I just saw a conversation Vitalik had at the Hong Kong EAG Ethereum Application Gathering, and his insights are quite profound.

He mentioned a very interesting analogy—what are people in the open-source hardware field doing? Building a completely locally operated computing box that can run AI and do whatever they want, even without internet access. The philosophy of Ethereum is actually based on the same logic.

But there's a key point that many people overlook: decentralization is not just a feature of Ethereum, but the fundamental reason for its existence. Vitalik emphasized that every layer—from the protocol layer, to the application layer, to the entire ecosystem—must embody this principle. Once decentralization is lost, Ethereum is just a less efficient centralized service, and what’s the point of that?

During the process of evolution and optimization, many improvements are necessary, but some things are non-negotiable bottom lines. Decentralization is one of those lines. Looking at the current ecosystem development, this logic is worth reflecting on—are many projects and applications gradually drifting away from their original ideals in pursuit of efficiency and user experience?

Recently, I’ve also been paying attention to the movements of some related assets on Gate.io. Projects with clear core philosophies are still more worth focusing on in the long run.