From 2015 to 2025, the decade of Ethereum has been a decade we've all written together. From the spark ignited by those first few lines of code to the ecosystem weaves together today with countless applications; from the courageous pioneers of a few to the collaborative efforts of millions, every breakthrough reflects the presence of explorers, and every step forward is embodied in the power of the community. At this historic moment, Wanxiang Blockchain Lab will host a gathering themed "Ten Years of Ethereum: A Glorious Year" in Hongkou, Shanghai. The gathering will reflect on the past decade, spark new insights into the future, and help define the blueprint for the next decade. Due to the large number of registered participants, this event has been moved to a new venue. Please check your emails and text messages for notifications. Before this gathering begins, we'd like to use some of the industry's reflections as a starting point, specifically revisiting Dr. Xiao Feng's preface to "Point to Everything: Ethereum and the Future of Digital Finance," published by China Translation and Publishing House in 2022. Rereading this article on Ethereum's tenth anniversary not only helps us understand the industry's past, but also provides a mirror for charting its future direction. On September 15, 2022, Ethereum will usher in another historic moment, following the publication of its initial white paper in late 2013 and the launch of its mainnet in July 2015: the "Merge." Ethereum's consensus mechanism will transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). "The Merge" will reduce Ethereum's energy consumption by 99%, reduce ETH issuance by 90%, and drive gas costs down to near zero through the integration of sharding and Layer 2 (Layer 2) protocols. While maintaining the security and health of the network, "The Merge" will help Ethereum reach 100,000 transactions per second within the next three years and 10 million transactions per second within the next ten years, achieving high performance and highly flexible scalability. This will further solidify Ethereum's position as the universal infrastructure of the Metaverse. "The Merge" is not only a significant moment in the history of Ethereum, but also a defining moment in the history of blockchain technology! Following "The Merge," Ethereum will need another upgrade six months later to restore normal transaction functionality. This upgrade moment has been dubbed "Shanghai" by the Ethereum community! In September 2016, following the first two Worldwide Developers Conferences (WDCs) held in Berlin and London, the third Ethereum Developers Conference (DEVCON2) was held at the Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai's North Bund. Of the nearly 1,000 attendees (Ethereum DEVCON now attracts tens of thousands), 90% came from overseas. Hearing firsthand from global blockchain leaders significantly accelerated the adoption of blockchain technology in China. A Chinese tech journalist who attended the conference wrote on Weibo: "Stepping into the venue and seeing 90% of the attendees were foreigners, I mistakenly thought it was a conference held in Europe or the United States." Five years ago, the WDC, held in Shanghai, China, was a truly time-stirring event brought to life and fully sponsored by Wanxiang Blockchain Labs. In accordance with the Ethereum PoW-to-PoS transition process that began several years ago, each key node is named after the city where DEVCON was held. This is how Ethereum's "Shanghai Moment" came about. In December 2014, at the Sanya Finance International Forum hosted by Caijing magazine, I organized a "Digital Currency Forum." Speakers included former experts in financial regulation, bankers, and digital currency practitioners. My speech focused on Ethereum, which had just released its white paper a year earlier, while the keynote speaker focused on Bitcoin. This was probably the first time that a high-profile forum hosted by a renowned financial media outlet in China discussed the then-unknown topic of digital currencies, represented by Bitcoin and Ethereum. This naturally caught the attention of domestic blockchain and digital currency practitioners. During lunch after the breakout session, I received a WeChat friend request. He said he'd seen my talk online and was sitting in a coffee shop at Incheon International Airport in South Korea with Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, waiting for his flight. That's how I finally connected with Vitalik, introduced by Shen Bo. Vitalik arrived in Shanghai in April 2015, carrying a cloth bag with a cat printed on it. This wasn't his first visit to China. When we first met, I was surprised to see him able to send WeChat messages in Chinese and even hold a conversation in his somewhat sparsely spoken language—remarkable for a foreigner who hadn't studied Chinese. Vitalik's Chinese proficiency was unlike other foreigners; his written communication was stronger than his oral. He told me his secret to learning Chinese: find Chinese translations of any blockchain or digital currency material, including Bitcoin and Ethereum white papers, and then compare it to the original English version. Once, the three of us were sharing a taxi in New York City. While listening to us chatting in