Vitalik Buterin Accepts DappLearning Chinese Interview: Talks About Ethereum POS, Layer2, and Future Development

On April 7, 2025, Vitalik Buterin attended the Pop-X HK Research House event in Hong Kong, where he was interviewed by Yan, the founder of the DappLearning community. The following are the main points of the interview:

01 Views on POS Upgrade

Vitalik believes that the prices of BTC and ETH are unrelated to POW and POS. One challenge facing ETH is that successful applications on Ethereum may not bring sufficient value to ETH. In the future, more applications that support ETH holders and benefit the long-term value of ETH are needed.

02 PBS Architecture and Centralization Concerns

Vitalik explained the advantages of the PBS( proposer-builder separation ) architecture, and how to reduce centralization risks through validator decentralization and limiting the power of supernodes. He mentioned the Fossil concept, which separates the roles of selecting transactions and executing transactions, allowing small nodes to have the ability to independently choose transactions.

03 The Relationship between Layer 1 and Layer 2 and Future Directions

Vitalik pointed out that the current Layer 2 faces challenges such as slow security progress and interoperability issues. He believes that Layer 1 still needs to play an important role, and some high-value applications like DeFi are more suitable to run on Layer 1. Ethereum is promoting multiple Layer 1 scaling solutions, expecting to increase the gas limit by 10 times by 2026.

Vitalik revealed that Ethereum plans to implement the Pectra upgrade at the end of this month, and the Fusaka upgrade in Q3 or Q4. To accelerate the upgrade process, coordination between teams will be strengthened, and the upgrade strategy may be adjusted.

04 Perspectives on Cryptography and AI

Vitalik believes that ZK developers should focus on high-level languages without needing to understand the underlying details. He expressed concerns about the committee mechanisms of MPC and FHE. Regarding AI, Vitalik thinks it can bridge the gap between experts and newcomers, but it is necessary to consider the impact of the combination of AI, blockchain, and other technologies on society.

05 Expectations for the Ethereum Ecosystem

Vitalik urges developers to pay attention to the new opportunities in Ethereum, seeking application directions that have both user value and sustainable business models. He believes that developers now have more resources, and if they find good ideas and execute them well, the chances of success are high.