V God bets on the next decade: will Ethereum reach one trillion?

On July 5, Vitalik Buterin released the Lean Ethereum roadmap, a reorganization of Ethereum's development over the next 3-4 years. I think it's important to take a closer look rather than just skimming through it, so you can better hold on to Ethereum.

First, why propose "Lean Ethereum"?

1. Nodes are becoming increasingly numerous and difficult to run;
2. Too many L2s
3. State keeps growing larger
4. Future quantum computing may threaten current signatures

Key focus areas:

1. Quantum security: Although Vitalik already published a quantum roadmap in February, here he highlights it again and mentions the core agenda, suggesting that the quantum threat may arrive faster than we expected.

2. Performance scaling: Originally, Vitalik thought L1 didn’t need to worry too much about speed, and scaling could be left to L2s. But now, he has changed his mind—he wants to increase L1's TPS to 10k and L2's TPS to 10 million. Finality will also be significantly improved to 10 seconds, currently 12 minutes (this will greatly reduce the risk of cross-chain bridges). Of course, this speed improvement was mentioned in previous roadmaps, but this time it also specifically explains which methods will be used.

3. Native privacy: Native support for private transactions, wallet-default privacy, and other designs.

4. State optimization: The state is growing larger, making it difficult to run a full node. So Vitalik plans to expire data that hasn’t been used for a long time (restoring it when needed).

5. Full ZK-ification: zk will become the core of Ethereum, including ZK-EVM and ZK-light clients.

Overall, these are the main updates, but after reading, I feel they are not much different from the previous roadmap—they are all following the designs from much earlier. So currently, Ethereum is one of the few public chains still adhering to its original vision.

Many people complain about Ethereum's speed, but improvements are actually underway. Ethereum's gas fees will also become cheaper in the future.

Many say L2s will become useless later, but from the current development perspective, L2s will not disappear. In the future, L2s will still be useful, for example, when handling applications requiring higher speeds (AI, high-frequency trading). L1 will be responsible for security and settlement, while L2s handle performance—this direction has not changed.

The next Ethereum upgrade is expected in the second half of 2026, currently estimated to launch in September, codenamed Glamsterdam. It mainly includes three updates:

1. ePBS: Writing the builder into the protocol to reduce MEV, handle larger blocks, and improve security.
2. BAL (Block-Level Access List): Parallel execution, faster synchronization, improving L1 efficiency.
3. Gas mechanism optimization: Resetting gas pricing, further reducing L1 fees.

This upgrade is a solid enhancement to L1 itself, so after this upgrade, it will certainly be bullish for Ethereum. And the timing is around September, which suggests Ethereum might take off.

It has already risen from a low of 1500 to 1800 fairly quickly, and the current 1500 appears to be forming a “bottom” pattern!

Don’t keep thinking Ethereum is not doing well. Don’t just look at its coin price performance. Although it has been hovering between 1200 and 5000 over the past few years, an innovative thing that continuously iterates and evolves is actually very powerful. As it evolves, it may break out from edge innovation to centralized breakout. When Ethereum becomes a global-level financial infrastructure, its market cap could surpass $1 trillion. Let’s wait and see!