Original Title: "EP31: Revisiting Ethereum: What Are the Bullish Reasons for ETH Today?"

Source: Mint Ventures

· Host: Alex, Research Partner at Mint Ventures

· Guests: Zhou Qi, Founder of EthStorage; Lawrence, Researcher at Mint Ventures

· Recording Date: 2025.6.5

· Disclaimer: The content discussed in this podcast does not represent the views of the guests' respective organizations, nor does it constitute any investment advice regarding the projects mentioned.

Hello everyone, welcome to "WEB3 Mint To Be" brought to you by Mint Ventures. Here, through persistent inquiry and in-depth thinking, we clarify facts, explore realities, and seek consensus within the WEB3 world. We aim to unravel the logic behind hot topics, offer insights beyond the surface events, and present diverse perspectives.

Alex: In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Zhou, the founder of EthStorage, and our researcher Lawrence. We will discuss a blue-chip asset that every crypto investor is deeply concerned about—Ethereum. As we know, Ethereum’s overall performance in this cycle hasn’t been stellar. Its exchange rate has consistently underperformed compared to BTC and, for most of the time, lags behind competitors like Solana. However, Ethereum has undergone several notable changes recently—for instance, Vitalik has taken a firm stance on Layer 1 scalability, alongside structural reorganizations and staff reductions, signaling a pragmatic approach to operations. Could this be a turning point for Ethereum to rebuild its price momentum? Before we dive into the discussion, let’s have our two guests introduce themselves to our audience. Dr. Zhou, let’s start with you.

Zhou Qi: Hello everyone, I’m Zhou Qi, founder of EthStorage. I’m thrilled to share some of our insights on Ethereum with you today, as well as updates on our recent work around Ethereum. Back in 2017 and 2018, we conducted in-depth research into Ethereum’s technology, including its scalability roadmap—from Layer 2 solutions to the current Layer 1 advancements. We’ve contributed to many Ethereum research efforts and received significant support from the Ethereum ecosystem, such as research in Data Availability (DA) and collaborations with OP Stack, for which we’ve earned multiple grants. So today, I’m delighted to share some relatively unique perspectives from our explorations in this space.

Lawrence: Hello everyone, I'm Lawrence from Mint Ventures. I'm thrilled to discuss this topic today alongside Dr. Zhou.

Why Ethereum is Underperforming BTC and SOL This Cycle

Alex: Let's dive right into today's main topic. Before we discuss the bullish reasons for Ethereum's outlook, let's first break down the problems Ethereum currently faces. In your opinion, why has Ethereum significantly underperformed both BTC and Solana in this cycle? Dr. Zhou, would you like to start with your thoughts on this question?

Qi Zhou: I think there are a few key reasons. First, Ethereum's roadmap, particularly one centered around Layer 2, seems to have diverged from Ethereum's core value proposition. This is actually something I discussed with Vitalik last month during East Asia, and he shared similar thoughts. For instance, before the EIP-4844 upgrade last year, Ethereum was in a relatively deflationary state. However, after the 4844 upgrade went live, the transaction fees for L2s submitting data to Ethereum significantly dropped, which inadvertently resulted in many of the values on L2s not being reflected on Ethereum itself. For example, many L2 projects like Base and Arbitrum have managed to capture a significant amount of user transaction fees, but these fees did not flow back to bolster Ethereum's intrinsic value. This has created a fundamental misalignment of incentives.

Secondly, from Ethereum’s perspective, its exceptional performance in the previous cycle might have influenced its current trajectory, leading to slower progress in certain areas, particularly on the engineering front. Back then, Ethereum didn't face substantial challengers, whether from Bitcoin or Solana. But in this cycle, many community members have expressed frustration with Ethereum's slow pace of change. The roadmap is carefully planned out, but actual engineering implementations often take years to materialize. Each upgrade seems to require one to two years to realize its intended functionality. In contrast, Solana has adopted a much more aggressive engineering approach, while Ethereum remains more research-driven, with less emphasis on rapid engineering execution. This dynamic has significantly delayed Ethereum's overall development and roadmap progress. I can personally attest to these challenges; for example, over the past few years, we've worked on several EIPs for Ethereum, including EthStorage. We can elaborate more on this later. But to summarize, these two aspects are the main reasons behind Ethereum’s lag this cycle.

