The latest chapter for Ethereum & highlights from Devcon SEA

Devcon has ever been a surviving reflection of Ethereum’s growth, challenges, and assemblage ambitions. It showcases the astir pressing topics, the newest innovations, and the radical gathering the aboriginal of decentralized technology. As Ethereum grows, truthful excessively does Devcon.

Two years ago, close earlier Devcon VI successful Bogotá, the Merge took Ethereum’s statement from impervious of enactment to impervious of stake. Devcon VI focused not lone connected the accomplishment of this milestone, but besides connected the adjacent innovations: aboriginal Layer-2 development, the instauration of Account Abstraction (AA), and the emergence of zero cognition proofs (ZKPs) arsenic an enlargement of Ethereum.

Fast guardant to today, Devcon SEA celebrated the ecosystem’s readiness to instrumentality connected the adjacent large challenges. The contented demonstrated however acold Ethereum has come, however Ethereum's L1 and L2s person advanced, however UX is improving, and however second-generation cryptographic primitives are enabling caller types of applications. The code has shifted from addressing foundational challenges to leveraging Ethereum for real-world impact.

In this blog post, we’ll research however Ethereum has grown since Devcon VI, what the cardinal outcomes of Devcon SEA are, which challenges remain, and however you tin lend truthful that we tin observe the adjacent section of Ethereum erstwhile we conscionable for Devcon again.

Looking backmost to Devcon VI: How acold we person come

Setting the stage, let’s bespeak connected wherever we were conscionable 2 years ago: Devcon VI was held successful Bogotá, Colombia, successful October 2022. It brought the Ethereum assemblage unneurotic to code cardinal method and governance challenges. At the time, the Merge had conscionable happened, and the lawsuit reflected the solemnisation of this transformative milestone and focused connected rising innovative technologies.

Devcon VI introduced large themes for the archetypal time, and presumption that galore hadn’t been acquainted with backmost then:

• Zero Knowledge Proofs were introduced to overmuch of the Ethereum ecosystem. They were conscionable becoming applicable and radical started to recognize their capabilities. There was nary notation yet of different cryptographic primitives similar Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) oregon Multi-Party Computation (MPC).
• Account Abstraction was caller and conscionable announced. Most radical hadn’t heard of EIP-4337, which hadn’t been implemented astatine that time.
• The Layer 2 ecosystem was successful its aboriginal stages with lone a fewer salient L2s similar Arbitrum and Optimism, and the L2-centric roadmap was kicked off.
• Staking infrastructure was nascent and determination were inactive uncertainties, with staking withdrawals not yet enabled.
• Censorship resistance, portion an aged topic, was connected everyone's caput with discussions astir OFAC compliance and Tornado Cash sanctions

Devcon SEA: Ethereum’s infrastructure is ready, present it’s clip for impact

Devcon SEA was held successful Bangkok, Thailand, successful November of 2024. Attendance doubled compared to Devcon VI (12,500 vs 6,000 attendees), demonstrating Ethereum's maturation and assemblage strength. One large extremity of Devcon SEA was to bring the full Ethereum ecosystem unneurotic successful 1 place, foster collaboration, and cross-pollination, and realign the assemblage to amended Ethereum for existent usage cases and interaction connected the world.

Since Devcon VI, the continued usage of PoS positive different upgrades similar Shanghai and Shapella person reduced vigor use, state fees, and improved UX. The L2 scenery has expanded, with full worth locked successful Ethereum L2 networks surpassing 51.5billion,a20551.5 billion, a 205% summation from 51.5billion,a20516.6 cardinal successful November 2023. Ethereum’s integration of ZKPs has advanced, and we present spot much real-world usage cases, with DeFi and stablecoins maturing, and gaming, integer identity, quadratic funding, and prediction markets emerging.

But implicit the past 2 years, the Ethereum assemblage has besides debated its absorption and priorities. While Layer 2s are cardinal for scaling, the emergence of caller L2s introduced divers subcultures, sparking discussions astir however to support unity. Many called for a return to Ethereum’s cypherpunk roots, focusing connected privacy, decentralization, and credible neutrality - values that immoderate felt were overshadowed by viewing Ethereum arsenic a merchandise alternatively than a protocol. There was a shared urgency to realign connected a unified purpose.

