Vitalik Buterin, Juan Benet, and Dominic Williams look forward to the development of the public chain ecosystem

Speakers: Vitalik Buterin, Juan Benet, Dominic Williams, founders of Ethereum, Protocol Labs, and DFINITY respectively

On October 26, during a roundtable forum at the 7th Wanxiang Blockchain Global Summit, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Protocol Labs founder Juan Benet, and DFINITY founder Dominic Williams engaged in an in-depth discussion on public chain technology innovation. Below is the organized text content.

Deng Chao (Host): Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon! I also want to say good morning and good evening to the guests online!

Hashkey is an investment institution based in Singapore and Hong Kong, one of the largest investment institutions in Asia and one of the most active globally in the blockchain field, currently having over 200 invested enterprises worldwide.

I am very honored to serve as the host for this roundtable discussion on public chain technology. Now, let's warmly welcome our guests for this roundtable: Vitalik Buterin, Dominic Williams, and Juan Benet.

As everyone knows, due to certain reasons, our guests cannot be present in person, but they can connect virtually and gather with people from different parts of the world and continents to discuss blockchain.

I believe that today our guests do not need any excessive introduction. As far as I know, Vitalik has never missed the Wanxiang Blockchain International Week; this is his seventh time. Dominic Williams is here for the third time, and Juan Benet should be here for the second time.

This roundtable is highly anticipated and a focal point of the International Week, not only because today's guests are the founders of the most important infrastructure and ecosystems in the blockchain space but also because we are always eager to hear their insights.

As the host today, I will ask questions related to blockchain technology, including questions about blockchain applications and ecosystems.

Without further ado, let's officially start today's roundtable discussion.

The first question I would like to ask all the guests is, since last year's Shanghai Blockchain International Week, what do you personally think is the most exciting progress in the blockchain field? Please share, Vitalik Buterin, Juan Benet, and Dominic Williams.

Vitalik Buterin: First of all, from the perspective of the Ethereum community, the biggest progress seen over the past year has been in PoS and scalability. These were merely theoretical concepts last year, with only a few testnets, but now they have become officially launched mainnets, and there is a lot of effort being made to integrate and merge with the current main chain, and it will soon enter the testing phase.

Even before this, PoS could run nodes on-chain and participate in the ecosystem. In terms of scalability, some Rollup projects have emerged, and these projects have officially launched, with some networks available for participation, allowing deposits and withdrawals.

Of course, there are still many issues to be completed and resolved, but significant progress has been made in these areas, transforming theory into tangible evidence that some networks exist and can be used by the public.

Overall, there has been a lot of progress in zero-knowledge proofs in blockchain, and this year's technology is always better than last year's. Discussions are now underway about using zero-knowledge proofs for security proofs and for virtual machine validation, which is also an important advancement in blockchain technology over the past year.

We see many technological advancements, and there are many different applications emerging in the ecosystem. The trend is positive, but it also means that technological advancements need to better meet application demands.

Deng Chao (Host): Thank you very much, Vitalik, Juan Benet.

Juan Benet: For us, regarding Filecoin, we just celebrated its first anniversary. A year and a half ago, we celebrated the anniversary of the mainnet launch, and now we have reached 12 AI bytes (sounds), which is a huge number. The data storage capacity is greater than all of Web 3.0 combined and can now compete with centralized storage, which is a significant advancement, as well as the overall scale of IPFS.

In addition, digital applications have also made significant progress, which is exciting. I completely agree with what Vitalik said about zero-knowledge proofs, cryptographic proofs, and cryptographic collaborations emerging like mushrooms after rain. Over the past few years, we have seen protocol advancements and technological progress, allowing the entire protocol to become fully private and verifiable, giving us many tools and opportunities to truly realize user-controlled systems.

The most interesting aspect is the general-purpose, verifiable, scalable computing and zero-knowledge proofs, which are also the most important advancements in programming languages and technology. I am very pleased to see this.

Lastly, I want to point out that the emergence of NFTs is very important, as they hold significant importance in society, economy, and culture because they represent the emergence of large-scale internet-native property ownership. NFTs initially emerged from the art field and have since extended to various domains, impacting real-world assets such as specific land and physical properties. This represents the beginning of a major trend, and in the next decade, we will see significant growth, and what we are witnessing now is just the evolution of this process.

Dominic Williams: I completely agree with what Vitalik and Juan just pointed out. For me, the most exciting progress is that the Internet Computer completed its genesis phase in May of this year, which is fundamentally significant for blockchain because the Internet Computer can realize the vision, mission, or "world computer." This was proposed about 6 or 7 years ago, and blockchain can serve as a technology stack that allows you to build all kinds of applications using smart contracts without relying on enterprise cloud applications or services (like AWS).

