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Vitalik: I see five major achievements for Ethereum in 2022

Bankless

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Bankless recently spoke with Ethereum founder Vitalik.

Original title: Vitalik's Top 5 Crypto Wins of 2022

Original article by Bankless

Golden Finance

Bankless recently spoke with Ethereum founder Vitalik. According to Vitalik, a lot of people are remembering all the terrible things that happened this year (Terra, FTX, etc.)... But I think it's also important to remember all the various positives that the crypto industry has seen. Vitalik sees five major achievements for Ethereum in 2022:

1. Ethereum merger

"The Ethereum merger is amazing."

Vitalik praised Ethereum's long-delayed transition to PoS as the biggest win of 2022 for the Ethereum network.

Vitalik highlighted not only the impact of this achievement on Ethereum's energy footprint, but also how it improves protocol security and network availability.

"My personal experience with Ethereum has improved a lot," Vitalik said. "These days when I send a transaction, I hit send, wait a few seconds, and I see that the transaction is included in a block and it already has a confirmation...... that it's good enough to compete with the credit card POS system."

2. Innovation of ZK-EVM

Vitalik is very bullish on the power of ZK-EVM, which has made a major leap forward in innovation in 2022. Vitalik said the projects went from "nonexistent pipe dreams" to "expanding Ethereum's long-term -- and possibly medium-term -- future."

The ZK-EVM project uses virtual machines that generate proof of zero knowledge to verify the correctness of various smart contract operations. These are huge leaps forward in Ethereum's progress. There are several teams building these, including Matter Labs, Scroll, and Polygon.

Vitalik has long been a fan of ZK-EVM, but says the progress made so far has even surprised him. "We have multiple ZK EVM implementations, all promising some sort of mainnet next year -- that's great."

3. Ethereum login

The third big win Vitalik sees for the Ethereum ecosystem in 2022 is the adoption of Ethereum Login, which allows users to easily and securely log into network services using their Ethereum wallet.

No more remembering password combinations, no more relying on centralised Internet providers such as Facebook and Google to handle personal information and online identities. At a time when social media providers seem to own almost every aspect of a user's online life, logging in using Ethereum allows users to own their authentication on the Internet.

Vitalik said that "using Ethereum login has been a huge step forward in terms of adoption; Ethereum has been able to capitalize on people's desire to explore various alternative Twitter and alternative social media platforms", highlighting platforms such as Lens and Farcaster in particular.

4. Cryptocurrencies work for Ukraine

Using cryptocurrencies to help Ukraine during the Russian invasion was another bright spot for Ethereum in 2022. In the wake of Russia's attack on Ukraine, cryptocurrency payments and unlicensed networks have become more important than ever, Vitalik noted.

"Cryptocurrency payments are actually useful for Ukraine when nothing else works," Vitalik said. "Cryptocurrencies are actually a lifeline for the country and for many civilians."

In addition to payment infrastructure, Vitalik highlighted how the system could be used to raise donations for the Ukrainian army through ordinary grassroots donations to public purse addresses and fundraising within the crypto community through tools such as NFT sales.

5. Crypto charity

Finally, Vitalik highlighted cryptocurrency giving and philanthropy in 2022 as one of the biggest wins for the Ethereum ecosystem, demonstrating not only the effectiveness of a permiss-free payment infrastructure to move money to foreign organizations, but also the overall generosity of the industry, even under very difficult circumstances.

"Cryptocurrencies make a lot of sense as an international payment tool for philanthropy," he said, highlighting some of the growing efforts the COVID-19 Relief Fund has made in the last year to help people in countries like India.