Vitalik envisions the future of Ethereum as a trust anchor for off-chain applications

Vitalik Buterin stated at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival that Ethereum's ultimate goal is to build a digital infrastructure where users do not need to trust any intermediaries, featuring "self-sovereignty," supporting various decentralized applications from finance, social interactions to identity verification, which will serve as trust anchors for off-chain applications (such as privacy voting, prediction markets, decentralized social).