Ethereum's Next Decade | Vitalik Buterin
Ethereum's Next Decade | Vitalik Buterin  
Podcast: Bankless
Published On: Mon Aug 11 2025
Description: Ethereum just turned 10, and Vitalik Buterin returns to reflect on the last decade—and where it’s headed next. In this conversation, Vitalik shares what surprised him most about Ethereum’s growth, the hard lessons from challenges like The DAO and NFTs, and what he’d do differently if starting again. We explore Ethereum’s evolving cultural identity, privacy as a core value, the tradeoffs between L1 and L2, and how Vitalik envisions Ethereum surviving an AI-dominated future. ------ 🎬 DEBRIEF | RYAN & DAVID UNPACKING THE EPISODE https://www.bankless.com/podcast/debrief-ethereums-next-decade-vitalik-buterin ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:52 Ethereum’s First 2 Years 2:25 Ethereum’s Top Contributions 4:18 Biggest Surprises 7:37 What Took Longer than Expected 9:05 Overcoming Challenges 11:03 Lesson for Younger Vitalik 15:53 Bitcoin vs Ethereum 18:49 Ethereum’s Cultural Evolution 32:11 Privacy on Ethereum 37:42 Nation State Resistant Privacy 43:03 Cypherpunk vs Mainstream 56:05 World Ledger 59:09 Ethereum in 2024 1:02:23 Changes in the Ethereum Foundation 1:10:10 Economic Alignment 1:16:38 Scaling the L1 1:31:21 Ethereum’s Barbell Strategy 1:39:28 Ethereum Nationalism 1:48:28 ETH Treasuries 1:55:19 The Next 10 Years for Ethereum 1:59:35 The Next 10 Years for Vitalik 2:01:25 The Next 10 Years for Bankless 2:02:52 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Vitalik Buterin https://x.com/VitalikButerin 2021 Endgame https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/12/06/endgame.html Convex and Concave Dispositions https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2020/11/08/concave.html ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