Chinese, he would constantly pull out his phone, check a Chinese-English dictionary, and verify that the words we had just mentioned were what he understood. In 2016, Vitalik wrote the PowerPoint presentation for his presentation at the Shanghai Wanxiang Blockchain International Week himself, in Chinese. During his more than one month in Shanghai, Vitalik stayed at Shen Bo's house. He had no extravagant expectations, barely even seeking basic necessities. His only passion was probably cats. On a business trip to Hong Kong, I found a book of cats by a renowned photographer while browsing in a bookstore and brought it back to Shanghai as a gift to Vitalik. The photo album is quite heavy, and even though he's a global traveler, he probably couldn't carry it with him, despite his joy. In 2015, Vitalik spent several months or more in Shanghai. This photo album might bring him some comfort during his time there. We often met to discuss blockchain and Ethereum, with the focus always being on how Wanxiang could collaborate with Ethereum to promote the development and application of blockchain technology in China. One morning in April 2015, Vitalik arrived at the Wanxiang Building, looking slightly tired, clearly having not rested well the previous night. Shen Bo pulled me aside and told me that the Ethereum community had held an all-night meeting the previous night. The main point of the discussion was that some people had observed the cash reserves in the Ethereum Foundation's accounts, raising doubts about whether there would be enough funds to support the Ethereum mainnet launch. 20-year-old Vitalik was clearly facing pressure from community developers. This kind of infrastructure, with the potential to change the world, deserves strong support from all parties. My intuition told me that this might be a heaven-sent opportunity for Wanxiang, and for me. If we could actively support the development of Ethereum at this critical juncture, we could not only become a participant in this landmark project, but also use it as a focal point to implement Wanxiang's blockchain strategy. So, I proposed to Vitalik that we donate $500,000 to the Ethereum Foundation under the name "Wanxiang Blockchain Lab." If necessary, we could continue this funding next year to help allay developers' concerns, allowing them to work with all their might, and provide all possible support for the on-time launch of the Ethereum mainnet. The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Switzerland, so lawyers from both parties helped draft a donation agreement. The Ethereum Foundation accepted the donation and, after the mainnet launch, would donate an agreed amount of ETH from the Foundation's unlocked ETH to the donor. Since Wanxiang Blockchain Lab was still in the registration process and to comply with foreign exchange regulations, the funds were paid by an overseas company within the Wanxiang system, but blockchain cooperation matters were designated for the soon-to-be-established Wanxiang Blockchain Lab. After the dust settled, Vitalik wrote a letter to the community announcing the donation from a Chinese-backed organization and its commitment to continued support. This eased the developer community's concerns about Ethereum's cash flow in the coming months. In hindsight, these concerns were unfounded. But faced with a global project billed as the "World Internet Computer," especially one led by a 20-something tech geek, it was only natural that some people would question, "How long can it last?" This event also marked the official launch of Wanxiang's strategic deployment and progress in blockchain. In the second half of 2015, the Wanxiang Blockchain Lab was established, the first Wanxiang Blockchain Global Summit was held, Asia's first dedicated blockchain investment fund, Distributed Capital, was established (Wanxiang was the sole limited partner), the Wanxiang Blockchain Lab launched its "Blockchain Startup Project Funding Program," the Wanxiang Blockchain Lab book series was published, and Wanxiang Blockchain Lab partnered with Chinese blockchain technology experts to host blockchain training courses. In mid-October 2015, the first Wanxiang Blockchain Global Summit, based on blockchain technology and intended to promote its widespread adoption in China, was held in Shanghai. Wanxiang fully leveraged the resources of the Ethereum community, solicited cutting-edge blockchain topics from around the world, invited global blockchain experts, and mobilized domestic blockchain practitioners to participate. At Vitalik's call and invitation, many of the world's top blockchain practitioners attended, representing the highest level of global blockchain technology at the time. The first summit lasted two days, with an open forum on the first day and an invitation-only closed-door discussion on the second day. The summit received strong support and widespread acclaim from the domestic industry. Eight colleagues from a leading domestic company attended the summit. Due to space limitations in the closed-door discussion room, they weren't invited. They approached me directly, urging me to attend all six sessions. I was deeply moved by their enthusiasm. It wasn't until early January 2016, with the first blockchain hackathon held in Shanghai, that Wanxiang's