Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has announced a set of ambitious goals for the network’s next stage of development, in line with new milestones in ecosystem engagement.
In a post on April 30th, Buterin outlined key areas for 2025. These include transaction finality, stateless client architecture, enhanced privacy capabilities, and stronger decentralization of the entire stack.
Buterin’s announcement comes as Ethereum Network hit a record high for active users. According to Onchain data, over 15.4 million unique addresses have interacted with Ethereum-based applications over the past week, of which 13.45 million have been running in Layer 2 solutions.
Some of Buterin’s top priorities are examining the finality of single slots. This is a protocol change that reduces the time it takes to finalize a transaction to just 12 seconds.
He also highlighted the need for Stateless clients. This changes the burden of storing Ethereum’s full state from network nodes to users, increasing scalability and resilience.
Privacy remains a central theme in Buterin’s vision. Following the previous publication of Ethereum’s short-term roadmap on privacy, he reiterated the importance of creating user-friendly tools that maintain confidentiality without sacrificing transparency or security.
Butarin also shows growing interest in Ethereum’s broader ecosystem, expanding beyond technical upgrades. His roadmap includes plans to support a decentralized infrastructure, an encrypted messaging platform, improved developer documentation, and new models of open source funding and governance.
He further expressed his interest in building systems to promote reliable information exchange, including forecast markets and other emerging tools for collective adjustment.
Although Buterin is not directly involved in all areas of Ethereum development, he noted that increasing gas restrictions and improving peer-to-peer communication remains an important objective for the wider developer community.
His new focus on research has given him the freedom to pursue long-term innovation following recent changes in the Ethereum Foundation. Co-Enforcement Director Thomas Stuzzack recently noticed that Buterine’s involvement often accelerates breakthroughs within ecosystems.