Lawrence: The two points that Zhou Bo just mentioned are also exactly what I wanted to highlight. Another critical factor I think is worth noting is that, in this cycle, there has generally been a lack of new business models or innovations on-chain. The richness and activity level of on-chain businesses have not significantly improved compared to 2021. In fact, if we exclude Meme trading, the activity and diversity of on-chain businesses might have even slightly decreased overall. Conversely, the fundamentals of Bitcoin (BTC) have seen substantial improvement. Given this dichotomy, the overall performance of all public chains has been poor. Even Solana, which has performed relatively well, is still at least 50% below its 2021 peak against BTC in terms of exchange rate; this cycle's peak is still 50% lower than the last one. This, I believe, is a common issue facing all Layer 1s in this cycle.

Additionally, the two other points Zhou Bo brought up are also worth emphasizing. One is Ethereum's strategic problem over the past two to three years—its Layer 2 strategy. To be quite frank, it can almost be judged as having failed. Another issue, which I summarize as more of a structural problem endemic to Ethereum rather than a short- to mid-term strategic issue, has been long-standing. I came across a lot of criticism on this topic recently, particularly from someone named Max Resnick, whose critique I find quite representative. Max, in fact, was previously a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation but transitioned to Solana at the end of 2024, joining Anza, the R&D-focused spin-off from Solana Labs. Even during his time at the Ethereum Foundation, he opposed the Rollup-centric strategy and instead advocated for Layer 1 expansion. He has some sharp criticisms about Ethereum. For instance, he argues that those responsible for designing Ethereum’s roadmap—specifically Vitalik—excel in blockchain and cryptographic research but are less experienced in computer science. This, in his view, has led to fundamental and factual misjudgments or missteps, including directional deviations, when it comes to improving blockchain performance. For example, the Ethereum Foundation has long considered the execution layer to be the bottleneck for enhancing Ethereum’s performance.

However, according to Max, the performance bottleneck clearly lies in the consensus layer. He also notes that Vitalik, and others shaping Ethereum’s roadmap, prioritize long-term, abstract goals while neglecting the current needs of users. For instance, Vitalik has frequently discussed privacy applications and social applications on his blog but rarely touches on DeFi. In reality, however, DeFi has consistently been the most-used sector on Ethereum’s mainnet. This issue became the subject of debate around July or August last year, with Vitalik and leaders from some top-tier DeFi projects discussing this very topic. All of this, combined with the points raised by Zhou Bo, contributes to Ethereum's relatively low R&D efficiency. On one hand, there is a significant disconnect between its research and development teams, resulting in a gap between what the research team works on and what the development team implements. On the other hand, Ethereum’s R&D progress is exceptionally slow, historically achieving only one major upgrade per year. For example, it took until the Shanghai upgrade in 2023 to finally close the chapter on Ethereum’s transition to Proof of Stake (POS), an initiative that Vitalik originally mentioned as early as 2015 or 2016. Since 2021, there have been very few major upgrades that people can recall: the Merge in 2022, the Shanghai upgrade in 2023, last year’s Cancun upgrade, and the recently concluded Pectra upgrade.

Overall, the development progress has been extremely slow, which has led to very high error correction costs, especially in terms of time. For example, regarding the Layer2 strategy issue we just mentioned, in the case of Ethereum: in 2020, Vitalik proposed a Rollup-centric approach, but related components didn't materialize until 2022, and now by 2025, people are realizing it doesn't work and needs to be changed. The amount of time wasted in this process is quite significant. Particularly when compared to chains like Solana or some of the new Layer1s, like Sui, the gap in development efficiency is approaching an order of magnitude. In other words, Ethereum might take ten times as long as other blockchains to make a decision and push it live. Of course, I think there are reasons for this. Ethereum, being the first significant public chain after Bitcoin, faces more issues, including regulatory concerns, and has always adhered to an extreme commitment to decentralization. However, judging by the outcomes, I feel that the issues just mentioned reflect long-term structural problems within the Ethereum Foundation or Ethereum's core team—those responsible for setting its roadmap. I roughly feel that there are three major causes for this.

