Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum does not pursue the fastest, but aims to become the most secure and decentralized chain, achieving ZKVM dominant verification by 2028

live from the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, where Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin delivered a keynote speech. He defined Ethereum by two core functions: first, as a public bulletin board for applications to publish messages and data; second, as shared digital objects controlled by code, encompassing assets, NFTs, ENS, and DAOs. He emphasized that Ethereum's goal is not to compete with high-frequency trading platforms on speed, but to become the most secure, decentralized, and always-online trusted chain.

Regarding the short-term roadmap, he introduced the account abstraction proposal EIP-8141, which natively supports smart contract wallets, quantum-resistant signature algorithms, and privacy protocols; in terms of quantum resistance, there are currently two signature schemes based on hashing and lattice, and the team is significantly enhancing their efficiency through EVM vectorization.

He revealed that ZKVM is fast enough to prove real-time EVM execution, with this year's goal being to ensure its security, planning to start deployment from a small proportion of the network, aiming to become the main method of verification by 2028, allowing Ethereum to scale significantly without sacrificing decentralization. In terms of long-term vision, Ethereum is actively utilizing AI to generate mathematical proofs to formally verify software security and is pursuing complete quantum safety and maximum simplicity to ensure platform security does not rely on the continued existence of any single team.