift from a potential "parasitic" relationship to a strong "synergistic" relationship.

Regarding the fairness of the economic value (fees) that L2 brings to the Ethereum mainnet, Vitalik Buterin acknowledged that this is a legitimate concern. He supports an EIP proposal aimed at raising the minimum data blob fees, believing that charging appropriate fees on the mainnet is a more sustainable model. He further elaborated on the value narrative of ETH: ETH is both a core collateral in the entire DeFi application suite and a native value store for Ethereum, and it is also used to pay transaction fees. This combination of "triple attributes" (he referenced David Hoffman's "triplex asset" metaphor) is most beneficial for the economic system. Although he believes that even if Ethereum has virtually no income for years, ETH can still maintain its value, possessing income undoubtedly enhances its attractiveness, as exhibited during times of ETH deflation.

Institutional Involvement, ETH Narrative, and Future Outlook

In light of the increasing adoption of Wall Street institutions, Vitalik Buterin remarked that this is a "fascinating surprise" for him and not part of the original vision when building Ethereum. He believes this is one of Ethereum's ecological strengths—the ability to bring together people from diverse backgrounds to collaborate within the same ecosystem.

Addressing the potential risks of institutions heavily holding ETH through methods like spot ETFs, he highlighted two points: first, if institutions engage in high-risk leveraged operations, it may trigger systemic risks; secondly, there are dangers associated with asset concentration. He suggested mitigating concentration issues by encouraging a broader array of individuals and institutions to hold ETH, and specifically mentioned that validators should avoid concentrating assets with the same service provider. This is because Ethereum's staking penalty mechanism means that when more nodes fail simultaneously, each node's penalty will be higher. Therefore, adopting independent risk settings and decentralized staking actually aligns with the interests of each staker and can significantly enhance the decentralization of the Ethereum network.

Regarding whether ETH will surpass Bitcoin in market capitalization (i.e., "flippening"), Vitalik Buterin maintained his usual caution and humor, leaving the answer to "fate," without making specific predictions.

In conclusion, he reiterated Ethereum's core story: ETH is the collateral and native value store of this vast ecosystem, and everything that happens within the ecosystem makes ETH assets stronger. This composite and dynamic narrative may represent the unique resilience and charm that Ethereum displays in the face of a complex world.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。