Alex: OK, I might want to add one more point here. Lawrence just touched upon how the top-level ethos of the Ethereum Foundation shows an almost obsessive commitment to decentralization. Up until the last cycle, everyone still considered that one of the elements of blockchain legitimacy. However, a lot has changed this cycle. One significant change is the shift in the U.S. administration. This current U.S. administration has been very crypto-friendly, with relatively lenient regulation. As a result, during this specific administration's term, concerns like crackdowns on crypto projects and censorship resistance have become less pressing. Ethereum's extreme commitment to decentralization appears less necessary in this context. Comparatively, chains like Solana or Sui—while possibly less decentralized—offer significantly better efficiency and performance, which has turned into an advantage.

Moreover, looking at the long term, I believe that even if the next government transitions back to the Democrats, they will still recognize the importance of the crypto investor voter base in the U.S. In this context, I don’t think the new administration would implement the sort of severe crackdowns on crypto projects that we witnessed under figures like Gary Gensler during the previous cycle. Therefore, the necessity for decentralization is broadly diminishing as the industry evolves. If we examine many of the emerging projects from this cycle, like Ethena or the increasingly emphasized RWA narrative, they are essentially products of CeFi and DeFi integration. This trend is undeniable. The diminishing importance of decentralization as a narrative has, to a certain extent, weakened Ethereum's consensus in the market. This is also one of the reasons why Ethereum's narrative this cycle isn’t as strong as SOL’s.

Consensus and Dissent on Ethereum Issues

Alex: Let’s move on to the next question. We just discussed a lot of issues surrounding Ethereum, including its engineering capabilities, the direction of its development, and its relatively slow pace of error correction. Now that we’ve identified so many issues, where is the consensus among Ethereum leaders, the community, and developers? And where are the points of dissent? To put it more simply, what are the issues that the Ethereum core management, community, and developers unanimously agree upon as problems? Conversely, what issues remain contentious? For example, there may be something we perceive as an issue or a bottleneck, but Ethereum's current stance is that it is not a problem and is, in fact, a key feature they're focused on. What are your thoughts on this? Let’s start with Dr. Zhou.

Qi Zhou: In this wave, I think one important point is that Ethereum’s definition of decentralization has undergone significant change. A few years ago, Ethereum pursued decentralization in an almost idealistic, even somewhat religiously fervent, manner. I remember speaking with some people from Ethereum at the time; they mentioned their vision for Ethereum L1 to become a "minimum trust layer," where even simple devices like smartphones or embedded systems could function as Ethereum validators. But it’s clear that, especially after the challenge posed by platforms like Solana and in light of Ethereum's roadmap for scaling L1, a more pragmatic approach has been adopted to balance decentralization with execution efficiency. This includes strategies like continuously increasing the gas limit and implementing block-level access lists to accelerate transaction execution on the execution layer. These moves indicate a shift toward a more practical way of addressing trade-offs between decentralization and operational efficiency, which also implies the need for more powerful computing devices.