Today, you can use the Internet Computer to create social media and service systems. What sets the Internet Computer apart is its speed and efficiency, enabling linear scalability. As the number of nodes in the network increases, linear scalability can be achieved, theoretically allowing you to build applications similar to Facebook on the Internet Computer using smart contracts.

The Internet Computer has been driving change, and blockchain is just a part of the technology stack. Today, various DApps can run entirely in the cloud, whether you have centralized cloud services or private dedicated servers. When you encounter applications on the Internet Computer, you will find some website content provided by smart contracts. For example, there are chat services on the Internet Computer, which were completely unimaginable a few years ago, indicating that blockchain will become the future technology stack, representing a fundamental change.

This can partly be derived from the development of cryptographic technology itself. For example, the Dfinity Foundation has the largest team of cryptographic experts and Internet Computer-related specialists in the world, conducting in-depth research on cryptographic technologies and applying previously shelved cryptographic techniques to practical applications, creating the Internet Computer for professional purposes.

Deng Chao (Host): Thank you very much for the insights and observations from a technical and application perspective.

Next, I would like to ask some technical questions. First, please answer, Vitalik. This morning, I heard your keynote speech, and there were many discussions from the community regarding the expectations for Ethereum 2.0. The community has discussed Ethereum's scalability, state size, and layer two solutions. You mentioned Rollup this morning, and you also referred to other state-related solutions in the first half of this year.

My question is, could you share with us the current specific stage of the transition from Ethereum 1.0 to Ethereum 2.0?

Vitalik Buterin: Of course, no problem. We should not use the term Ethereum 2.0 because when we first introduced the term Ethereum 2.0, people expected it to represent a fundamental change from Ethereum 1.0, as if it were a transition from one chain to another. But now, in terms of the roadmap, it is more of a gradual and incremental development. While we will see a series of different changes, each change represents only a modification of one or more aspects.

From the application perspective, there haven't been many changes. For example, applications do not need to migrate or deploy anything extra to move their applications from the PoW chain to the PoS chain; Ethereum itself will become a PoS chain, and all applications will directly migrate to the PoS chain.

I don't actually think it represents a series of separate upgrades. I think the more important point is the transition to the PoS chain, which has two phases:

Phase One: Launching the PoS beacon chain, which was officially launched last year. The beacon chain has been running stably for 11 consecutive months, and soon there will be the first hard fork of the beacon chain.

Phase Two: The merge, which represents the process of moving the existing Ethereum ecosystem and all applications based on Ethereum from the PoW chain to the PoS chain. This is an automated process, representing another form of hard fork, and the process of the hard fork is automated.

This is actually the ultimate goal. In the past few months, progress has been made on the merge. We previously held workshops where all developers and researchers gathered to discuss how to proceed with the merge, and more testnets will be launched in the coming months to prepare for the merge, with significant progress made in this area.

One important aspect of what is called Ethereum 2.0 is sharding. Overall, the roadmap includes Rollup projects launched by independent communities, which can achieve the first step of scalability. For example, a single Rollup can achieve 10 times scalability, and with more advanced data compression techniques, the scalability of Rollups will further increase.

In addition, Ethereum's data sharding is expected to appear in 1-2 years, which can further achieve scalability. It is still in the early stages, but teams are working hard in this area.

Deng Chao (Host): The next question is for Dominic Williams. Dfinity has established the Internet Computer, which was just released recently. Can you share with us how the supercomputer differs from Web 2.0 computers?

Dominic Williams: First of all, the Internet Computer is a blockchain that allows services to be built on it and uses smart contracts. Smart contracts are a very new type of software with their own advantages.

Smart contracts run on decentralized networks, and they are all internet software that can be used to create systems and services, just like creating software, so smart contracts can also execute automatically.

We believe that due to the inherent advantages of smart contracts, all human social systems will be rebuilt to run on the blockchain. When designing the Internet Computer, we considered the architecture of the blockchain, which can serve as the entire technology stack.

What sets it apart from traditional blockchains is that it can provide users with interactive web pages and content through Internet Computer smart contracts, maximizing customer needs. For example, you can achieve full decentralization on the network while also using tokenized strategies.

We believe that blockchain is the new internet, and the Internet Computer is designed to integrate with Web 3.0 to provide higher performance services and content through blockchain and smart contracts.

In the coming months, smart contracts will be activated on the Internet Computer, and at that time, everyone will see how exciting it is.

Deng Chao (Host): It is primarily built for Web 3 users. Next, I would like to ask Juan Benet.

