#Gate广场四月发帖挑战

The evolution of Ethereum（Ethereum） is an epic story of transforming from a “geek toy” into a “Web3 operating system.” From the perspective of 2026, it has moved away from a “narrative-driven” surge in growth and fully shifted into the deep end of infrastructure—“engineering delivery.”

I. Past: From the “World Computer” to “Merge” rebirth

Ethereum’s past can be clearly divided into three eras:

Genesis and the ICO boom (2015-2017): In 2015, the mainnet launched, and Vitalik Buterin introduced smart contracts—upgrading blockchain from a “ledger” into a “programmable platform.” Even though the 2017 ICO bubble burst, it still established its role as an ecosystem incubator.

DeFi and NFT explosion (2020-2021): DeFi Summer proved the composability of on-chain finance, and the NFT craze brought tens of millions of new users. At this time, the core contradictions became prominent: high Gas fees and low TPS became bottlenecks.

The Merge milestone (2022): A transition from PoW (Proof of Work) to PoS (Proof of Stake). Energy consumption was reduced by about 99.95%, and it also opened up Ethereum’s deflationary mechanism (EIP-1559 burn), completing a thorough reconstruction of the underlying consensus.

II. Present: 2026 “engineering” breakthroughs

As of April 2026, Ethereum is in a period of performance enhancement following the Pectra/Fusaka upgrades. The core task is to solve the “usability” problem:

Scaling as the main theme: The 2024 Dencun upgrade (introducing Blob) greatly reduced the costs for Layer2 (such as Arbitrum, zkSync). The 2025 Pectra further optimized account abstraction. Today, Ethereum’s mainnet (L1) is gradually evolving into a “security and settlement layer,” while high-frequency trading is moving down to L2.

Governance institutionalized: The development cadence has shifted from “irregular hard forks” to an “engineeringized” release cycle of twice a year (similar to major software version updates), reducing uncertainty for ecosystem developers’ adaptation.

RWA (real-world assets on-chain): With regulatory frameworks improving, the on-chain scale of traditional financial assets such as government bonds and credit has surged. Ethereum has begun to take on institutional-level asset settlement needs.

III. Future: Five roadmaps and the ultimate end state

Vitalik’s five-stage roadmap (The Merge, Surge, Verge, Purge, Splurge) is being advanced in parallel, aiming to achieve ultimate scaling of 100,000+ TPS.

1. Near future (2026-2027): Glamsterdam and parallelization

Parallel execution: The upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade will introduce “block-level access lists,” evolving Ethereum from “single-threaded” into “multi-lane” parallel processing, significantly improving throughput.

Widespread adoption of account abstraction: Make smart contract wallets the default option, so users no longer need to copy down seed phrases, delivering an experience close to Web2.

Post-quantum computing resistance: After launch, initiate research and migration of quantum cryptography to make sure trillion-level assets remain secure, well ahead of time.

2. Long-term vision: Whole-chain (The Splurge)

Stateless clients: Using technologies such as Verkle trees, nodes can verify transactions without storing all historical data. This lowers node entry barriers while maintaining decentralization.

ZK-ification: L1 verification will rely heavily on zero-knowledge proofs (ZK). Validators only need to verify the proofs rather than re-execute transactions, greatly improving efficiency.

IV. Identity reshaping: From “currency” to the “foundation”

Ethereum’s role has undergone a fundamental transformation:

Past: Wanting to build a decentralized “world computer.”

Present and future: A global settlement layer + Web3 operating system. It no longer pursues handling all transactions on a single chain; instead, as the secure foundation for L2 and L3, it supports large-scale applications through modular division of labor (L1 handles security, L2 handles speed).

Summary: Ethereum’s past was about “dreaming,” its present is about “building foundations,” and its future is “becoming invisible.” It is stepping back from the limelight as an “application chain” and turning into infrastructure that underpins the digital economy.