The immediate problem people are facing is this: You design an Ethereum consensus model where a smartphone or a $100 device could run as a validator, yet you need at least 32 ETH to become a validator. At the current price, this equates to nearly $10,000. This is clearly a mismatch. The computational capability of the device is not the bottleneck here. Rather, the barrier lies in the amount of ETH required to participate. Under this assumption, why not relax this limitation? For instance, why wouldn’t we allow computers costing $1,000, $2,000, or $3,000 to run nodes, while also scaling Ethereum L1's throughput by 2x, 3x, or even 10x? This is part of Ethereum’s upcoming plan: to make a pragmatic adjustment in the balance between decentralization and execution efficiency. For example, two years ago, we submitted a proposal to Ethereum through the ESP grant. The proposal was to research block-level access lists. Essentially, when packing a block, this technique would allow validators to be pre-informed about the data that will be accessed during transaction execution. This would enable them to utilize prefetching techniques to preload frequently accessed data, such as account balances. By doing so, random access operations can be processed in a highly concurrent manner, significantly improving execution efficiency.

Two years ago, we applied for just a funding of 10,000 yuan to research this issue. We believed this research would be valuable and helpful for Ethereum, but it was rejected without explanation. We speculated that Ethereum might have considered it to potentially impact decentralization and therefore not a top priority. However, at the beginning of this year, they suddenly expressed interest in pursuing research in this area and invited us to participate. This indicates that Ethereum's paradigm has shifted from an idealistic view of decentralization two years ago to a more practical perspective now. Especially with the improvement in computer performance and reduction in costs, which generally align with Moore's Law, sticking to Ethereum's original design framework—without dynamically adjusting gas limits or introducing block-level access lists—would bottleneck execution efficiency. This, in turn, would make it difficult to achieve possibilities like 10x scaling. I was quite surprised; a couple of years ago, I even wondered why they weren’t addressing this issue. I could only interpret their decision through their commitment to idealism at that time.

For the non-consensus parts, I believe Ethereum still carries a lot of “debt” — including technical debt, cognitive debt, and even brand debt. That is to say, when undergoing significant reforms, Ethereum often cannot outright deny itself. Similar situations can be found in history, such as China's reform and opening up or leadership transitions in the Soviet Union. We can observe that slow but steady reforms tend to be more effective than completely overwriting past efforts. For example, Ethereum currently adopts a multi-client roadmap. Both the execution layer and the consensus layer feature four or five clients written in different languages. But looking back at successful foundational software, such as Solana itself, the Linux operating system, or HDFS, they were often built using a single language and a unified testing framework. Their focus was on engineering efficiency. Ethereum, however, learned from the DAO attack incident and anticipated that relying on a single language could introduce systemic risks due to potential vulnerabilities specific to that language. Since Ethereum is still evolving very rapidly, unlike Bitcoin, which has largely cemented many of its functionalities, such precautions are deemed necessary.

As a result, Ethereum chooses to expend ten times the engineering effort to mitigate such risks. However, this approach demands five to ten times more engineering resources just to keep up with the pace of Solana. This is also why Ethereum upgrades are so slow. We've been directly involved in Ethereum's upgrade process, including EIP proposals, DevNet, and TestNet phases, and have noticed that coordinating implementations across different clients consumes enormous effort. For instance, during the recent Pectra upgrade, we found that Geth’s configurations were inconsistent with other clients, leading to desynchronization. This had to be fixed immediately, and it was eventually determined that the issue was on Geth’s side. These are trade-offs, and addressing them requires significant engineering effort.

This brings me to a question: is it absolutely necessary for fast-evolving software like Ethereum to avoid downtime? Solana has experienced multiple outages, and so have other projects. Perhaps we could allow for occasional downtimes, provided the recovery speed is quick. Meanwhile, maintaining a single client might enable faster iteration. This is fundamentally a software engineering question. I’ve noticed that Ethereum recently started recruiting roles like Chief Performance Developer, signaling a greater focus on addressing these progress issues from an engineering efficiency standpoint. Having worked in big tech companies myself, I know downtimes are commonplace. Even with abundant resources and engineers, issues still occur frequently. During training sessions, it’s often emphasized how often systems have gone down—for instance, Meta or Google systems being completely inaccessible for an hour is not unheard of. Addressing such challenges is a critical and ongoing debate, and consensus on this matter remains elusive.

