TOKEN2049 Roundtable: A Decade in Review, Exploring the Next Milestone for Ethereum

ChainCatcher live report, Consensys founder and CEO Joseph Lubin, Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Tomasz Stanczak, and EigenCloud founder and CEO Sreeram Kannan jointly attended the TOKEN 2049 conference to share insights in the roundtable discussion "Ten Years In: Ethereum's Next Frontier."

Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin reminisced about the early days filled with crypto anarchism, when the slogan was "Kill the banks." However, Ethereum's greatest achievement lies in choosing evolution over revolution, successfully integrating both crypto anarchists and large banking institutions into the same ecosystem.

He also shared that his L2 project Linea allocates 85% of tokens to the ecosystem, burning 20% of transaction fees to support the mainnet, demonstrating how L2 should give back to the main chain. Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Tomasz Stanczak revealed that the foundation aims for gas usage to reach 100 million by March next year, which will increase computing power by about three times. The focus for the coming year will be on finality, privacy, and security. He emphasized that L1 and L2 have a mutually reinforcing relationship and encouraged more customized L2s to develop for specific markets.

EigenCloud founder Sreeram Kannan believes Ethereum is the "trust layer of humanity," which is especially important in the age of AI. When AI can perfectly mimic anyone, ensuring that AI agents fulfill their promises and establishing accountability become critical issues. He introduced EigenLayer, which can protect any decentralized network through ETH staking and launched a fully deterministic AI reasoning pipeline to implement accountability mechanisms.

The three guests unanimously advised builders not to worry about which chain to choose but to focus on what truly matters. Kannan stated that the infrastructure is ready, and now more ambitious applications are needed to disrupt the entire economic system.