Devcon SEA aimed to code these debates by inviting the champion successful the ecosystem to stock their insights connected the astir applicable topics. Over 300 hours of contented from ecosystem experts, 17 Community Hubs organized by the community, 70 Impact Spaces, and thousands of conversations successful betwixt sessions were held successful the agelong hallways.

Devcon SEA sparked conversations astir the astir pressing challenges for Ethereum, controversies arsenic good arsenic achievements, and immoderate large announcements were made too. Justin Drake outlined his imaginativeness of a Beam Chain, and the Argot Collective, which is simply a caller enactment embodying galore of our shared values of Ethereum, introduced itself.

Read connected to observe the large outcomes of Devcon SEA, and which talks you should ticker to get up to velocity if you privation to lend to the remaining challenges wrong the respective topics.

Ethereum has scaled and Layer 2s are nett affirmative for Ethereum

Proto-danksharding, EIP-4844, blobs, and the roll-up centric roadmap - The scaling solutions highlighted astatine Devcon SEA showed however acold Ethereum has come. Layer 2s, which are scaling Ethereum, spot existent adoption. Daily idiosyncratic enactment has exploded successful size, and the full worth locked is increasing steadily. We person debased fees, and you tin nonstop 1, 100, oregon 1 cardinal dollars for little than a cent. All L2s are and volition beryllium secured by the Ethereum L1 Mainnet, which is durable and unafraid with implicit 1 cardinal validators and has ne'er gone down since its motorboat successful 2015.

There’s inactive overmuch to bash to recognize the rollup-centric roadmap, trim fragmentation, and summation security. Watch the beneath talks to fig retired however to lend to solving these challenges for Ethereum’s adjacent chapter:

• “Are Blobs Good for Ethereum?” sheet with Ansgar Dietrichs, Anthony Sassano, Tim Robinson, and 0xBreadguy
• “The REAL authorities of L2s” by Bartek Kiepuszewski
• “Unified Ethereum vs L2 Ecosystem Competition: Can we person both?” sheet with Ben Jones, Hart Lambur, Jesse Pollak, Steven Goldfeder, and Vitalik Buterin.
• "Advancing Ethereum Scalability: Architectural Innovation Trends successful the Layer 2" by Joshua Cheong

Ethereum is cypherpunk

Devcon SEA reminded america wherefore we are here, and wherefore we are gathering a decentralized future, focusing connected values similar credible neutrality, privacy, censorship resistance, unfastened access, and a cooperative mindset. Devcon SEA had a afloat programming track dedicated to this philosophy, and the Hacktivism Hub, organized by the community.

Talks to ticker to support up with the cypherpunk manifesto:

• "Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again: Why we request privacy" by Zac Williamson
• "Glass Houses and Tornados" by Peter Van Valkenburgh
• “Lessons learned from Tor” by Roger Dingledine
• "A New Cypherpunk Generation" by mf
• "Bringing Peer-to-Peer Networks to All the Peers" by Franck Royer

Apart from cypherpunk values, doctrine and ethos played a large relation astatine Devcon SEA. With Aya Miyaguchi, the enforcement manager of the Ethereum Foundation, expanding connected the doctrine of subtraction with her speech “Redefining boundaries successful the infinite garden,” explaining however the Ethereum Foundation works, and a afloat programming time dedicated to d/acc (defensive acceleration), the doctrine first introduced by Vitalik Buterin, focusing connected Ethereum arsenic a antiaircraft technology, accompanied by talks astir biodefense, decentralized AI, neurotech, and nationalist epistemics.

UX is getting acceptable for wide adoption

ERC 4337, ERC 7683, EIP 7702, ERC 3668 are conscionable a fewer examples of however Ethereum is becoming acceptable for users. Gas fees are low, UX is improving, and Devcon SEA made america excited for Ethereum feeling similar 1 concatenation again. The assemblage organized the Account Abstraction and Adoption Hubs and galore talks were focused connected making Ethereum approachable to mainstream audiences.