Lawrence: I understand that the current consensus among the community is that the previous focus on Layer 2 strategies ought to shift. Because of this, I’ve noticed that the Ethereum Foundation has indeed initiated a series of actions recently. The community, in fact, has long harbored skepticism about this issue. Of course, there are still some uncertainties here—for example, the terminology used by the Ethereum Foundation regarding this matter. They referred to it as “Reprioritization,” which sounds rather mild. However, most people would describe it as a “Pivot,” signaling a shift that implies admitting past mistakes. But at least from the current practical actions, I believe that the focus on Layer 1 and abandoning the previous Rollup-Centric strategy is currently the most agreed-upon direction.

As for points without consensus, Dr. Zhou just mentioned them as well. I think the primary disagreement lies in the Ethereum Foundation's commitment to decentralization—how far they’re willing to go in sticking to these principles. As it stands now, it feels like there’s no consensus on this yet. In fact, many of Ethereum’s inefficiencies can be traced back to their adherence to decentralization principles. For example, whether it’s the execution layer or the consensus layer clients, they insist on decentralization and maintaining support for multiple clients. Simultaneously, they have long insisted on supporting Solo Stakers, making individual staker participation rates a key goal. This also affects efficiency because they need to coordinate numerous clients. I’ve personally been following Lido closely.

I think as of now, the Ethereum Foundation hasn’t shown a clear attitude towards some of these issues—for instance, not caring as much about Solo Stakers or suggesting that centralization might not be a problem. My sense is that Ethereum, at its inception, could only really be compared to Bitcoin. And Bitcoin, in its first few years, was always seen as a rebel against the global financial system. Therefore, Ethereum has emphasized anti-regulation and anti-censorship principles from the beginning. Compared to BTC, which lacks a central authority, Ethereum does have one, making it deeply concerned about being targeted by regulators. In general, it’s been extremely cautious. Over the last few years, some of Ethereum’s initial fears have indeed played out with Solana. For example, in 2023, the SEC explicitly categorized Solana as a security. This was a scenario Ethereum was historically highly concerned about, but now it seems like being labeled a security isn’t as big of an issue—Solana is still thriving. To what extent Ethereum can loosen its stance on decentralization—or make compromises—is something I haven’t seen extensively discussed. I think this will be a major medium- to long-term issue that will continue to impact Ethereum’s efficiency and other areas, and it’s one where no consensus has been reached yet.

A Timeline of Ethereum’s Reform Efforts

Alex: Ok, we’ve just discussed so many issues, as well as some areas of consensus both within the community and at the top levels of the Ethereum Foundation. So regarding these shared concerns, what strategies has Ethereum’s leadership already planned to address them? What’s the approximate timeline for these measures? For example, two recent events have garnered a lot of attention: the first is Vitalik’s mention of an intention to achieve a tenfold scalability improvement for Ethereum by the end of this year; the second is the recent restructuring and layoffs within the Ethereum Foundation. From your perspectives, what are some similar key events, and is there a shared expectation regarding their timelines? Let’s have Dr. Zhou address this question first.

Qi Zhou: The first point is about Ethereum's L1 scaling. As we can see, Ethereum has laid out a very clear roadmap, detailing how to increase the current Gas Limit from around 30 million to, say, 60 million, and gradually beyond. They also have corresponding EIPs to implement these improvements. Secondly, we can observe that Ethereum clients, such as Geth, are actively optimizing their current codebase. For example, we recently noticed an interesting phenomenon: all Ethereum clients have implemented some form of performance caching, essentially data caching. It's surprising to find that Geth's caching implementation wasn't particularly efficient over the past four to five years, but we haven't conducted deep analysis on this. As a result, the current transaction execution rate is approximately 100 million gas per second. If the gas limit for a block is raised to 100 million or even 200 million—for example, 10 times to 300 million—then simply processing and executing transactions in such a block could take around three seconds, potentially leading to block timeout issues. This is because Ethereum has strict timing constraints across block production, voting, and execution within a 12-second window, which could result in timeouts.

