Analysis of Ethereum Technology Development Trends and Opportunities

Looking at the history of the Ethereum developer community, many cutting-edge technology discussions have eventually evolved into widely used products, such as DEX, lending, rollups, and DA. This process of discussion to implementation also contains investment opportunities.

This article will explore the current technological development trends and potential opportunities in the Ethereum ecosystem from the perspectives of the Ethereum roadmap, the recent DevCon conference, and the upcoming Pectra upgrade.

Ethereum Roadmap Analysis

The development roadmap of Ethereum has always been an important reference for observing future directions. It includes several phases such as The Merge, The Surge, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge. Each of these phases has its own focus:

• The Merge: Completed the transition from PoW to PoS and includes some consensus protocol improvements.
• The Surge: Focuses on enhancing scalability and providing better infrastructure support for rollups.
• The Scourge: Committed to addressing MEV-related issues, such as builder centralization and MEV value distribution.
• The Verge: Plans to convert the underlying data structure from a Merkle tree to a Verkle tree and promote the Snarkification of the EVM.
• The Purge: Reduce storage and state maintenance pressure on nodes through data cleaning and archiving.
• The Splurge: Involves EVM layer improvements, account abstraction, and cutting-edge cryptographic applications.

Each phase includes several specific improvements related to various aspects such as network performance, security, and user experience. These improvements are being advanced to varying degrees, with some already implemented and others still in the research stage.

Highlights of DevCon Conference

The recent Ethereum DevCon conference is another important source of information, where the current challenges and possible solutions were discussed.

Beam Chain, as a compelling topic, has proposed several underlying improvement suggestions, including underlying Snarkification, block generation, and optimization of the staking mechanism. Although its full implementation will take about 5 years, it has sparked enthusiastic discussions within the community regarding future development directions.

Topics related to Rollup remain a hot topic at the conference. The main discussions focus on issues such as liquidity fragmentation and interaction difficulties between rollups, with multiple speeches and discussion sessions addressing these challenges and their potential solutions. Additionally, the technological maturity of L2 projects is also a point of concern, as currently only a handful of projects have reached a high level of technological advancement.

The conference also discussed cutting-edge topics such as chain abstraction, pre-confirmation, and cryptographic applications, pointing the way for future technological development.

Pectra Upgrade Preview

The Pectra upgrade, expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025, will bring several important transformations from the underlying layer to the user end:

1. EIP-7702 (Account Abstraction): Provides the ability for all EOA accounts to temporarily convert to smart contract accounts, which is expected to improve user experience but may also bring new security challenges.

2. EIP-7691 (Increase the number of blobs): The plan is to increase the target value of the number of blobs per block from 3 to 6, and the maximum value from 6 to 9. This will further reduce rollup costs and enhance the data availability of Ethereum.

3. EIP-7251 (Increase Staking Limit): Proposes to raise the staking limit from 32 Ether to 2048 Ether, simplifying operations for large stakers and reducing the number of validators.

Future Opportunities Outlook

Based on the above technological changes and discussions, we can foresee significant opportunities in the following areas:

1. Interoperability between Rollups:

   • Solutions such as based rollup, shared sequencer, and cross-chain intents are being promoted to address liquidity and interaction issues between L2s.
   • Multiple projects such as Spire Labs, Astria, Espresso, and Polygon AggLayer are implementing relevant solutions.
   • The introduction of standards such as ERC-7683 and ERC-7802 is expected to promote the movement of cross-chain assets and the realization of unified standards.

2. Account Abstraction:

   • The implementation of EIP-7702 will bring new development opportunities for the AA project.
   • The combination of chain abstraction and intents functionality may give rise to more complex cross-chain interaction applications.
   • After the Pectra upgrade, the early participants of EIP-7702 may gain a growth advantage.

3. Cryptographic Applications:

   • The zkEVM and zkVM frameworks are maturing, and the combination of ZKP with technologies such as MPC and FHE may bring new application scenarios.
   • Cutting-edge cryptographic technologies such as indistinguishable obfuscation (iO) may gain more attention.
   • Applications such as ZK Email and zkTLS for verification may see broader adoption.
   • With the changes in the regulatory environment, the development of privacy applications may face new opportunities.

These technological trends and potential opportunities will profoundly impact the development of the Ethereum ecosystem in the coming period, making it worthy of close attention and in-depth research by industry professionals.