Social betterment is conscionable the start. Watch the beneath talks to larn however you tin lend to improving Ethereum’s UX, particularly if you’re processing a rollup oregon a wallet, to get connected velocity with caller developments successful UX and Account Abstraction:

• "Exploring the Future of Account Abstraction" by Yoav Weiss
• "Unifying Ethereum done Intents and ERC-7683" by Hart Lambur
• "The Chain Abstraction Master Plan" by Stephane Gosselin
• "EIP-7702: a method heavy dive" by lightclient
• "ERC-3668 connected Linea: built-in, trust-minimized L2 to L1 information retrieval" by Julien

The clip for real-world applications is now

Ethereum is for users, and the app ecosystem has ne'er been stronger than today, though still, we are conscionable tapping into Ethereum’s possibilities for real-world applications. Ethereum is made for galore things, and it’s a multi-purpose platform.

Ethereum is location to its astir mature usage cases: DeFi and stablecoins. DeFi is fiscal services and tools built connected Ethereum that everyone successful the satellite has entree to and that springiness radical greater power implicit their money. Ethereum has hundreds of teams moving connected DeFi protocols. Stablecoins, too, springiness each quality the state to transact and nonstop worth anyplace successful the world.

Ethereum is besides wherever caller usage cases hap and caller things are being invented, it is “where ideas participate production" (Josh Stark). We person decentralized societal platforms, on-chain games, integer individuality with ENS, Anon Adhaar, and zk passport, real-world infrastructure, quadratic backing with Gitcoin and clr.fund, and prediction markets similar Polymarket.

If you were wondering what are the apps that are presently being built connected Ethereum, oregon if you request inspiration to physique much dapps, present are immoderate talks to watch:

• “This twelvemonth successful Ethereum” by Josh Stark
• “Ethereum Real World Economy” sheet with DC Posh, Liam Horne, and Tim Beiko
• “Utilizing nationalist IDs successful the Ethereum ecosystem” sheet with Florent, Hiroyuki Tachibana, Michael Elliot, nico, and Yanis
• "Anon-Aadhaar Protocol Using Halo2 and Noir" by Hridam Basu
• "EVE Frontier - challenges, lessons and aboriginal of gathering an autonomous satellite connected Ethereum" by Hilmar Peterson and Justin Gilbert
• “Ethereum's Ultimate Gift Will Be Birthing Digital Matter” by Dhrumil Shah

Economics of Ethereum and ETH

The discussions astatine Devcon SEA reaffirmed the non-speculative worth of Ethereum and ETH successful the integer economy, with its dependable economical principles, robust incentives and alignment with semipermanent goals for decentralized ecosystems.

Talks to watch:

• "ETH is permissionless money" by Mike Neuder
• "Why Ethereum's issuance argumentation is [redacted]?" by Caspar Schwarz-Schilling and Ansgar Dietrichs
• "Are L2s extractive to Ethereum?" by Ren Crypto Fish

Second-generation cryptography enables caller types of applications

Devcon SEA featured thousands of cryptographic plushy frogs, distributed by the 0xPARC squad astir the Frogcrypto Hub. Attendees collected frogs, and each clip they scanned the QR code, they received a provable entity information (POD). Each Devcon summons was a POD wrong of Zupass, an exertion that enables users to securely store and negociate Proof-Carrying Data (PCD). These cryptographic principles person been theoretical for galore years and are yet becoming possible, and combined with Ethereum, we are present capable to physique applications that were ne'er imaginable before. While astatine Devcon VI lone ZKPs were connected everyone’s lips, arsenic of precise caller a caller procreation of cryptographic primitives similar FHE and MPC are being utilized to make decentralized, privacy-preserving computation and interoperability, unlocking innovative and analyzable usage cases for Ethereum-based user applications.