Interestingly, Nethermind has made some caching optimization improvements in their implementation, and almost magically achieved a 3 to 4 times performance boost, reaching levels of 400 to 500 million gas per second. These are figures that we have measured and validated. Earlier this month, or late last month, Geth released its latest updates, and after testing on our own machines, we verified that it's now hitting similar performance standards without altering any current consensus or execution layer specifications. It appears that Geth had not focused much on optimization in this area over the past four to five years, but once faced with some competitive pressure—as others demonstrated better results—they began optimizing aggressively, achieving a sudden 4 to 5 times increase in performance. Initially, when we saw Nethermind's 4 to 5 times performance improvement, we thought they might have used some "black magic" or that the data might be inaccurate. Later, we realized that everyone had simply been staying within their comfort zones without pushing limits. Under pressure, these advancements became achievable, illustrating how much faster performance can actually be. This suggests that we've validated, through data, that Ethereum can increase capacity by 3 to 4 times—or even 10 times—with relative ease. Previously, many believed that further increasing beyond 100 million gas per second by 10 times would lead to timeouts, but now this no longer seems to be a major concern. This is a very detailed perspective, which also highlights that such pressure has been a positive force for Ethereum's progress. While Solana may not have performed well in this instance, the competitive pressure it introduced could ultimately drive Ethereum to continuously improve, benefiting the entire industry as a whole.

Another story related to layoffs is worth sharing. We previously collaborated with the official Ethereum project, Portal Network, which primarily addressed data storage issues after Ethereum's scaling. Ethereum's historical transaction data is approximately 300G to 400G, and state data is also around 300G to 400G—bringing the total to nearly 1T. If the scaling increases tenfold, data will quickly exceed 2T or 3T. The ultimate goal was to store this data without compromising decentralization while reducing the costs for validator nodes and full nodes, thereby achieving a better decentralized scaling solution. We worked closely with them for about a year and a half to two years. Then, suddenly, on a Monday, they announced that the project was canceled, and all full-time members were laid off. This shows that Ethereum must have made a very firm decision internally—all solutions that cannot directly address scalability are currently not their top priority. Ethereum's determination in this regard is immense.

Lawrence: The current timeline provides only very general information, such as the mentioned goal to scale L1 by tenfold within a year and to scale by 100x in four years—or maybe two years. Dr. Zhou's earlier comments also illustrated Ethereum's past issues: for instance, the execution layer could easily have been optimized by over fivefold, yet this wasn’t addressed in past years. The solutions involve, on one hand, a strategic adjustment—a shift of L1 back to being the core strategy—and on the other hand, changes in organizational structure, including the addition of two new executive directors: Xiaowei Wang and Nethermind founder Tomasz Kajetan Stanczak. There have also been intensive layoffs in recent days. This morning, the Ethereum Foundation released a general policy statement regarding budgeting, and some time ago, the foundation underwent a reorganization and redistribution of personnel. A more specific timeline may depend on further detailed actions. However, for now, these two new executive directors have a two-year term starting this year. I believe their involvement will be beneficial for Ethereum's scalability goals, especially improving L1 performance. Unlike other researchers, these two have stronger R&D backgrounds. Xiaowei Wang has long been studying Ethereum scalability, particularly sharding research in earlier days; and Tomasz Stańczak's Nethermind client has recently brought significant disruption to other Ethereum clients. I believe their participation is a positive development for Ethereum's performance improvements and may lead to more tangible progress.

Is Ethereum Still Worth Betting On?

Alex: Considering everything we've discussed, Ethereum has its set of challenges but has also made significant improvements. Of course, it also has its strengths. Looking ahead at this stage, do you both still see Ethereum as promising? I mean specifically as an asset investment. What reasons do you see for continuing to bet on it? Among those reasons, are there any that you think the market currently overlooks? Dr. Zhou, let’s have you answer first.

