V God abandons the speed race; the true moat of Ethereum is here

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s recent statements have drawn a clear line in this years-long “public chain speed race.” He explicitly states that Ethereum cannot, and should not, win solely through “faster speeds.” This shift reflects deep consideration of Ethereum’s long-term positioning.

Why Ethereum is abandoning the “speed competition”

Buterin’s core logic is straightforward: the laws of physics and the fundamental requirements of decentralization impose natural latency limits on public chain consensus mechanisms.

Dual constraints of physics and economics

Compressing block times faces multiple limitations. The speed of light itself, the geographic distribution of global nodes, the practical conditions of hardware running validation nodes at home, as well as the validator’s resistance to censorship and anonymity needs, all restrict how short block times can become. Buterin’s judgment is that even with optimized peer-to-peer networks and reduced validator counts per slot, block times can only be lowered to 2-4 seconds at most. Going below that encounters physical and economic bottlenecks that cannot be solved through engineering alone.

In other words, solutions claiming millisecond-level latency either sacrifice decentralization or security. Ethereum has chosen a different path.

Shift in positioning: from “transaction engine” to “world heartbeat”

This is a key mindset shift. Buterin redefines the Ethereum mainnet as a “world heartbeat,” rather than a high-frequency trading engine. This means Ethereum’s mission is not to process every transaction, but to provide a trusted settlement infrastructure for the world.

The true moat: bandwidth expansion

Since infinite compression of block times is impossible, what is Ethereum’s sustainable scaling direction? The answer is bandwidth expansion.

Technical roadmap has taken shape

Through technologies like PeerDAS (data availability sampling), zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), and zkEVM, Ethereum has found a path to achieve order-of-magnitude scaling while maintaining decentralization. This is not just theoretical.

The Fusaka upgrade was launched on the mainnet in December 2025, with tangible results:

• Over 110% increase in on-chain new addresses
• Daily active addresses consistently above 500,000
• Total value locked in DeFi stable at around $40 billion

These data points show that scaling solutions are not only technically feasible but also gaining real user engagement.

Magnitude of scalability improvements

By combining these technologies, Ethereum’s scalability can be increased by thousands of times without compromising decentralization. This far exceeds the benefits of merely reducing latency.

Division of labor between Layer 2 and localized scaling

Buterin also provides a clear ecosystem division: high-speed AI systems require city- or even building-scale local infrastructure, which cannot rely on the global synchronized main chain for instant interaction. This is precisely the purpose of Layer 2 networks.

The division model is as follows:

• Ethereum mainnet handles global trusted settlement
• Rollup ecosystem supports high-speed, localized, application-intensive scenarios
• Local chains handle applications with extremely high real-time requirements

This layered design ensures the security and decentralization of the base layer while providing flexible performance space for upper-layer applications.

Practical significance of institutional recognition

A detail worth noting: financial institutions like JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank have developed tokenized products based on Ethereum. This indicates that Ethereum’s positioning as “infrastructure” is gaining institutional recognition.

Current ETH market performance:

The continuous inflow of institutional funds reflects recognition of Ethereum’s long-term value. Over 26 million ETH are staked, accounting for 20% of circulating supply. These substantial commitments demonstrate that major investors and institutions are confident in Ethereum’s future.

Summary

Vitalik Buterin’s latest remarks essentially clarify that Ethereum’s core competitive advantage is not millisecond latency, but achieving global-scale trusted collaboration under decentralization. This clearer positioning actually signifies the maturity of the Ethereum ecosystem.

The speed race is prone to arms races, where anyone can claim to be faster. But sustainable, physics-based scaling solutions are the true moat. While Ethereum abandons the “speed competition,” it is actually strengthening its role as a global trusted infrastructure. This shift has profound implications for the long-term development of the Ethereum ecosystem.