vitalik

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated in his opening speech at the 2026 Shanghai Blockchain Week that cryptographic technologies such as Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), obfuscation techniques, and iO, which were previously considered far from practical, are making rapid progress. Blockchain will also transition from primarily solving "who can send what assets" to an era where it can programmatically determine "who can see what information."Vitalik cited FOCIL (EIP-7805) as an example, stating that the plan involves 16 validators jointly providing a list of included transactions, reducing the ability of a single block builder to censor or delay transactions. He mentioned that in the next five years, more computations will be performed in parallel on user devices, memory pools, and block building stages, and Ethereum will continue to push for the final confirmation time to be significantly reduced from the current approximately 16 minutes to 8-32 seconds.

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, delivered a keynote speech at the 12th Global Blockchain Summit, stating that the blockchain was initially a primary tool. Although it has characteristics such as openness, neutrality, and security, it is not scalable and is completely transparent, lacking privacy protection mechanisms.Subsequently, privacy transactions and scalable verification brought by zero-knowledge proofs have changed this situation and have been transformed from planning into actual EIPs, included in the Ethereum roadmap. Technologies such as fully homomorphic encryption are also beginning to be applied, and indistinguishable obfuscation may also be applied on-chain in the future. Beyond privacy, the parallel construction and proof of blocks can make extreme scalability possible, and industry thinking has shifted from digital assets to digital assets plus information, from purely on-chain to user-end, transaction memory pools, a complete pipeline on-chain, and from who can send what to who can see what.Currently, blockchain has gradually evolved from a simple ledger to a cryptography-based secure computing network. With the development of AI, providing cryptographic rules to AI for automated formal verification can significantly enhance verification efficiency, allowing the chain to carry more possibilities.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to Paradigm Chief Technology Officer Georgios Konstantopoulos's question, "What room is there for the development of privacy from now on?" by stating that only by giving up can privacy truly be considered to be on the path to extinction. I will not give up on privacy; instead, I will further strengthen it.Earlier reports indicated that Vitalik updated the Ethereum roadmap in August, with quantum security, privacy protection, and native Rollups becoming future focuses.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated: As many people are learning about effective altruism, it is worth understanding the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi, who surprisingly approached the original effective altruists (especially those focused on global health rather than those concerned with AI risks).Vitalik noted that Mozi valued two goals: universal love, which means loving everyone and not just oneself or those similar or close to oneself; and the efficient use of limited resources to help people in the most effective way.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated that he disagrees with the common view that "AI hackers mean cybersecurity is doomed to fail." He believes that once people clarify their thoughts, cybersecurity naturally leans towards the defensive side, and anyone who continues to hold cryptocurrencies (including himself, with about 90% of his net worth) is implicitly betting on this point.Vitalik stated: If AI can prove the Navier-Stokes equations and Fermat's Last Theorem, it can also prove "this program is secure" as a mathematical theorem, even if the program is very complex. He used the encrypted communication application Signal as an example to illustrate that the definition of "security" is extremely complex, covering forged messages, active interference, server breaches, key leaks, hardware side channels, and more. The definition is smaller and more composable than the attack surface, and verifying whether the definition is sufficient is more feasible than directly scanning the code.He pointed out that historically, failures often occur because only the self-identified critical parts of security are verified while neglecting the rest of the code. Today, the entire program must be verified, including the database, network, and cache layers, which modern AI can achieve. This is not a competition to see who discovers vulnerabilities first, but rather to make the code itself more resilient. Vitalik stated that this is the direction for Ethereum in the coming years; without this step, especially for blockchains with scalability and privacy, there is no future. It is necessary to make the software truly secure, and significant progress has already been made.

Vitalik Buterin stated that the "killer application" of adversarial governance mechanism design theory may ultimately appear in the field of artificial intelligence safety. He believes there is a deep correspondence between governance mechanisms and artificial intelligence safety: both involve how "weaker principals" can achieve ideal outcomes from "stronger agents."In governance scenarios, the principal is a static algorithm, and the agent is a human; in artificial intelligence safety scenarios, the principal is humans and weaker large language models, while the agent is a stronger large language model. Vitalik pointed out that if the degree of collusion among agents can be limited, the system can achieve better outcomes, and this mechanism design conclusion may be transferable to the field of artificial intelligence safety.

Vitalik posted on the X platform, expressing the hope to include the recursive STARK memory pool proposal EIP-8288 in the Ethereum I-star upgrade, stating that it can be seen as the next step after Frames.This proposal allows quantum-safe signature data to be placed off-chain, reducing the cost of signatures; the fuel cost for quantum-safe privacy transactions is also expected to drop from about 10 million to tens of thousands. The proposal relies on frames and recursive STARK aggregated transaction dependencies, with nodes sending a STARK of about 100 to 300KB each time period; the on-chain overhead is one STARK and 96 bytes for each statement to be proven.