Qi Zhou: My perspective on Ethereum is one of cautious optimism. From an optimistic standpoint, I think Ethereum represents a rare example of a decentralized, large-scale ecosystem enriched by contributions from a vibrant developer community. In some ways, it is one of the most commendable achievements within the entire Web3 industry. When I talk to studios that are less familiar with crypto, they often compare Ethereum to high-tech companies like NVIDIA, Apple, or Tesla. In this regard, I believe Ethereum benefits from a strong foundation and network effect. Personally, I feel that if our industry were limited to just Bitcoin without these new and exciting innovations, it would be far too boring.

Cautiously, I believe Ethereum’s history has brought together highly idealistic individuals who initially received excellent market feedback. However, as they gradually encounter real-world challenges, some overly idealistic ideas have been exposed. If the foundation cannot implement significant reforms, or if those reforms are insufficiently thorough, there could be potential backlash. I believe this is often tied to human nature—after reaching such heights, maintaining their original intentions and consistently working hard becomes a major test of resilience. So, in this aspect, I hold a cautious attitude toward Ethereum.

Lawrence: I'm still quite optimistic about Ethereum, though perhaps not as bullish as I was during the last cycle. One reason I remain optimistic is that there are still many exceptionally talented developers continuously building within the Ethereum ecosystem—people like Dr. Zhou, for example. I think this remains a key competitive advantage for Ethereum. Of course, we now see some new applications opting not to choose Ethereum, instead going directly to Solana or Sui. However, a significant portion of early contributors and talented developers who have long been involved in the crypto space are still developing within the Ethereum or EVM ecosystem. This is a crucial factor for Ethereum's long-term potential. The second reason is that, despite this cycle bringing many new types of applications that initially launch on Solana, financial-focused applications—including RWA, as well as newer developments like Ethena and arguably HyperLiquid—continue to see progress within the Ethereum ecosystem. Looking ahead, as regulatory relaxations gradually take effect, I expect more financial applications to lean toward Ethereum when choosing a blockchain. Lastly, I think in the short-to-medium term, we may soon witness noticeable improvements in Ethereum’s performance or reductions in transaction costs. This could lead to a strong, short-term rebound—a sort of "oversold bounce"—where market sentiment regarding Ethereum undergoes a positive shift in the near future.

However, like Dr. Zhou, I remain cautiously optimistic. While Ethereum has seen some changes in the short-to-medium term, it's hard to determine whether its long-term trajectory has truly shifted. For instance, what will happen after the two-year tenure of these newly appointed executive directors? And will Vitalik's personal characteristics evolve in the future? He might need to focus more on existing users and short-term metrics, rather than solely prioritizing esoteric long-term indicators. If these traits don’t change, or if Vitalik’s influence on Ethereum remains constant and his attitude does not adjust, it’s possible that Ethereum could, over a five-to-ten-year horizon, remain relatively slow-moving and overly conservative compared to competing chains like Solana and Sui. In that case, the early-cycle advantages Ethereum has enjoyed—whether in developer traction or the early establishment of financial applications—might gradually erode with each passing cycle. If Ethereum remains this slow and conservative in the next cycle, it might lose its appeal as a worthwhile investment target.

Under What Conditions Would You Increase Ethereum Holdings

Alex: OK, let’s return to a direct investment-related question. Ethereum's overall valuation relative to Bitcoin has been consistently declining. Now there are signs of some promising shifts. For both of you, what facts, data, or information in the future would give you enough confidence to decide to buy or increase your position in Ethereum, or even to raise its weighting within your overall crypto asset allocation? What might those facts, data, or pieces of information be?

Lawrence: Alright. I think if you're making a decision to buy ETH right now and rely solely on data, the data often lags significantly behind, meaning price appreciation might occur well before any corresponding data improvements. I’m looking forward to a scenario in which Vitalik one day surprisingly steps forward and says, "We’ve been doing things wrong, and now we’re deciding to take a different path." My current impression is that everyone has been telling him he’s doing it wrong, and now he seems to be cautiously trying out their suggestions. That's the sense I get. Vitalik’s influence on Ethereum still remains unmatched by anyone else. While his influence might slightly wane with the onboarding of the two new executive directors, for now, he remains the most impactful person in Ethereum. The types of facts or signals I’d like to see would involve Vitalik becoming more aggressive or, alternatively, seeing someone like Tomasz—who has a relatively aggressive approach—gain greater influence within Ethereum.

