At the Token2049 event in Singapore, Vitalik Buterin also made his debut by singing a crypto-themed song in public. The founder of Ethereum praised the low fees of ETH layer-2s and stated that the crypto industry must meet the needs of the mainstream while maintaining decentralization. 

Vitalik Buterin at Token2049: the crypto song and the speech on Ethereum layer-2

At Token2049 in Singapore, Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, made an appearance and sang a crypto-themed song.

The video with Buterin singing in front of the audience was immediately shared on X. Even Justin Sun, CEO of Tron, commented on the performance of his rival, praising his courage. 

I'm bullish here because we know this requires a lot of courage. @VitalikButerin pic.twitter.com/MZ5q5k9jpx

— H.E. Justin Sun(hiring) (@justinsuntron) September 18, 2024

“I am optimistic because we know that this requires a lot of courage.”

In any case, one of the topics highlighted by Vitalik Buterin is the success of Ethereum’s layer-2 and their low fees. 

Buterin stated that in the past he had been forced to pay over 800 dollars for a single transaction to protect privacy, but this is no longer the case, precisely thanks to the development of layer 2 of Ethereum.

According to Buterin, such low transaction fees of layer-2 are a milestone for the entire ETH ecosystem, as they address the main challenges for mainstream adoption. 

Not by chance, to date, Optimism e Abritrum have become so important precisely because they have managed to lower the fees below $0.01, practically “zero”. Not only that, the same rollups have achieved this milestone, becoming also more secure and finally accessible.

Vitalik Buterin at Token 2049: the crypto industry to meet the needs of the mainstream while maintaining decentralization

In addition to transaction costs, Buterin talks about the success that has been achieved with transaction “times.” 

In this regard, the founder of Ethereum spoke about the result of the Merge and the transition of the Blockchain to Proof-of-Stake, which managed to halve the average waiting time until the next block. 

This has led to quietly reducing transaction waiting times to 5-15 seconds. 

Not only, another generic challenge of the industry crypto mentioned by Buterin, concerns meeting the needs of the mainstream while maintaining decentralization.

Here are his words: 

“We must meet the needs of mainstream adoption and at the same time we must maintain the values of open source and decentralization.”

More decentralization for Ethereum layer-2

Recently, Buterin had written on X a post in which he was effectively asking for greater decentralization of the layer-2 on Ethereum.

In practice, layer-2 should inherit the security of the layer-1 on which they are based. The problem, however, is that it does not always happen that if the layer-1 is decentralized, as in the case of Ethereum, the layer-2 based on ETH are also decentralized. 

Indeed, in truth, layer-2s find it really difficult to become so decentralized. Just think of Coinbase’s Base, which also presents itself as a layer-2 of Ethereum. 

In any case, Buterin said that from 2025 he will only consider Ethereum layer-2s that are at least in phase 1. This means all L2s that have reached a 75% threshold in the council to ignore the proof system that have more than 26% of the council outside the rollup team.