Five years later, Ethereum has finally updated its narrative. The current leadership team introduced the new concept "Ethereum is a ladder" at Devconnect ARG, supplementing and extending the previous "Infinite Garden" narrative. The "Infinite Garden" concept was initially proposed internally at EF in 2020 by former Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi, and then formally unveiled in her EthCC presentation in 2021. She argued that Ethereum is not a machine or a company, but an "Infinite Garden": a diverse ecosystem composed of countless individuals and organizations who, like gardeners, continuously sow, prune, and care for the system, allowing it to grow sustainably in the long term, rather than playing a finite game where "winning ends the game." In her presentation at Devcon 7 last year, she further expanded this metaphor, describing Ethereum as an "Infinite Garden" based on shared values, decentralized, and long-term oriented, where different participants form overlapping circles of influence, driving ecosystem growth through collaboration rather than a single center. I believe this also led to Ethereum's significant organizational restructuring this year, moving away from a single organization called the "Ethereum Foundation" and instead being driven by a consortium of organizations including: - Nomic Foundation - 0xPARC - Argot Collective - ZKnox - Etherealize. Hsiao-Wei Wang's concept of "Ethereum is a ladder" builds upon and deepens this narrative to some extent. She points out that Ethereum provides everyone with a path to climb at their own pace. Everyone's research, protocol upgrades, or application innovations become new stepping stones for the entire ecosystem, allowing newcomers to reach greater heights and go further. This continuous accumulation of steps is the source of the compounding effect of Ethereum's sustained growth. Decentralization, fairness, neutrality, and reliability under pressure constitute the structural strength of this ladder. The true responsibility of the Ethereum Foundation and the community is not to climb to the top themselves, but to firmly hold the ladder, enabling more people to reach heights untouched by predecessors. To put it more bluntly, this is a concrete manifestation of the concepts of "standing on the shoulders of giants" and "avoiding reinventing the wheel." Perhaps it can also be understood this way: the "Infinite Garden" embodies the breadth, diversity, and inclusivity of the Ethereum ecosystem, while the "ladder" emphasizes how Ethereum helps us reach heights yet to be explored. Transcript of Hsiao-Wei Wang's speech at Devconnect ARG 2025: https://t.co/k2Zj5yguGv