Vitalik: Ethereum's mission is to connect Eastern and Western communities, with plans to achieve a 10x expansion next year

On September 13, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, gave a speech on the stage at EthTokyo 2025, expressing his belief that Layer 2 solutions are the future direction of Ethereum, and further proposed an ambitious goal: Ethereum plans to achieve a 10x expansion next year, while maintaining decentralization and security, while improving the throughput and accessibility of the network.
Vitalik places particular emphasis on the role of Asia. China developed the early PyEthereum client side, volunteers translated white papers and documents into multiple languages, and community forces drove Ethereum to go global. He contrasts the styles of Chinese and Japanese developers: Chinese projects move quickly and on a large scale; Japanese developers are better at experimenting with new technologies. Looking to the future, Vitalik calls for more researchers and app developers to join, not just the core team. He encourages Asian developers to focus on efficiency and safety, and believes AI will become an important learning tool.
New technologies often "reset" the ecosystem, such as breakthroughs brought about by zero-knowledge proofs. Vitalik predicts that the 2030s will usher in a new technological paradigm. Vitalik reiterated that Ethereum's mission is to connect the eastern and western communities. In terms of financing models, he believes that the global advantages of ICOs are superior to traditional VCs, and proposes that in the future, ICO and DAO governance should be combined to create a more open and transparent funding mechanism.