Prediction: Vitalik genuinely enters beast mode to scale the L1 in 2026.
I think he has run out of patience with L2s not fixing interop (remember when he yelled at them onstage last year).
I think he's about to take matters into his own hands.
I love Ethereum, it got me into crypto, and I still hold ETH.
But I honestly can't stand the complacency culture that's being championed these days.
Any time you bring up an area where Ethereum is falling behind, you're met with "those metrics are fake" or "we still have TVL".
Ethereum needs to be paranoid.
If the community doesn't get more paranoid, it'll be irrelevant by 2030.
At one point, speed and cost were genuine vectors smart contract platforms could differentiate on.
Today I think Solana has won that market, and if your value prop as a gen purpose chain is faster or cheaper, even if it's 100X, idt it makes a difference.
I am genuinely shocked that people are genuinely shocked that building a completely new financial system from scratch would be difficult.
It really seems that some of the smartest people in our industry thought this was going to happen in 2-3 years.
Wrapped up Breakpoint 2025
Probably the most sombre sentiment I’ve observed at a crypto conference in a while.
Not a dig at the event at all; it was well organized. There is just a general sense of jadedness that pervade my conversations with builders, VCs, and traders alike.
OGs quiet quitting/ effectively AFK, VCs not doing well, record redemptions for liquid funds, minimal net new projects, general stupor from builders carrying on out of inertia, not excitement.
It’s not just price. Even in 2019, 2022, and early 2023, when markets were hardly doing great, there was a palpable electricity at conferences like this. A genuine belief that everything will be viewed through the lens of crypto one day, similar to how AI is perceived today.
This time that’s rare. I had some conversations around DePin and DeSci that felt novel, but they remain a minuscule part of the market.
Generally, the only semblance of enthusiasm from people is around more flavors of stablecoins, and more perp dex’s.