first phase of blockchain initiatives came to a successful conclusion. This first blockchain hackathon was co-hosted by Wanxiang and Deloitte. The Ethereum Foundation sent three technical experts as mentors and judges, and Vitalik was also in attendance. Over 120 participants from around the world formed teams on the spot and performed impromptu. The first-prize team included a high school student who had traveled all the way from Italy to China at her own expense. After 48 hours of intense competition, the high school student asked if we could accept him full-time at Wanxiang Blockchain Labs. After much persuasion, we finally got him on a return flight. A year later, we began to regret our decision, as he ultimately co-founded a blockchain startup in Europe and assumed a core technical role in this popular project. Young minds are full of ambition! Considering that Vitalik was only in his twenties when he started his business, it's remarkable how formidable the young are in the blockchain industry! In May 2016, a group of nine of us departed from Pudong Airport, first visiting the San Francisco Bay Area, then New York for the Consensus conference, stopping in London before returning to Shanghai. This was a European and American blockchain research trip planned with Vitalik, who met us in San Francisco. Along the way, we met many prominent figures, learned many new ideas, and explored many promising projects. Another purpose of this trip to Europe and the United States was to identify some secret speakers for the Second Wanxiang Blockchain Summit. We had lunch with Nick Szabo, the "father of smart contracts," at a restaurant in Mountain View, Silicon Valley, and invited him to Shanghai for that year's Blockchain Summit. Nick was very cautious, and getting him in person was quite a hassle. After two years and multiple invitations, he finally attended the Third Wanxiang Blockchain Global Summit in 2017. In late September 2016, the Second Wanxiang Blockchain Global Summit took place as scheduled. However, this summit had expanded into "International Blockchain Week." The first three days of the International Week were dedicated to the second Ethereum Global Developers Conference (DEVCON0, as is customary in computer system development, and this one, DEVCON2, would be considered the third). The fourth day was dedicated to blockchain project roadshows (Demo Day), and the fifth and sixth days were dedicated to the Global Summit. It was Wanxiang Group's 2015 commitment to support the Ethereum community that led to the expansion of the Global Blockchain Summit into International Week. In addition to its $500,000 donation, Wanxiang also pledged continued support for Ethereum development in 2016, based on demand. Following the successful launch of the Ethereum mainnet, the Ethereum Foundation clearly no longer had a pressing need for such support. However, Wanxiang couldn't let this promise become an empty promise. Therefore, we proposed that if the Ethereum Global Developers Conference were relocated to China, Wanxiang Blockchain Lab would fully cover the costs, with any ticket sales and sponsorship revenue going to the Ethereum Foundation. Thus, "Shanghai Blockchain International Week" was born. On September 15, 2022, Ethereum's "Merge" is imminent. I envision a blockchain protocol stack centered around Ethereum. In the 1980s, the internet was a complex web of interconnected protocols, until market forces unified it into the TCP/IP protocol stack. The more fundamental the protocol, the more it became a single global standard, such as IP, TCP, and HTTP. It was only at the application layer that internet protocols began to diversify, with potentially over a hundred different protocols at the application layer. The current multi-chain phenomenon in blockchain resembles the era before the internet protocol was unified. The market demand for seamless connectivity will undoubtedly drive the integration of blockchain protocol stacks. Only Ethereum is currently, intentionally or unintentionally, building a blockchain protocol stack. On the one hand, it's evolving from L0 (distributed communication, distributed storage, and distributed computing) to L1, then to L2, and even L3... On the other hand, after "The Merge," Ethereum's performance and scalability will also support large-scale applications. According to the Ethereum Foundation, within 10 years, Ethereum will be able to reach 10 million transactions per second (TPS). My personal observation is that, similar to the development of Internet protocols, over the next few years, blockchain protocols will be gradually pushed by market forces towards integration into a unified protocol stack. Public chains other than Ethereum may become subchains, sidechains, or even shards and partitions of Ethereum, thus achieving an ideal world of interconnected blockchains. Today, at this critical juncture in the development of Ethereum and even blockchain, the publication of the Chinese edition of "Point to Everything: Ethereum and the Future of Digital Finance" by China Translation Publishing House is a truly significant contribution! I would like to use my memories of Ethereum’s “Shanghai Moment” as a background supplement for this book.
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