Another point I’d like to see is for Ethereum to make a mistake. I think they’ve been overly obsessed with avoiding mistakes, as if every decision has to be perfect and designed to last for 10 or even 100 years. They believe it’s acceptable to move slowly, as long as they don’t make errors. But I believe their obsession with this is excessive. As Dr. Zhou just mentioned, making mistakes is perfectly normal. Solana has experienced multiple outages, and even newer blockchains occasionally go offline, yet Ethereum remains overly cautious. I’d like to see Ethereum break away from its overly cautious approach and adopt a more aggressive stance. If I were to observe such signals from the decision-making level, I might consider increasing my position. However, since my current Ethereum holdings are already significant and represent a non-trivial proportion of my portfolio, I would weigh the timing of any additional buy-ins quite carefully.

Qi Zhou: From a valuation perspective, I believe that valuation in our industry is a completely new challenge. So when deciding whether to invest in Ethereum, there are two main factors I would consider. The first is the overall market trend. Ethereum has already achieved a significant network effect. As long as their trajectory remains practical and utility-driven, and investments are not made during a hype cycle, there should be considerable opportunities for investors. After several market cycles, I believe Ethereum still presents many opportunities. The second factor is whether Ethereum can maintain a practical approach to decision-making in the future. This raises some interesting issues, not exclusive to Ethereum but common among larger organizations or communities. For example, one of the reasons why many people are spreading FUD about Ethereum is that they feel there are opportunists around Vitalik who misuse or oversell his influence. Meanwhile, some newer community members feel that Vitalik has disconnected slightly from the broader community, leading to information asymmetry. There is too much noise surrounding Vitalik, and there lacks an effective system to identify and elevate the right or excellent people. I think this is a factual, objective situation that inevitably happens in any organization of a certain size. It's up to Vitalik to build a better team, listen to the community's voice, and address potential mistakes that may have already been made.

That said, I still hold the opinion that this process should be smoother. If we look back in history, a situation like Khrushchev’s could easily lead to community division. In this regard, Vitalik probably needs more introspection and reflection. A critical aspect is figuring out how to distinguish and recognize valuable input from the community, enabling more individuals and more organizations to participate in Ethereum more easily. Previously, I also thought that when Vitalik and his team designed Ethereum, they positioned Ethereum as a super-sovereign project. Vitalik seemed to keep a certain ideological distance from things that didn’t align with some of his principles. For instance, in recent times, when the U.S., under Trump, has done many crypto-friendly things like hosting events and holding hearings, I felt Vitalik maintained a relatively distant approach to such activities. Although I’ve seen him becoming much more active recently, traveling around, and engaging, I sense he remains somewhat hesitant on certain sensitive issues, like whether to set up an office in Hong Kong, attend Trump’s events, or participate in U.S. hearings. I’m not saying he’s opposing such things, but there does appear to be some hesitation.

In this process, the evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem cannot happen without the support of many local communities, including ordinary users, influential leaders, and regulatory bodies. I recall reading in one of his blogs that he had previously interacted with Russia and Putin quite a bit because of his Russian origins. However, after the Russia-Ukraine war, he vehemently opposed such actions and stated that he wouldn’t engage in similar interactions with sovereign entities in the future. Yet, I feel that an all-or-nothing stance like this isn’t particularly pragmatic. There’s an old saying in China: “Make as many friends as possible and as few enemies as possible.” With this in mind, I believe Ethereum still has a lot of room to grow and perform in the future.

Alex: Alright. Thank you both for your generous sharing on this topic today. We truly hope to have more opportunities in the future to invite you both to share your insights on other subjects. That’s it for today’s program. Thank you.

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