How will Ethereum reconcile its ambition for vastly greater throughput with the imperatives of decentralization and security? The conference in Japan made that question central, as developers and researchers debated proposals that combine Layer 1 capacity increases with extensive Layer 2 ecosystems and novel security primitives. Proponents outlined plans to raise L1 gas limits and deploy Sharding Phase 3 optimizations, arguing these moves will increase per-block transaction capacity and improve inter-shard communication without concentrating validation power; they emphasized tools such as block-level access lists and dynamic gas repricing to reduce latency and make on-chain transactions more efficient, framing the changes as measured, protocol-level enhancements rather than radical centralizing shifts. At the same time, speakers reiterated a commitment to a heterogeneous Layer 2 landscape, explaining why Optimistic and ZK rollups must coexist to serve distinct application profiles, and why enhanced cross-L2 communication and improved proof aggregation are necessary for trustless asset transfers and faster settlements. The interoperability work aims to present users with seamless experiences across rollups, while making batch validation more compact and verifiable, thereby preserving the security assumptions that undergird the base layer. Several participants noted that Layer 2 scale does not absolve Layer 1 of responsibility: L1 throughput increases remain critical to reduce settlement friction and support diverse rollup models. Privacy and data-access protections received substantial attention, with proposals ranging from client-side zero-knowledge proofs and mixnet relays to trusted execution environments and partial state nodes, intended to shield both transaction contents and query provenance. These measures, proponents said, must be carefully integrated so they do not introduce opaque trust dependencies or undue complexity. Security upgrades were presented as essential companions to scaling: incorporation of Verifiable Delay Functions to harden PoS, formal verification to prove protocol properties, and a roadmap toward quantum-resistant primitives. Speakers converged on a minimalist ethos for the base layer, advocating simpler designs that reduce attack surfaces while enabling auditability. Uncertainties remain — implementation risks, coordination costs, and transition timelines — but the debate in Japan showed an active community prioritizing a balance of throughput, decentralization, and long-term security. Additionally, panelists highlighted ongoing Layer 1 upgrades aiming to process up to 100,000 TPS as a long-term scalability benchmark. The discussions also reflected a short-term emphasis on scaling the mainnet to immediately relieve congestion and support rollup development. Notably, these advances parallel innovations in other blockchain architectures, such as the use of Directed Acyclic Graphs to enable parallel block processing and improve throughput without sacrificing security.
