What Vitalik talked about at last week’s Hong Kong Web3 Carnival was really interesting. He gave quite a specific explanation of Ethereum’s roadmap for the next five years.

First, what he emphasized was a redefinition of Ethereum’s essential role. In other words, Ethereum has two major functions. One is as a public bulletin board. Applications can post messages, and everyone can check the content and the order. In other words, things like transactions, hashes, encrypted data, and various other items can be posted.

The second is its aspect as a computation platform. This is about enabling shared digital objects that are controlled by code. Not only assets, tokens, and NFTs, but also the ability to represent control over organizations like DAOs. Because it has both of these aspects, Ethereum can guarantee autonomy, security, verifiability, and fair participation.

A standout short-term goal on the roadmap is data scaling. The groundwork has already been laid with PeerDAS, but it still needs further progress. Scaling computational capacity is also important, because it will allow applications to coordinate directly with each other without intermediaries. The rollout of zkEVM is also planned—Ethereum will be able to execute more complex computations while making it easier to verify on-chain information.

Addressing quantum security is also a core part of the long-term plan. Quantum-resistant signature algorithms already exist, but efficiency is the issue. While current signatures are 64 bytes, quantum-resistant signatures require 2000–3000 bytes. Gas costs would also be more than 200 times higher. However, they’re aiming to improve efficiency by leveraging vectorization and integrating it into the EVM.

Account abstraction (EIP-8141) is also getting attention. By separating transaction verification from execution, native support for smart contract wallets can be achieved. This also makes it easier to support quantum-resistant signature schemes and privacy protocols.

What Vitalik repeatedly emphasized is that Ethereum isn’t aiming to be the fastest—it’s aiming to be the most secure and decentralized chain. If the network is healthy, it can withstand 49% node failures. Even if problems occur, it can maintain 33% security.

They’re also putting effort into formal verification, and it seems they’ve started using artificial intelligence to generate code proofs. He said this was impossible two years ago. The basic principle is that the network must be trustworthy even without power.

The introduction of zkVM is also planned to roll out in stages. This year, it will start being used in part of the network, and the proportion will be increased gradually. By 2028, they expect to be able to significantly expand transaction processing capacity without compromising decentralization.

Overall, Ethereum is pursuing a vision of a world-scale computer. It’s not just a transaction platform—it’s a globally shared layer that makes commitments, publishes data, and records actions. It aims to be something that merges the bulletin board function with a computational foundation for executing rules.

By prioritizing security and decentralization, it provides users with the maximum possible security. While supporting a wide range of use cases—financial apps, decentralized SNS, identity, prediction markets—it also ensures self-sovereignty and verifiability. That vision is at the center of the roadmap for the next 4 years.