9-4-2025 – At the ETHAsia 2025 event, held as part of the vibrant 2025 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, Vitalik Buterin, one of Ethereum’s visionary co-founders, took to the stage with a compelling keynote titled The Future of Ethereum L1. His address offered a deep dive into the possibilities awaiting Ethereum’s foundational Layer 1 (L1) network, painting a picture of a blockchain poised for transformative growth.
Buterin turned the spotlight on the ingenious mechanics driving Layer 2 (L2) solutions, noting how their reliance on the gap between production and verification could hold untapped promise for L1. He envisioned a future where these techniques, already boosting L2’s scalability, might bolster the core network itself. Far from rendering L2 obsolete, he argued, this evolution would carve out distinct roles for it—tackling massive operations beyond the reach of native data availability (DA), refining transaction sequencing with swift responsiveness while guarding against the pitfalls of maximal extractable value (MEV), and even experimenting with a rich array of virtual machine (VM) architectures.
His speech cast Ethereum’s infrastructure as a dynamic ecosystem, one where innovations born in the L2 realm could ripple back to enhance L1’s efficiency and versatility. With clarity and foresight, Buterin underscored a path forward that promises to strengthen the network’s backbone while keeping its broader framework adaptable and robust.