Protocol Labs and IPFS are very advanced in distributed storage, attracting many developers and users. Of course, there are still barriers to entry, such as potential costs for storage. How do you think we can help users and developers better reduce these barriers?

Juan Benet: Since the beginning of this year, you can store data more conveniently, and the storage costs are very low. In some cases, you can store information and data completely for free.

On one hand, we need to make people aware of its benefits. On the other hand, we need to help developers and users understand how to use these tools to gain benefits. There are now many tools available for developers.

So, over the past six months, we have seen many developers starting to use these tools, and many NFTs have also begun to be deployed on-chain.

Deng Chao (Host): You just mentioned NFTs. The next question is about applications. We know that in the past year, DeFi and NFTs have experienced significant development. How do you view the rise of DeFi and NFTs? Do you think they are progressing in the right direction? What advice would you give to DeFi and NFT teams?

Juan Benet: I think NFTs are fantastic and are a great example of using blockchain technology that can transcend different communities, which is why more and more people are starting to pay attention to NFTs.

You can apply NFTs to different scenarios, such as art exhibitions, museums, etc. At the same time, they can also be deployed in larger spaces and worlds. I think the only hope is to solve the problem of how people can use NFTs when they hold them and interact better in the digital space. Many objects will better integrate with NFTs, leading to a better metaverse, while also providing us with decentralized applications.

This is the phenomenon of NFTs in the digital realm, and I believe that in the future, NFTs will receive more and more attention. For example, your house can also become an NFT, which can be bought and traded.

All property rights in the world can be traded in this way.

I know that some films are produced through the structure of NFTs, so you can see that in the films, actors and staff work through the NFT network, ultimately empowering many great blockchain ideas.

Dominic Williams: I agree with what Juan Benet said; NFTs ensure that data can be traded better.

Another point about the Internet Computer is that I believe there will be some fantastic tokenization features launched on the Internet Computer in the future. For example, accounts in chat tools can be tokenized, allowing you to obtain tokens for file verification.

On the other hand, there are some services, "neural networks," that can integrate with DApps, allowing users to become owners of the services and part of the social application teams, better updating and iterating them.

Deng Chao (Host): Vitalik, do you think NFTs are developing in the right direction? What advice do you have for the teams?

Vitalik Buterin: I want to remind everyone that we should not assume that NFTs, in their current form, are financially sustainable. At the very least, they should exist through a cryptocurrency winter or multiple winters. The crypto world has developed for a long time, and there are some projects in this field that may look great for six months to a year, with a lot of funding coming in, but definitely within one to two years, they can quickly become obscure. Everyone should be patient and wait for us to truly see and understand what a long-term sustainable market for NFTs should look like.

Deng Chao (Host): Thank you very much. These projects can indeed provide real value, and if they can achieve sustainability, they can exist in the long term.

The next question is inspired by Dominic's keynote speech this morning, regarding applications. From the perspective of applications, when do you think the tipping point that triggers large-scale applications, potentially bringing tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of users into the blockchain will occur?

Dominic Williams: Many times, technological development often leads applications. What we see now is precisely the case.

For example, banks often use relatively outdated technologies like Cube and hire programmers with a few years of experience to fix bugs.

The simplest smart contracts and new software will be built on traditional IT technology stacks, and the new software and technology will have huge advantages. Blockchain will become a complete technology stack, and people will develop using smart contracts, which will sweep the world.

Of course, this vision will not be realized overnight. When I talk about the tipping point for blockchain, I do not mean that everything will be migrated to blockchain overnight. This trend will accelerate. Blockchain represents not only a new internet but also a new technology stack.

The key point is that when you develop using smart contracts, you often gain new capabilities, which means that when you develop, you reimagine these things.

When we reconstruct social media, games, and enterprise application systems, we will rethink what changes will occur in each specific use case.

I think the trend is gradual, but in the coming years, the trend will accelerate. Ten years from now, the whole world will look completely different, and no one will doubt that blockchain is not only the new internet but also the new technology stack.

Deng Chao (Host): Thank you very much, Dominic Williams. I would like to ask Juan Benet what you think the tipping point for large-scale applications is?

Juan Benet: I think blockchain systems indeed make many new technologies possible, allowing us to develop many new applications. Ultimately, human nature has not changed much; the same types of applications, the same scenarios, and the same use cases have not changed much.

I completely agree with what Dominic Williams said regarding social experiences, such as gaming. Gaming itself is a social activity, and participants in games are highly invested, with many people having years of experience in the gaming field, so gaming is a highly social domain where everyone is very engaged.

