Vitalik's latest thoughts: Ethereum has fallen into path dependence; it's time to start anew from first principles.

Analysis: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Highlights: On March 6, Vitalik published a long article directly pointing out the long-standing “path dependency” mindset in the Ethereum community: always making incremental improvements based on the existing ecosystem rather than reimagining application layer possibilities from first principles. He calls on Ethereum developers to “take off their suits and ties” and approach DeFi, decentralized social, identity verification, and even AI and privacy intersections with a bolder, more open mindset.

Full text below:

I believe that in the Ethereum world, we should maintain a bolder, more open mindset on many issues—especially at the application layer and in how we view our position in the world.

Core attributes are non-negotiable: Censorship resistance, Openness, Privacy, Security (CROPS). We should not distort “openness” into a state where people are uncertain about what security properties the Layer 1 will retain after a year. We should not ask ourselves questions like “Do we really need lightweight clients to trustlessly verify the chain?” But especially at the application layer and at the interface between Ethereum and the outside world, we should be more willing to fundamentally rethink concepts and step out of our comfort zones.

This includes technical directions, such as: “If AI development essentially means that browser plugins and mobile wallets will disappear within a year, what should we do?”

A year ago, an example was a shift in mindset—treating privacy as equally important as other security attributes. This implies a completely different Ethereum application stack, because so far, the entire tech stack has not been built around privacy. So, let’s build a radically different Ethereum application stack!

An example from this year is the growing work on network-layer privacy, both within the Ethereum Foundation and externally.

This also includes application-layer questions, such as: “If the rest of DeFi is basically a general futures market built on high-quality decentralized oracles, allowing users to self-organize on top of it, what would happen?” and “If the ideal decentralized oracle simply performs M-of-N SNARK verification on zk-TLS data from several mainstream news sites using small LLMs, what would that look like?”

(By the way, this is interconnected with AI topics: one consequence of AI is that it shifts “applications” from discrete UI-based behaviors to a continuous space. Therefore, the pattern of “building fewer apps and relying on user self-organization” will inevitably expand as a paradigm.)

Another example from this year is rethinking the role of L2 from scratch—what kind of L2 truly maximizes synergy and gains with Ethereum.

This also involves cultural aspects. This is a key reason why I, @AyaMiyagotchi, and others are deeply connected to the “milady thing.” Yes, it’s a silly meme. Yes, I find some of the political views of milady supporters awkward, sometimes even outright sycophantic (though there are others who oppose it). But the core underlying message—the “information behind the information”—is: take off your suit and tie. If you’re wearing a suit and tie, be willing to pick up the nearest glass of wine and splash it on your tie, leaving you no choice but to tear it off and regain your full bodily flexibility and freedom. Next time you’re invited to a formal dinner full of wealthy people, really imagine doing that. Write down the preconception of “being a decent person,” crumple it up, and burn it. This mental cleansing will lead to an intellectual awakening—unlocking greater creativity and expanding the boundaries of possibility.

For too long, our algorithm in Ethereum has been: we have this existing ecosystem, what’s the next step to make it a little better? Now, our algorithm should be: we have this excellent Layer 1 that will become even better, and a set of increasingly rich tools—both built within our ecosystem and from outside—so, with everything we currently have, what is the most valuable thing to do?

If you were to write the chapter on applications in the Ethereum white paper of 2014, starting from first principles and thinking about what truly meaningful in DeFi, decentralized social, identity verification, etc., what would you write? At least take this step: zero out all concerns about path dependency, pretend that Ethereum is being used zero today, and you are the first to propose or build an application—see what emerges. Even if you are the one building the current applications, do this.

This is how Ethereum becomes powerful again.

Popular comments:

@dcposch:

Zero out path dependency for “wallets” and similar—100% agree. Usage is roughly zero anyway, and many deeply ingrained product decisions are completely wrong.

Zero out path dependency in off-chain finance—100% disagree.

The truly liberating value signals for 100 million users will inevitably involve seamless integration with fiat channels and issuer assets—this is unquestionable. It doesn’t have to stop there, nor be locked into these things. It can be open source, substantially better in privacy, accessibility, and censorship resistance. But it must respect this particular path dependency—otherwise, we’re just stuck on a geek island, entertaining ourselves.

@vitalikburterin:

Yes, I completely agree. Payment applications/wallets/agent-type products aimed at mainstream users, integrated with traditional finance, allowing deposits and withdrawals, are entirely reasonable.

What I hope we shed is mainly the historical path dependency of the Ethereum application/wallet ecosystem itself.

For example: if you’re just building a payment app, explore completely not exposing 0x addresses (maybe only using a disposable address for deposits, and allowing withdrawals to others’ addresses), and perform all payments inside Railgun or Aztec.