Bankless recently interviewed Ethereum founder Vitalik. Vitalik said that many people are remembering all the terrible things that happened this year (Terra, FTX, etc.)... But I think it is also important to remember all the various positive factors seen in the crypto industry. Vitalik believes that Ethereum has five major achievements in 2022:
1. Ethereum merger
“The Ethereum merger is amazing.”
Vitalik praised Ethereum's successful transition to PoS after a long delay, believing it to be the biggest victory of the Ethereum network in 2022.
Vitalik not only highlighted the impact this achievement would have on Ethereum’s energy footprint, but also how it would improve protocol security and network availability.
“My personal experience with Ethereum has improved a lot,” Vitalik said. “These days when I send a transaction, I click send, wait a few seconds, I see the transaction is included in a block and it has a confirmation… It’s already good enough to compete with the credit card POS system.”
2. Innovation of ZK-EVM
Vitalik is very bullish on the power of ZK-EVM, which has made a major leap in innovation in 2022. Vitalik said that these projects have gone from "non-existent daydreams" to "the long-term - and possibly even medium-term - future of scaling Ethereum."
The ZK-EVM project leverages a virtual machine that generates zero-knowledge proofs to verify the correctness of various smart contract operations. These are a huge leap forward in Ethereum’s progress. There are a number of teams building these, including Matter Labs, Scroll, and Polygon.
Vitalik has long been a fan of ZK-EVM, but he said the progress made so far has even surprised him. "We have multiple ZK EVM implementations, and they all promise to launch some kind of mainnet next year - this is awesome."
3. Ethereum Login
The third biggest win Vitalik sees for the Ethereum ecosystem in 2022 is the adoption of Ethereum Login, which allows users to easily and securely log into network services using their Ethereum wallets.
No more having to remember password combinations and no more relying on centralized internet providers like Facebook and Google to handle personal information and online identities. In an age where social media providers seem to own nearly every aspect of a user’s online life, logging in with Ethereum allows users to own their identity on the internet.
Vitalik said that "using Ethereum to log in has made huge progress in adoption; Ethereum has been able to take advantage of people's desire to explore various alternative Twitter and alternative social media platforms," and he specifically highlighted platforms such as Lens and Farcaster.
4. Cryptocurrency works for Ukraine
The use of cryptocurrency to help Ukraine during the Russian invasion is another highlight for Ethereum in 2022. Vitalik noted that cryptocurrency payments and permissionless networks have become more important than ever after Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
“Crypto payments actually worked for Ukraine when nothing else worked,” Vitalik said. “Crypto is actually the lifeline of the country and the lifeline of many civilians.”
In addition to payment infrastructure, Vitalik also highlighted how the system can be used to raise donations for the Ukrainian army through general grassroots donations to public wallet addresses and fundraising within the crypto community through tools such as NFT sales.
5. Crypto Charity
Finally, Vitalik highlighted cryptocurrency donations and philanthropy in 2022 as one of the biggest wins for the Ethereum ecosystem, not only demonstrating the effectiveness of permissionless payment infrastructure to transfer funds to foreign organizations, but also highlighting the overall generosity of the industry, even in very difficult circumstances.
“Cryptocurrencies are significant as an international payment vehicle for philanthropy,” he said, highlighting some of the evolving efforts of the Covid Relief Fund to help people in countries like India over the last year.
