Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum does not aim to be the fastest, but to become the most secure and decentralized blockchain, with ZKVM dominating verification by 2028.

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

On the short-term roadmap, he introduced the account abstraction proposal EIP-8141, which can natively support smart contract wallets, quantum-resistant signature algorithms, and privacy protocols. Regarding quantum resistance, there are currently two signature schemes—hash-based and lattice-based—and the team is significantly improving their efficiency through EVM vectorization.

He revealed that ZKVM is already fast enough to prove real-time EVM execution. The goal this year is to ensure its security, with plans to start deployment on a small portion of the network, and by 2028, make it the main method for verification chains, allowing Ethereum to scale significantly without sacrificing decentralization. Regarding the long-term vision, Ethereum is actively using AI-generated mathematical proofs to formally verify software security, and pursuing full quantum safety and maximum simplicity, ensuring platform security does not depend on the continuous existence of any single team.