The emergence of TikTok and its rapid acquisition of a large number of users globally is a prime example. We will soon see blockchain-driven social media and social networks with billions of users worldwide, followed closely by gaming.

The most successful factor that can retain users long-term is the structure of the metaverse, which means that people have a new understanding of digital selves and digital identities, as well as a new understanding of digital assets and digital relationships. All of these are supported by the metaverse. People's thinking about the metaverse should not be confused with the applications, emails, social media, computers, and games you are used to; such thinking is incorrect. The metaverse represents a new computing environment, and in this new environment, there will be many applications, and metaverse applications will provide many interactions, immersive experiences, and immersive environments. In the world of the metaverse, everyone can have ownership of assets, which may also be programmable.

I think it can also be combined with VR and other AR technologies. All of this needs to be reinforced. The metaverse represents how you control space and interact with others, so the three keywords are gaming, social, and the metaverse.

Deng Chao (Host): I would like to ask Vitalik what you think the tipping point is?

Vitalik Buterin: I think the points that Dominic Williams and Juan Benet just mentioned, such as the application of social media, incorporate finance and blockchain social media, which presents huge opportunities. In addition, I also believe that there are significant opportunities in the gaming field, as well as in many current endeavors.

Deng Chao (Host): Thank you, Vitalik. I would like to add one more question regarding applications. You all touched on the topic of decentralization this morning, and I would like to hear your thoughts.

How do you view decentralization versus centralization? Do you think there should be some balance between the two? In developing applications, there has been ongoing discussion about the pros and cons of centralization and decentralization.

Vitalik Buterin: I think the trade-off depends on which layer of the technology stack you are working on. If you are working on the base layer, decentralization is crucial for you. If you are developing applications at the application layer, these applications are more user-facing, meaning that the applications will only interact directly with users. For you, decentralization may not be that important.

However, I do believe that if you can achieve decentralization without high costs, you should choose to do so. Of course, there are many situations where even if complete decentralization is not achieved, a reasonable principle is to apply various cryptographic technologies, zero-knowledge proofs, etc., to ensure that your application can provide stronger security guarantees and stronger privacy assurances.

Even in the blockchain field, there are already many examples and applications. For instance, many applications do rely on centralized servers, but the servers use zero-knowledge proofs to convince users that they can be trusted.

In addition, there are middleware applications where the users of these applications are not the end users but rather other application developers. For middleware development, complete decentralization is very important because in these cases, you not only want to achieve security but also need to achieve liveness. Security means that your application will not betray you, meaning that no one will steal your funds, while liveness means that the network can continue to operate.

Everything based on a single computer can achieve security guarantees, but cannot provide liveness guarantees. If a completely decentralized system is established, once the system goes live, it allows application developers and applications to connect. This will give application users more confidence, and if developed based on middleware, the applications will tend to last longer.

As an application developer, I hope you can focus on cryptographic technologies that can achieve a relatively trustless property for the system. Thank you very much!

Deng Chao (Host): The next question is about building ecosystems. Current blockchains hope to attract more stakeholders, such as investors, developers, users, etc. We can also see that there are some blockchain ecosystem funds now.

What do you think are the key elements for building a vibrant ecosystem?

Juan Benet: We are very focused on building a high-quality ecosystem that allows the community to grow better, considering the applications and services it hosts.

User experience is very important; it is crucial to understand what the developer's experience is like when building applications. I have seen many different ecosystems and learned about the issues different companies and teams face in building ecosystems. Initially, it involves many resources, documentation, and hackathon activities to solicit more projects while also getting to know more people in the system and establishing connections with them.

I hope hackathons are not only interesting but also very attractive, as this is very important for building a community.

We also hope to help developers understand how to use technology to realize their dreams. Hackathons are a great opportunity for many excellent applications to emerge, helping us identify more projects and better services. Through these projects, we can better collaborate to build the ecosystem and attract people to help us achieve community goals and accelerate the current process.

In this way, we can establish ecosystem funds. If someone wants to build an open-source technology stack, they can receive support from the ecosystem fund.

In summary, learning from each other through hackathons to discover excellent projects can then be integrated into the ecosystem. Many applications are created based on this process, which is a very good way to build a blockchain ecosystem. Because there are thousands of projects and many developers on the blockchain.

Deng Chao (Host): Implementing different strategies at different stages to achieve different goals. Next, Vitalik, what do you think? How can we better promote stakeholders to build ecosystems?

Vitalik Buterin: What Juan Benet just mentioned is very good. Ethereum will introduce some community members. In fact, from the beginning, we have collaborated with the Ethereum community and will also support the progress of different projects through the Ethereum Foundation.