Silicon Valley angel investor Liron Shapira posted on X this morning, stating: "I assert (with 50% confidence): due to AI shaking the security and stability guarantees that people once believed Bitcoin had, the price of BTC will plummet more than 50% within the next two years."Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin rebutted this, saying: "I hold the completely opposite view. My fundamental reason is that, in the long run, I am quite optimistic about network security, and I believe the main challenge is how to smoothly transition through the transition period. Moreover, I believe BTC can at least properly handle all issues that do not require social consensus to resolve (for example, upgrading clients, mining pools, etc., to deal with network layer attacks fall into this category). Additionally, I believe the probability of hash algorithms or proof-of-work mechanisms being truly compromised is extremely low. I wanted to make a bet with you, but considering my current asset allocation (I guess you have the same view on Ethereum ETH), I have already staked about 90% of my wealth on this bet."

Vitalik recently updated EIP-8141 "Frame Transaction" proposal, with core improvements including atomic batch execution of up to 64 operations, social recovery (similar to Google account recovery, without the need for a mnemonic phrase), P256 quantum-resistant signatures, and the ability for anyone to pay gas fees for users, significantly enhancing the usability of Ethereum wallets.It is reported that the improvement proposal was co-authored by Vitalik, lightclient, and 10 other experts, and is planned to be included in the 2027 Hegotá upgrade, marking a significant native implementation of Ethereum account abstraction.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that the Poseidon hash function series, developed over many years, has generated significant practical value in Ethereum and other fields, and will continue to play a role in the coming years.Modern privacy protocols can quickly generate SNARK proofs on the client side, and Poseidon is one of the important reasons for this. Vitalik pointed out that today's general-purpose STARK has achieved extremely high performance, with the proof overhead for almost any batch computation reduced to three-digit levels, and it is expected to further drop to two-digit levels or even lower in the future, a development that has even exceeded expectations from the early 2020s.

Vitalik Buterin stated that recent discussions around transaction formats, including EIP-8141, the "future state" proposal, UTXO, PBT, key-controlled randomness, and recursive STARK memory pools, have helped the Ethereum community better understand the concepts of "actions" and "dependencies" in transactions. Dependencies can be processed in parallel, and some dependencies that do not require state access can be validated at the memory pool layer, potentially further compressing execution and data costs through STARK.Vitalik believes that Ethereum's future scalability needs to strike a balance between a dynamically flexible execution model and a more easily statically analyzable constrained model, providing lower gas costs for transactions and state access that can be statically analyzed. If EIP-8141 is designed properly, it will not only be a milestone achievement in a decade of account abstraction work but also prepare for decentralized-friendly large-scale scalability in the coming years.

Vitalik posted on the X platform, stating that recent research on transaction formats has led to a clearer understanding of "actions" and "dependencies" in Ethereum transactions, both of which can be optimized separately; signatures, UTXO's Merkle proofs, and ZK-SNARK or STARK belong to dependencies, while the call to send ETH belongs to actions.Dependencies can be processed in parallel, with state-related dependencies handled by the memory pool, while pure dependencies can be processed once at the memory pool layer and may be replaced by STARK proofs, thereby reducing execution and data processing. Vitalik pointed out that Ethereum's current scaling strategy needs to clearly distinguish between dynamic flexibility and static analyzability, with the latter achieving lower Gas costs; based on transaction volume, over 90% of Ethereum activities do not require dynamic flexibility. The EIP-8141 transaction type is developing towards a universal and minimalist call list, with new state types, recursive STARK memory pools, and key-controlled nonces also belonging to this direction.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a new article titled "Obfuscation (Part 3): Local Mixing," which delves into a cryptographic obfuscation technique being explored—"Local Mixing." He claims it may become a new foundational cryptographic tool following elliptic curves, RSA, and lattice-based cryptography.Vitalik states that current mainstream obfuscation techniques mainly rely on complex mathematical assumptions, often resulting in extremely high computational overhead. In contrast, Local Mixing adopts a completely different approach, not relying on elliptic curves, large integer factorization, or lattice cryptography. Instead, it draws on experiences from symmetric cryptography and hash function design, continuously shuffling, reconstructing, and hiding circuit structures to eliminate information leakage while maintaining functionality.The Local Mixing technique primarily includes steps such as reversibility, hardening, mixing, splitting, crossing walk, and "gadgetization." By introducing random structures into the circuit, rearranging logic gates, and employing nonlinear hiding mechanisms, it makes it difficult for attackers to recover the original computational logic.Vitalik points out that this technology is still in its early stages, with security not yet validated over the long term and facing challenges such as random attacks and linear analysis. However, he believes that Local Mixing represents a completely new path for cryptographic exploration, aiming to construct more efficient indistinguishable obfuscation (iO) schemes.If breakthroughs in Local Mixing technology are achieved, it could lead to new quantum-resistant public key encryption schemes and promote the development of general obfuscation techniques. The field still requires years of cryptanalysis and optimization validation, but AI-assisted research may significantly accelerate this maturation process. Vitalik states that obfuscation technology is seen as the "final frontier" of cryptography because, theoretically, other cryptographic primitives can be constructed based on obfuscation and one-way functions. Local Mixing may not only reduce the costs of traditional obfuscation schemes but could also become an important direction for future cryptographic infrastructure.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform, stating that the Bitcoin community deserves recognition for promoting the development of related technological concepts, including Utreexo and other UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) state optimization solutions. The scaling route currently being explored by Ethereum is integrating the advantages of different blockchain state models in practice.Vitalik Buterin pointed out that Ethereum hopes to simultaneously leverage the advantages of UTXO model states, dynamic states, and solutions between the two, enabling the vast majority of network activities to achieve "hyperscale" while not sacrificing decentralization, ease of node operation, and censorship resistance.Vitalik Buterin stated that future Ethereum scaling is not simply about copying a certain architecture, but rather aims to enhance throughput while maintaining the openness and security of the network by combining different design philosophies. Among them, Utreexo is a state compression solution proposed by the Bitcoin ecosystem, which reduces the storage burden on nodes by introducing accumulator technology, making full node operation more lightweight, and is considered beneficial for enhancing Bitcoin's long-term scalability.

