Ethereum still needs to continue evolving. Vitalik recently reiterated his vision for the future of this public chain—essentially aligning its growth path with protocols like Linux or BitTorrent.

His core idea is quite clear: maintain openness and decentralization at the foundational level without wavering, but be sufficiently aggressive and global in the application ecosystem and business models built on top. In plain language, it means preserving the purity of the protocol layer while ensuring that this system can truly serve enterprise-level users worldwide.

This is not just idealistic rhetoric. After years of scaling efforts and various trade-offs, the Ethereum team seems to have figured it out: future competition won't be about excelling in a single dimension, but about whether it can simultaneously satisfy the spirit of decentralization and business realities.

So you'll see Ethereum repositioning itself—from the grand narrative of "world computer"—gradually refining into a more concrete and actionable goal: "Global Distributed Settlement Infrastructure." It may sound less romantic, but it’s more feasible to implement.

Vitalik has been trying to find that balance throughout this process: neither abandoning the original intention of decentralization nor getting trapped in pure idealism. This pragmatic evolution may be the key to Ethereum’s long-term competitiveness.