Ethereum, the decentralized technology that has fundamentally changed how people think about digital assets and finance, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Vitalik Buterin with a small group of developers at Ethereum’s inception in a small round Berlin loft. What began as an original dreamer’s 58 daily active user alpha project has turned into a juggernaut worth close to $420 billion, and counting. Over the last ten years, Ethereum has first changed into the spine of decentralized finance (DeFi), after which non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It runs the world’s tokenized markets today from the background.
Against that momentous backdrop, Buterin provided a keynote Valedictory address at Ethereum’s flagship conference. This ceremony, which was held at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, honored this historic milestone. During his speech, he announced the path forward for Ethereum. He pointed to the platform’s heightened commitment to protect its core values as an example. “One of the lessons from technology adoption is that it’s not that we replace like for like,” he stated, highlighting the ongoing evolution of blockchain technology in finance.
Last year, Ethereum made waves when it moved away from its legacy proof-of-work style of transaction validation. This move brought about a much more energy-efficient proof-of-stake model. This monumental shift highlighted Ethereum’s commitment to security, scalability, and sustainability. EY’s global blockchain leader Paul Brody called out the importance of this escalation on institutional adoption. He remarked, “A lot of institutions basically tell us to our faces that they value Ethereum because it’s stable and dependable, because it doesn’t go down.”
As Ethereum celebrates its milestone, it reflects on its journey marked by upgrades and innovations aimed at enhancing security and censorship resistance. Institutions are making the decision to use Ethereum because of the trustworthiness of the technology and its ability to participate in advanced financial activities. More than ever before, Brody feels that Ethereum is being embedded into traditional finance infrastructure. “The value proposition of Ethereum is its global reach, its huge capital flows, its incredible programmability,” he explained.
The road has not been an easy one for Buterin and his dream-child Ethereum. He remembers being holed up with kindred programmers in Prague. He touched on the ways that the community has created a fertile ground for innovation. “Just being able to plug into the international economy — these are things that they don’t have, and these are things that provide huge value for people there,” he said.
Ethereum’s influence is unmistakable. Its infrastructure underpins various financial products, including ecosystem participant and crypto-developer-focused BlackRock BUIDL, a tokenized MMMF that launched on the platform last year. Their integration further represents a burgeoning confidence in Ethereum’s growing capabilities within institutional finance.
As Ethereum grows in popularity and use, Buterin is adamant that whatever new financial products are created, they should be built on blockchain technology. “My key hypothesis is that as we build new financial products, it will be attractive to build them on blockchain rails — and we’ll try to do things on blockchain rails that we can’t do today,” he explained. This innovative mindset has truly carved out Ethereum the leadership role in the digital revolution of money that is underway today.
Brody’s personal journey since Ethereum’s launch. Simply put, he was impressed by Buterin’s extraordinary accomplishments at such a young age. “I was jealous of Vitalik… to be able to do that,” he shared. And he came to realize that the possibilities for innovation and disruption in the financial sector are all around us today. This represents a huge step from prior generations. “I don’t think opportunities like that could have been surfaced when I was that age,” he added.
Whatever the future holds, as Ethereum steps into its second decade it is already a monumental achievement of collaboration and innovation. The platform’s evolution is a microcosm of a bigger movement within finance — a movement focused on decentralization, nimbleness and openness, rather than hierarchies and institutions.
Buterin’s vision for Ethereum remains clear: the platform should not merely disrupt existing systems but create new opportunities for growth and accessibility. “This type of disruption doesn’t feel like overturning the existing system,” he stated. “It feels like building a new thing that just keeps growing and growing until eventually more and more people realize you don’t even have to look at the old thing if you didn’t want to.”