Vitalik and Aya's Conversation in Hong Kong: The Ethereum Ecosystem is Entering a Multi-Node Future

Author: @cynthiaju333; Reviewer: @NPC_Leo

Over the past two months, a series of significant events have unfolded within the Ethereum ecosystem: the Ethereum Foundation (EF) completed its organizational restructuring, Ethlabs was established as an independent non-profit R&D organization, Ethereum Institutional officially launched as a dedicated institutional front door, and Etherealize continued to advance Ethereum's narrative for Wall Street and capital markets. The community has engaged in extensive discussions surrounding the EF's organizational restructuring, the formation of new community-driven teams, initiatives for institutional adoption, and the division of R&D and governance structures.

On April 21, 2026, ETH HK Hub officially opened in Hong Kong, where two important dialogues took place. One was a Chinese-language conversation between Vitalik Buterin and Hong Kong Legislative Council member Duncan Chiu. They discussed the development of the Chinese-speaking community over the past twelve years, Layer 2 solutions, core protocol development, quantum resistance roadmaps, Layer 1 scaling, and the truly worthy directions for Builders in Ethereum going forward. The other was an English roundtable featuring EF Chair Aya Miyaguchi, Councilman Duncan Chiu, and QZ, a Partner from an ecosystem fund. This discussion focused on the EF's role, the philosophy of subtraction, the Walk-away Test, and Hong Kong's position within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Standing here more than two months later, how can we gain a deeper understanding of the changes occurring within the entire Ethereum community? The two dialogues between Vitalik and Aya provide crucial points of reference for us: they make it easier to understand that Ethereum is entering a new development phase, a future of multi-node community governance and potential continued evolution.

What happened to Ethereum in the Past Two Months?

On May 24, Vitalik Buterin published a lengthy post on his X account, publicly outlining his personal views on the future direction of the EF. He emphasized that the EF would pursue "longevity over breadth", reducing ETH sales and the foundation's financial expenditures, and focusing more on the core values of CROPS (Censorship/Colonization resistance, Openness, Privacy, Security). He also pointed out that the EF is not the center of Ethereum, but rather "one node, with a defined purpose", advocating for a pluralistic landscape of multiple focused nodes working in synergy within the ecosystem.

On June 23, the EF officially announced its new organizational structure on its official blog. The new structure includes protocol, access, user, community, and institutional layers, along with operational and management support structures. Through this restructuring, the EF aims to align its organizational form more closely with long-term strategic goals, ensuring the sustainable development of Ethereum's future.

Almost simultaneously, the independent non-profit R&D organization Ethlabs announced its formation, co-founded by five former EF senior researchers: Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma. It is financially supported by Bitmine, Sharplink, Joe Lubin, SNZ, and others. Its goal is to prepare Ethereum for the next phase of demands, including institutional adoption, agentic finance, DeFi, stablecoins, and RWA, while collaborating with the EF on different areas to advance the Ethereum protocol and collectively build a multi-node ecosystem.

On July 1, the EF's Global Policy and Strategy team published a guide for governments and institutions: "Ethereum for Governments & Institutions: Why Neutral Infrastructure is Critical Now." This report actively helps global policymakers and large institutions gain a deeper understanding of Ethereum. Its core premise is that the world today needs "a shared, neutral digital public infrastructure not controlled by any single centralized entity," and Ethereum is the public, programmable network designed for this purpose.

On the same day, Ethereum Institutional officially launched as an independent non-profit organization, positioning itself as the "dedicated institutional front door" for the Ethereum ecosystem. It takes over the institutional outreach work that the Ethereum Foundation's go-to-market team performed over the past year, operating with a clearer mission, broader geographic coverage, and long-term financial independence. Its key focus areas include Institutional Education & Outreach, Institutional Insights, ETH & Ecosystem Marketing, Standards & Best Practices, and Institutional Events.

Concurrently, Etherealize continues to drive Ethereum's connection with traditional finance. Its website positions itself as "Rewiring Wall Street with Ethereum," building financial infrastructure for trillion-dollar markets in tokenization, Ethereum-native settlement, and institution-grade privacy. Wall Street's interest in Ethereum is shifting from proofs-of-concept and pilot projects to viewing public chains as production infrastructure; the scope of discussion is also expanding from stablecoins to tokenized stocks, bonds, real estate, and investment funds.

Collectively, these events point to a larger shift: Ethereum is moving from a stage where the Ethereum Foundation (EF) assumed much of the coordination and public narrative, to a new stage where multiple specialized organizations share different capabilities. The EF is becoming more focused on protocol governance, credible neutrality, self-sovereignty, and long-term resilience. Ethlabs takes on R&D and infrastructure capacity building for the next phase of adoption. Ethereum Institutional handles institutional education, standard-setting, market perception promotion, and the entry point for global financial institutions. Etherealize continues to drive Ethereum's narrative into capital markets and traditional finance.

