This is an insightful and in-depth conversation.

The core members of the Ethereum Foundation point to a reality: Ethereum's role is evolving. From a simple blockchain to a global settlement infrastructure, this positioning has changed.

Settlement, security, consensus mechanisms—these tried-and-true elements have become stable after years of testing. Ethereum's maturity in these three areas needs no further explanation. The issue lies elsewhere.

Can transaction throughput keep up with the demands of the global market? That is the real bottleneck. It's not just a speed game, but whether the entire transaction ecosystem can support financial-grade loads when Ethereum serves as the underlying market infrastructure.

The industry is working on solving this problem. The new generation of transaction layer solutions is not about rehashing DeFi performance upgrades, but about systematically reconstructing the full chain of transaction confirmation, clearing, and risk control. This is infrastructure-level innovation, far beyond the scope of application layer optimizations.