The Road to Ethereum 2029 Upgrades: Suica Card, Built-in Cross-chain Bridges, and Semi-smart Wallets
#634
GM,
Let me first announce two administrative items. Last week, at the end of the article, I initiated an activity with a $300 prize, and I’ve already received two submissions:
Activity details: Create a publicly funded beginner's guide or a list of project recommendations (specifically Giveth, Octant) or come up with your own creative idea.
Content format: Any form is acceptable—an article, podcast, or video.
Submission deadline: Submit your work by leaving a comment under the article before 24:00 on September 25th, Taipei time.
Content evaluation: I will select 3 submissions, and each will be rewarded with $100. The fewer participants, the higher your chances of winning.
In addition, over the past couple of days, I’ve been gradually distributing the Yuzu Hat NFTs. The simplest way to check is to open Decentraland and see if the Yuzu Hat NFT is in your backpack. Alternatively, you can open OpenSea, switch to your profile, and check the "Hidden" tab on the far right, where you should find the Yuzu Hat NFT.
OpenSea, in an effort to combat the issue of spam NFT ads, sends most NFTs directly into the hidden tab instead of displaying them on your profile. This works like a whitelist mechanism, and users have to manually unhide them. However, this system is quite rudimentary. It's like having all your emails sent to the junk folder, and you have to manually retrieve the important ones. Nobody would want to use such an inbox.
This ties into today’s topic, where we’ll discuss how Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently shared insights in a talk about improving Ethereum’s user experience.
The Era of Simplicity
In a recent event, Vitalik presented two numbers: 2015 and 2029. He expressed a hope that by 2029, Ethereum can return to the simplicity of 2015 while simultaneously achieving the efficiency and user experience of 2029. The key point is that we are currently in the "dark construction phase" between 2015 and 2029.
What was Ethereum like in 2015? Simply put, it had nothing. There were no on-chain applications, gas fees were low, and the only cryptocurrency on the chain was ETH. People didn’t encounter the issue of wanting to transfer USDT but not having ETH to pay for gas fees, nor did anyone accidentally transfer assets to the wrong chain. Overall, it was very straightforward to use.
As Ethereum grew more complex, it became like a labyrinth, much like Taipei Main Station, which is an inevitable result of development. The first major turning point occurred in 2017, when one day people realized that Ethereum had come to a standstill. Transactions were being sent, but they weren’t completing. Engineers eventually found the reason: the blockchain was clogged by "cats"!
At the time, everyone was obsessed with the CryptoKitties NFT game. A rare breed of cat could sell for as much as 246 ETH. Some people were busy breeding kittens, while others bought them directly as investments. However, the sheer volume of cat transactions overwhelmed and crippled Ethereum.
After the CryptoKitties incident, developers realized that Ethereum had reached a point where it could experience "traffic jams." Vitalik believed that these jams made it difficult for interesting applications to survive. Only crypto gamblers were willing to pay gas fees of tens of dollars per transaction, flooding the chain with a culture of materialism and greed.
The best way to change the on-chain culture is to lower gas fees. Vitalik gave examples such as the Polymarket prediction market1, the Argent smart wallet2, and the Farcaster social application, which no longer require hundreds of dollars in gas fees to use. The more interesting applications there are, the more the culture on the chain will begin to shift.
The reduction in gas fees is arguably one of the most significant technical upgrades to Ethereum in recent years. However, the downside is that we now have 40 different Layer 2 (L2) chains that don’t communicate with each other. This complexity is far from ideal. In his speech, Vitalik mentioned a new technical proposal called ERC-3770, which could be the key to connecting these L2 chains.
Suica Card
Vitalik used a subway analogy to describe the current Ethereum ecosystem. He believes that the present Layer 2 (L2) solutions are like a chaotic subway system, where each line operates independently. Anyone who traveled freely in Tokyo or Osaka in the early days can probably relate. Before setting off, you had to do your homework to distinguish between the subway, JR, and private railways. Every time you exited a station to transfer or buy a ticket, you couldn’t help but wonder, "Why can’t there be one ticket for everything?"