These organizations do not belong to a single centralized plan, nor should they be simply understood as outsourced arms or replacements for the EF. Together, they reflect a clearer division of capabilities emerging within the Ethereum ecosystem: protocol neutrality, institutional adoption, capital market narrative, applied R&D, and local community coordination are now being shouldered by different nodes.

More precisely, Ethereum is entering a new development stage and ecosystem structure. And if we go back to the scene at ETH HK Hub on April 21, we see that the long-term principles behind these changes were precisely what Vitalik and Aya discussed that day.

EF Chair Aya on the Philosophy of Subtraction

During the roundtable at ETH HK Hub, Aya Miyaguchi repeatedly touched upon a concept: the Walk-away Test.

Her point was that the EF's long-term goal is not to become a larger, more controlling central organization, but to allow the entire system to continue functioning even without the EF itself.

She stated: "Ethereum must pass the Walk-away Test – even without the Ethereum Foundation, the entire system should be able to function normally."

Aya recalled on site that she joined the EF during the ICO boom. At the time, many suggested the foundation expand rapidly, creating positions like CTO and CMO, similar to traditional tech companies, to take on more centralized functions.

But the EF did not do that.

She explained: "If the foundation builds everything for the entire ecosystem, participants will become dependent. In the long run, this weakens competition, and without competition, optimal solutions cannot emerge."

Underlying this is Ethereum's fundamental belief: the health of the system comes not from the strength of a single organization, but from the ecosystem's own ability to continuously generate new capabilities, new organizations, and new builders.

So when Aya said: "Success means the Foundation does less, and Ethereum becomes stronger."

This statement has acquired a more specific context two months later.

From this perspective, the emergence of Ethlabs, Ethereum Institutional, Etherealize, and global Ethereum community Hubs is more like a manifestation of the EF's philosophy of subtraction: as the base protocol matures, the ecosystem no longer needs a single command-and-control center, but multiple organizations that share a common belief, are independent of each other, and each undertake different responsibilities.

Vitalik on the Boundaries of Protocol Coordination

In his dialogue at ETH HK Hub, Vitalik also introduced a distinction that seems very important today.

He said, "Core protocol development and L2 development are completely different in difficulty. L2 is more like a free market. If an outsider builds something better, they have a chance to win."

But core protocol is different. Core protocol development requires long-term coordination with existing developers, achieving consensus among client teams, researchers, the community, and upgrade roadmaps.

Therefore, the truly important question is: Do these efforts still serve Ethereum's long-term protocol goals? Do they still maintain credible neutrality, security, privacy, censorship resistance, and Ethereum's fundamental attributes as public infrastructure?

Ethereum's core work remains enabling a decentralized protocol to evolve continuously through long-term coordination.

Why Hong Kong?

In Aya's roundtable, she mentioned that, "The community Hub emerging in Hong Kong is itself a manifestation of the EF's philosophy of subtraction."

If Ethereum's future is not driven by a single center but built collectively by multiple independent nodes, then a local Hub is not just a venue or a community event organizer. It becomes a new kind of ecosystem infrastructure.

It connects not only developers, but also institutions, researchers, capital, policymakers, public goods builders, and new entrants coming into Ethereum from traditional finance, AI, hardware, stablecoins, RWA, and payments.

Hong Kong happens to sit at these intersection points. It is an international financial center, a meeting point for Eastern and Western capital, policy, and technological contexts. It connects Chinese-speaking builders with the global Ethereum community, and is adjacent to Shenzhen's hardware, AI, and manufacturing ecosystem.

Therefore, when Hong Kong and Singapore appear in Ethereum Institutional's global map, when SNZ appears among Ethlabs' supporters, when ETH HK Hub becomes Asia's first physical Ethereum community center— all point to a common trend: Asia is becoming a crucial node for Ethereum's institutional adoption and builder coordination.

This is also the role that SNZ and ETH HK Hub aim to play. Our role is to establish a long-term coordination node in Hong Kong and Asia, where builders, researchers, institutions, capital, policymakers, and the global Ethereum community can meet, and to extend the dialogues from each event into longer-term construction.

Two Months Later, What Has Really Changed?

Over the past two months, many have been asking: What happened to the EF? Who left? Who formed a new organization? Will Ethlabs replace the EF? Does Ethereum Institutional mean Ethereum is proactively competing for the institutional market?

If we start again from the two dialogues on April 21, perhaps the answers become clearer.

The EF is becoming more focused on what it should protect most: protocol neutrality, long-term security, openness, privacy, censorship resistance, and self-sovereignty. At the same time, more specialized organizations are emerging in the ecosystem, taking on R&D, institutional adoption, capital market narrative, local community coordination, developer education, and policy communication.

The EF doing less does not mean Ethereum is doing less. On the contrary, it requires more people, more organizations, more regions, and more Builders to step up.

Perhaps the biggest theme of the past two months is that Ethereum is continuing to prove what it has always believed:

A resilient ecosystem relies on continuously generating new nodes, new methods of collaboration, and new builders.

The existence of ETH HK Hub is precisely to participate in such a future.

ETH HK Hub is jointly operated by SNZ and ETHTAO, with support from the Ethereum Foundation.