We are lone present realizing however overmuch is imaginable with second-generation cryptographic primitives and possibilities are extending our imagination. We request much radical gathering and combining ZKPs, second-gen crypto and Ethereum. If you privation to bash that, watch:

• “Programmable Cryptography and Ethereum” by Gubsheep
• "How to hallucinate a server" by Gubsheep
• "The cosmopolitan cryptographic adapter" by Justin Gilbert
• “Programmable Cryptography and Ethereum” sheet with Albert Ni, Barry Whitehat, Gubsheep, and Vitalik Buterin
• “Behind Zupass: Applied Cryptography For Consumers” by Richard Liu
• “Bringing real-world individuality on-chain” by Yanis

Ethereum is frontier tech

Devcon SEA was besides a level for interdisciplinary collaboration, wherever Ethereum was discussed alongside different frontier technologies and successful the discourse of the aboriginal of our society.

These sessions highlighted Ethereum's quality to animate and integrate with broader technological and societal challenges:

• "D/acc Discovery Day" with Vitalik Buterin, Vincent Weisser, Eli Dourado, Juan Benet and more
• "⿻Infinite Diversity successful Infinite Combinations" by Audrey Tang
• "Western liberalism to satellite liberalism" sheet with Afra Zhao Wang, Ahmed Gatnash, Bruno Maçães, Diego Fernandez, and Vitalik Buterin

The Ethereum assemblage is beardown and global

The Ethereum assemblage is not lone growing, it is expanding globally: At Devcon SEA, we welcomed 12,500 attendees with 60% experiencing their first-ever Devcon. Participants represented 135 countries, making this the astir planetary and divers Devcon to date.

The Ethereum assemblage is not lone divers successful nationalities and ethnicities - the interests, identities, and absorption areas are manifold with developers, protocol researchers, stakers, degens, regens, activists, artists, educators, and galore much being portion of the Ethereum community. Devcon SEA featured 17 Community Hubs, from the DeSci Hub, Global Majority Hub, and Onchain Creators Hub, to the Governance Geeks Hub, these were manifestations of the diverseness and ways to get progressive successful the Ethereum community. The Community Gardeners Hub focused connected Ethereum assemblage builders from each astir the world. In 2024, 73 section Ethereum events successful 44 countries were organized astir the globe. Our assemblage is decentralized and global, arsenic Ethereum itself.

Now is your accidental to signifier the aboriginal of Ethereum up to Devcon 8

Devcon SEA was not conscionable a snapshot of wherever Ethereum stands today, it offers a imaginativeness of wherever it could spell tomorrow. Devcon SEA showed however Ethereum is bringing ideas into action, and each subordinate carries the lessons learned astatine Devcon to proceed spreading the connection and advancing Ethereum's mission. And who knows, the adjacent idiosyncratic to interaction the aboriginal of Ethereum whitethorn person archetypal learned astir it astatine Devcon SEA.

Devcon SEA photos and resources

• Find photos from Devcon SEA here.
• You tin hunt and ticker each talks successful the Devcon Passport app.
• DEVAi is disposable to reply each Devcon-related questions, and volition soon person entree to each speech transcripts. You tin already get summaries of each talks successful the Passport app.
• Want to stock much insights astir Devcon talks? Go to the Devcon Collab Portal.

What's next?

Tl;dr:

• Devconnect 2025
• Devcon 2026

Devconnect is the other, wholly antithetic lawsuit that the Ethereum Foundation organizes. While Devcon is the ample lawsuit that brings everyone unneurotic successful 1 venue, Devconnect is much decentralized. Devconnect comprises galore antithetic events, focused connected antithetic Ethereum topics, organized by experts successful those fields. Devconnect is the clip to spell heavy into the taxable you’re astir acquainted with oregon privation to go an adept in, and articulation day-long events focused connected that domain.

Where volition Devconnect 2025 and Devcon 8 instrumentality place? You volition request to hold conscionable a small spot longer to find that out, and successful the meantime, you tin create your proposal for Devcon, Devconnect, oregon different Ethereum events to instrumentality spot successful your city.

Until adjacent time, xoxo

Deva the Devcon Unicorn & the Devcon team