Eventually, people discovered that if you bought a "Suica Card," you could travel seamlessly, even on buses. I refer to ERC-3770 as the "Suica Card for Ethereum," allowing effortless transfers between chains. According to the introduction of ERC-3770:
ERC-3770 introduces a new address standard by adding a human-readable prefix to show which chain the address is on. Wallets and decentralized applications can adopt this standard.
Looking at an example is the quickest way to understand. The image below shows what a wallet address format would look like after Ethereum adopts ERC-3770. A wallet address that originally started with 0x will now have an additional prefix indicating which chain the address is on. For instance, Ethereum would use "eth," while Polygon would use "poly." In other words, this new address format will become a unified standard for the Ethereum ecosystem, much like how Japan’s public transportation system supports the Suica Card.
But those familiar with how blockchain works might say, "Wait a minute, this is cross-chain asset transfer! How can just adjusting the wallet address format make assets automatically move to another blockchain?" Indeed, adjusting the address format is only the first step in upgrading Ethereum's "transportation network." Just like in Japan, where even though the subway, JR, and private railways all support the Suica Card, the more important challenge is ensuring that passengers can transfer smoothly between systems.
To address this, Ethereum is also advancing the ERC-7683 standard simultaneously. It acts like a built-in cross-chain bridge. When a user wants to swap USDT on Arbitrum for wBTC on Polygon, the system will find the best route and automatically complete the process for them. With both the Suica Card and a transfer system, previously disconnected transportation networks are linked together, expanding the living space and ensuring that "foreigners" visiting Ethereum won’t get lost anymore.
The awkward part, however, is that neither ERC-3770 nor ERC-7683 has a concrete launch schedule yet. It still depends on when various wallet and app developers decide to support these standards. This is why Vitalik is actively lobbying for it.
More dangerous than losing money in a transfer is losing the entire wallet. Vitalik believes this is also due to Ethereum’s poor user experience.
Guardians
Today, people manage their cryptocurrency in two main ways: it depends on whether you trust yourself or trust others.
Wallets: Trust yourself and manage your private keys independently.
Exchanges: Trust others, letting the exchange manage your assets for you.
Vitalik believes the best way to safeguard assets lies between these two options—by introducing wallet guardians, also known as multisig wallets. I previously made a video on how to create and use a multisig wallet. It works like a company approval process: instead of one person having control over a transaction, you need approval from, say, three out of five people (the rules are customizable).
Multisignature wallets are widely recognized as the safest wallet mechanism. However, even I don’t use a multisig wallet for daily activities. Vitalik points out that the main issue is the high barrier to entry. Current multisig wallets are quite complicated, requiring several wallets to manage one new wallet collectively. Come on! People already struggle to manage a single wallet, let alone having to create multiple wallets (as guardians) to manage yet another one. It’s overwhelming.
Vitalik’s solution is simple and intuitive: use email, national ID, or other familiar Web2 mechanisms as wallet guardians, lowering the barrier to becoming a guardian. For example, I could use my email, national ID, and wallet to create a 2-of-3 multisig wallet, where every transaction would need approval from two of the three. The same guardian mechanism could also serve as the basis for social wallet recovery.
However, when people hear they need to create yet another wallet, they often hesitate. That’s why there’s a new Ethereum upgrade proposal, EIP-7702, which aims to upgrade the basic MetaMask wallet that everyone is already using into a semi-smart multisig wallet. EIP-7702 has been included in Ethereum's Pectra upgrade, scheduled for late 2024, and once it rolls out, MetaMask wallets will start getting "smarter."
From address format changes and built-in cross-chain bridges to upgrading smart wallets, these may all seem like cold, technical jargon, but they’re actually about improving user behavior and experience. Just as people joining Ethereum in 2024 might find it hard to imagine what managing crypto was like before MetaMask debuted in 2016 or how gas fees were once a non-issue, these upgrades will make interacting with the blockchain as easy as browsing the web.
If we had to predict what Ethereum will look like in 2029, I think it will be as simple as sending a message when making a transfer, and joining a DAO will be as easy as joining a LINE group. Meme coin speculation will likely still be around, but more people will be focused on building on-chain applications that meet user needs.
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