Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently released his views on the ecological development directions for 2026, focusing on two core areas: privacy protection and decentralization. According to his plan, Ethereum needs to achieve breakthroughs across three dimensions in the future.

The first is the infrastructure layer—reducing the barrier to node operation so that ordinary users can participate in network maintenance, preventing validation power from being overly concentrated in large institutions. The second is the application layer—implementing privacy payment functions to keep transaction information encrypted from other network participants. The third is the query layer—allowing users to query on-chain data without revealing their query intent, protecting privacy while ensuring data availability.

From this perspective, decentralization is not just a technical architecture issue but a multi-layered system design. Decentralization at the network layer addresses who verifies the data; however, decentralization at the application and asset management layers is equally critical—your wallet, financial protocols, and asset custody tools themselves also need to avoid being controlled by a few parties.

Interestingly, some protocol projects are already exploring this path. For example, some projects are attempting to enhance the security and transparency of decentralized finance by technological innovation to achieve true autonomous management at the asset layer. These projects complement Vitalik’s vision—deepening at the application and governance layers, while broadening at the network infrastructure layer.

The future of the crypto ecosystem may not be a single-dimensional decentralization but a collaborative evolution across network, application, governance, and privacy layers.