There are also hackathon projects organized by Ethereum-related organizations, and sometimes subsidies are provided for projects and communities.

Of course, the foundation can do a lot, but ultimately what is needed is a fantastic community that can bring many ideas and great insights. For us, building the Ethereum ecosystem has taken several years and has been full of ups and downs.

Now, the scaling and Rollup teams are managed by different people and teams. The foundation's role in the ecosystem is to incentivize and encourage more projects while subsidizing more projects. It is not the center of the blockchain but rather provides some support from the periphery.

Dominic Williams: Juan Benet mentioned the process of building ecosystems, and we are also doing similar operations, with hackathons and many applications being built on the platform.

Our approach differs from mainstream blockchains in that many PoS blockchains provide many subsidies, hoping developers can build fully decentralized DApps to establish a nervous system, where all DApps create micro-economies that are completely decentralized.

Deng Chao (Host): For the audience and related teams, they can know that support can be obtained through the foundation. The next question is from an investment perspective. Traditional VCs and crypto VCs have different views and controversies. Besides financing, what role do VCs play in blockchain?

Vitalik Buterin: I think a very important example of VCs is that they provide funding to different projects. This type of VC is better than others because many VCs choose to invest based on project conditions, seeking short-term gains and then exiting. This is meaningless for the ecosystem.

We have conducted a lot of research and found that many projects are funded through VCs. This type of VC is beneficial for the Ethereum ecosystem, but I believe that in the future, we will return to the VC model to launch different projects, so VCs certainly have a very important role and significance.
I believe that VCs are still indispensable in the blockchain.

Dominic Williams: So DApps and other decentralized projects will obtain funding in this way. Generally, VCs will intervene early to help teams and projects get started.

What I am concerned about is that currently, there is still a bit too centralized investment, making it very difficult to identify truly decentralized services. In the future, VCs will intervene early in projects and will invest in blockchain as they did in the past.

Juan Benet: I personally believe that VCs are an important part of any technology ecosystem. Technological development requires financial support. I can recommend a book about the development and evolution of technology; good investments can accelerate technological development while shortening development time. Many teams will receive VC investments, and the best investors are those who can identify valuable projects, understand the value of the projects, and are willing to take risks to invest in projects, becoming part of the projects.

Typically, such investors may have relevant experience from the past and also understand the cycles of technological development, so they have the vision and courage to invest in projects, helping to create the next generation of technology.

It is not just about investment; on the other hand, financing often does not progress smoothly. For us, the best public investment platform is the strategy adopted by Alpha (sounds), as they will have project management, anticipate what will happen in the future, and better understand project progress, helping projects realize their visions.

I believe that all financing will help blockchain develop better. For blockchain, the mechanism is different; it does not require traditional companies or physical mechanisms for management. It can have DAOs, and as long as the ecosystem needs it, all financing channels are very meaningful. An important point is to establish a blockchain space where investors can find excellent projects and are willing to invest their money in them. For developers, I hope that through investment, their development programs can be used by the public.

Deng Chao (Host): VCs play a very important role in the blockchain ecosystem, but VCs also need to adapt to some changes in the blockchain ecosystem.

To save time, I would like to ask one last question. Looking ahead, where do you think the focus will be in the coming year?

Dominic Williams: In the next two to three months, two features will be launched: one is the TernCare (sounds) solution, mainly for DApp developers, who will have integrated tools to help them better develop applications. We know that many projects are waiting for the release of features to make their projects more decentralized. So, the focus is still on fully decentralized DApps.

Deng Chao (Host): Juan Benet, what about you? What will be your focus in the coming year?

Juan Benet: First, to expand the network's capabilities while making it very user-friendly, enabling developers to better build their applications.

Second, there needs to be better computation and verification on the network, which is also related to smart contracts. This will be achieved through EVM and other networks, allowing better application of smart contracts on top. This layer will perform computations and calculations through data, achieving linear scalability, which is an exciting change we are about to embrace.

Deng Chao (Host): And you, Vitalik?

Vitalik Buterin: First, the transition to PoS, as well as sharding and merging, moving the current Ethereum to the PoS chain. All of this has not yet happened, but it will be our ongoing focus. The Ethereum network will also have more security and higher efficiency.

Further scaling will allow people to use blockchain without paying high transaction fees. All of these are upcoming work to focus on, and of course, it will take time to achieve. Applications can become more user-friendly without sacrificing the benefits of blockchain.

Deng Chao (Host): That concludes all the content of the panel. Thank you very much to the three guests for sharing the latest developments in the blockchain industry with us. Let's give them a warm round of applause, and I hope to see you all again next year!