Vitalik's latest thought: Ethereum has fallen into path dependence, it's time to start over from first principles On March 6th, Vitalik released another long article directly pointing out the Ethereum community's long-standing mindset of "path dependence": always making gradual improvements on the existing ecosystem, rather than reimagining the possibilities of the application layer from a first principles perspective. He called on Ethereum users to "take off their suits and ties" and re-examine DeFi, decentralized social networking, identity authentication, and even the intersection of AI and privacy with a bolder and more open mindset. The full text is as follows: I believe that in the Ethereum world, we should maintain a bolder and more open mindset on many things, especially in the application layer and how we view our position in the world. The core attributes cannot be compromised: censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security (CROPS). We should not alienate the "open mind" into a state where people are unsure of what safety attributes L1 will still retain after one year. We should not ask ourselves questions like 'Do we really need a lightweight client to verify the correctness of the chain without trust?'. But especially at the application layer and the interface level between Ethereum and the external world, we should be more willing to fundamentally rethink various concepts and step out of our comfort zone. This includes technical issues, such as: 'What if the development of AI essentially means browser plugins and mobile wallets will disappear within a year?'? Last year's example was a shift in mindset - to consider privacy as the top priority alongside other security attributes. This means a completely different Ethereum application stack, as the entire technology stack has not been built around privacy so far. Alright, let's build a completely different Ethereum application stack! This year's example is the growing work on network layer privacy, both internally and externally within the Ethereum Foundation. This also includes application layer issues, such as: "What if the rest of DeFi is just a general-purpose futures market built on top of high-quality decentralized oracle machines and allows users to self organize on this basis? And what if the ideal decentralized oracle only performs M-of-N small-scale LLM SNARK verification on zk TLS data from several mainstream news websites? By the way, this is interrelated with the AI issue: one consequence of AI is that it pushes "applications" from discrete behavior categories with discrete UI to a continuous space. Therefore, the model of "fewer applications and relying on users to self organize" will inevitably expand as a paradigm. ）Another example this year is rethinking the role of L2 from scratch - what kind of L2 truly forms the greatest synergy and gain with Ethereum. This also involves cultural aspects. This is an important reason why I, @ AyaMiyagotchi, and others are deeply associated with the 'Milady incident'. Yes, this is a silly and cute meme. Yes, I find some Milady supporters' political views awkward, sometimes even blatantly kneeling and licking (of course, there are also other Milady supporters who are exactly the opposite). But its core underlying meaning, the 'information behind the information', is: take off your suit and tie. If you are wearing a suit and tie, then you are willing to grab the nearest wine glass and pour it onto your suit and tie, leaving yourself with no choice but to tear it off and regain your body's complete flexibility and freedom. The next time you are invited to a formal dinner gathering of wealthy people, really imagine yourself doing this. Write down the preconception of 'I am a plain person' on a piece of paper, knead it into a ball, and burn it. This psychological baptism will bring about an intellectual baptism - unlocking greater creativity and expanding the boundaries of possibilities. For too long, our algorithm on Ethereum has been: we have this existing ecosystem, what is the next logical step to make it even better? Now, our algorithm should be: we have this outstanding and will become even more outstanding L1, we have an increasingly rich set of tools - both built within our ecosystem and from outside - so, with everything we have today, what is the most valuable thing? If you were to write the chapter on applications in the 2014 Ethereum White Paper and think about meaningful things in DeFi, decentralized social networking, identity authentication, and other fields from a first principles perspective, what would you write? At least take this step: eliminate all concerns about path dependencies, pretend that the usage of the Ethereum chain is zero today, you are the first to propose or build applications, and see what emerges. Even if you are the one building today's existing applications, please do so. This is the way Ethereum regains its strength. Hot comment: @ dcposch: Regarding "wallets" and other aspects, zero path dependence -100% agree. Anyway, the usage is about zero, and many deep-rooted product decisions are completely wrong. Zero path dependence in off chain finance -100% opposed. The true "currency signal" that can bring liberating value to 100 million users inevitably involves smooth integration with fiat channels and issuer assets, which is beyond doubt. It doesn't have to stop here, nor does it have to be locked onto these things. It can be open-source and substantially better in terms of privacy, accessibility, and censorship resistance. But it must respect this specific path dependency - otherwise, we are just trapped on a geek island for self entertainment. @Vitalikburtern: Yes, I completely agree that integrating payment applications/wallets/Agent products targeting mainstream users with traditional finance, allowing users to deposit and withdraw funds, is completely reasonable. I hope we can get rid of path dependence, mainly on the historical path dependence of the Ethereum application/wallet ecosystem itself. For example, if you are only working on a payment application, you can explore not exposing the 0x address at all (perhaps only using a one-time address when recharging, but also being able to withdraw to someone else's address), and all payments are completed internally within Railgun or Aztec.