Looking at the recent project developments, it feels like the entire ecosystem is undergoing a very interesting evolutionary process.

**Phase One: Filling in the Basic Capabilities**

Many people are paying attention to Arkiv and Shade. Frankly, Arkiv has indeed filled many gaps in data availability and developer experience, and the engineering work is quite solid; while Shade addresses the real issue of transaction privacy, especially how to coexist with regulation within a compliant framework, which is also a tough problem. Both directions actually point to the same goal — transforming blockchain from a cool technical concept into a truly usable and stable underlying infrastructure.

**Phase Two: Opening New Growth Opportunities**

Aave’s recent strategic adjustments clearly illustrate the point. When the basic protocols gradually mature, where does real growth come from? The answer is RWA — bringing trillions of dollars’ worth of real-world assets onto the chain to serve a broader range of financial institutions. This isn’t just a simple technical upgrade; it’s a significant step forward in the ecosystem’s business model. There’s also the idea of allowing token holders to directly share external protocol revenues, which actually reflects a rethinking of tokenomics — how to enable participants to receive more direct and sustainable value feedback.

**Phase Three: Returning to Fundamental Value**

In this process, Vitalik’s perspective acts as a stabilizing force. As the ecosystem rapidly expands, it will inevitably collide and merge with the old world, which can easily lead to straying from its original purpose. His expression is actually a reaffirmation of a bottom line: ETH’s ultimate mission is not to become a more efficient financial system (which would be not much different from Wall Street), but to build a global, open infrastructure that is not monopolized by any centralized entity. It’s like setting an ethical boundary for all technological innovations and business explorations.

The entire logical chain is actually very clear: first, address technical shortcomings; then, expand application space on this basis; and finally, always remember why we are building in the first place.