Vitalik Buterin stated that he has compared the 2023 Ethereum roadmap with the current Strawmap, and while there is still a high degree of overlap in the overall direction, some priorities and technical paths have been clearly adjusted. This includes elevating the priority of quantum security, downplaying VDF and certain EVM improvements, and replacing old designs with unified binary trees, PBT, new state types, and other solutions.He pointed out that the most significant change in the current Strawmap is the emergence of several new topics not included in the 2023 roadmap, reflecting a shift in the focus of Ethereum's development. These new focal points include: stronger native privacy support, aggressive scaling in a post-quantum context, streamlined specifications for formal verification, Blob and Gas futures, native Rollup, and a more open design space around the future form of EVM.Vitalik also emphasized that Ethereum's scaling approach is shifting from "broadly scaling all activities" to "designing more easily scalable dedicated mechanisms for specific high-load scenarios," and views STARK proofs and AI-accelerated formal verification as important foundations for the protocol's future. Overall, this update indicates that the Ethereum roadmap is evolving towards quantum security, privacy-first, censorship resistance, high performance, and more simplified protocol design.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that Signal recently announced it is exploring allowing users to register accounts without a phone number. He welcomed this move, believing it helps reduce reliance on the highly oligopolistic system of phone numbers, lowers the identity security risks associated with SIM card swaps, and makes it more difficult for governments to pressure Signal to ban users based on nationality.Vitalik also pointed out that while this initiative is better for privacy protection than the current situation, it only achieves "confidentiality" and does not reach true anonymity, as metadata such as message sending time, frequency, and recipients could still be used for identity correlation. He believes that with the development of artificial intelligence technology, long-lasting anonymous accounts are becoming outdated, and the only defensible form of privacy is "message-by-message uncorrelatable," meaning that no one other than the sender and receiver knows the identities of the communicating parties. This direction is currently being explored and advanced by new communication tools and mixing network projects such as Session and SimpleX. Additionally, protection against spam and denial-of-service attacks will become the next key issues to address.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a new article introducing a novel cryptographic obfuscation technology called Diamond iO. This technology aims to address the extremely low efficiency of traditional indistinguishable obfuscation schemes, allowing programs to run while hiding internal logic and critical data. Although traditional iO technology possesses strong privacy protection capabilities, its operational costs are prohibitively high, making it nearly impractical. Diamond iO, by adopting more aggressive new cryptographic assumptions, enhances computational efficiency from "universe-level time consumption" to "planet-level time consumption," bringing it closer to practical application.Diamond iO is built on technologies such as Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) and Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). By encrypting programs, it allows users to execute the encrypted programs and obtain correct outputs without being able to view the internal code or hidden keys. This solution introduces a new input encoding mechanism and conditional decryption method, reducing computational complexity while ensuring the program logic remains hidden. Its core application scenarios include protecting programs that contain private keys, enabling secure software licensing, constructing trustless cryptographic services, and supporting blockchain and artificial intelligence systems with stronger privacy protection.However, Diamond iO is still in the early research stage, and its security relies on new cryptographic assumptions, including All-Product LWE and Evasive LWE, which require further research validation. At the same time, the technology still faces efficiency challenges such as high computational overhead and circuit depth limitations. Researchers believe that by optimizing underlying hash functions, improving homomorphic encryption schemes, and reducing security parameter requirements, Diamond iO is expected to become an important direction for advancing practical program obfuscation technology in the future.

Vitalik posted on the X platform stating that a new type of "high-level programming language" worth trying is a language compiled to Lean (or HOL, etc.), focusing on making it as easy as possible for humans to read definitions and theorems. Rather than proofs, because proofs only need to be correct, the key lies in the definitions and theorems themselves. The envisioned use is that AI outputs a large segment of proof, and the reader needs to understand as easily as possible which precise claims have actually been proven in these outputs.