Vitalik Buterin Highlights Significance of Next 5 Years

• Vitalik Buterin shared insights into Ethereum’s future at a recent conference, including the importance of keeping Ethereum true to its roots as mainstream companies enter the market.
• He revealed that the two areas that have surprised him the most are the success of meme coins and the rapid growth in zero-knowledge technology, with the latter exciting him the most.

Few people in crypto are more beloved and important than Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum. His insights on any topic usually set the industry standard, as Crypto News Flash has reported in the past. At a recent event, he delved into Ethereum’s growth and what the future holds for the network, as well as some of the aspects of the broader industry that excite him most.

Ethereum has expanded beyond crypto-native users and is now hosting applications for mainstream users. The latest to jump in is $9 trillion giant BlackRock, which announced a new fund on Ethereum last week. With all these influential players jumping in, Ethereum must stay true to its roots and maintain the decentralization that has been its main anchor, Buterin stated.

The Ethereum co-founder was speaking at ETHTaipei, an event in Taiwan’s capital for Ethereum developers and enthusiasts that ends today.

Buterin told the attendees that he envisions a future in which every participant in the ecosystem has a say and where the entire community sets the common rules. He also pointed out that Ethereum must abide by the laws that authorities set, acknowledging that the days of crypto and blockchain being beyond government reach are behind us.

The migration to proof of stake was integral to Ethereum’s survival. However, it came with its set of risks, none bigger than centralization, Buterin admitted. To counter this, he proposed rainbow staking, a conceptual implementation that would allow individual stakers to have a critical say in the network alongside the liquid-staking giants like Lido.

He stated:

The idea here is that you explicitly split up into two kinds of staking, and you call it heavy staking and light staking.

You basically try to explicitly separate those two and potentially require both heavy stakers and light stakers to sign off on a block in order for the block to get finalized. So you try to add the security of both of those approaches together.

Buterin Discusses Zero-Knowledge, Memecoins

Beyond Ethereum, Buterin discussed other aspects of the crypto industry. He told the attendees that one of the things that has surprised him the most is the success that meme coins have recorded. Five years ago, nobody would have envisioned a world where meme coins were among the most dominant coins in the market.

As Crypto News Flash has reported in recent months, meme coins have been the force behind the recent bull market. Some, like Dogwifhat, have gained over 600% in the past 30 days, while others, like Book of Meme, have gained over 13x.

On what excites him the most, Buterin singled out zero-knowledge technology. ZK, as it’s popularly known, allows users to prove something without revealing additional details, such as proving ownership of assets or identity, while keeping other aspects hidden.

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