On September 22, ETHShanghai 2026, co-hosted by ETHPanda, PANews, and The Excited Few, officially launched in Shanghai, with special support from GCC, Wanxiang Blockchain Lab, LXDAO, ETH HK Hub, Web3Buidler.Tech, SigMarket, and Nantang DAO.
This year’s conference, themed "The Renaissance of Ethereum," brings together developers, builders, and thought explorers to revisit the trajectory of technological evolution, starting from the history and original vision of the crypto world, and extending discussions to AI, open-source collaboration, public goods, cryptography, and the future of the internet.
At an online talk on the topic of EIP-8288, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that Ethereum is exploring the introduction of a recursive STARK mempool mechanism to alleviate the tension between quantum security, privacy protection, and network scalability. Currently, the cost of verifying quantum-resistant signatures may range from 100,000 to 300,000 gas; transactions involving privacy proofs could consume hundreds of thousands or even millions of gas. As the adoption of quantum-resistant signatures and privacy technologies expands, the on-chain verification burden may increase further.
The core idea of this proposal is to decouple signature and proof verification from on-chain execution, allowing mempool nodes to collect and aggregate relevant cryptographic objects before transaction packaging, ultimately generating a unified proof for verification on the Ethereum mainchain. Users still need to submit transactions along with their corresponding signatures and proofs, but the mainchain no longer needs to process each complex object individually, thereby reducing on-chain data and verification overhead. Vitalik views this as a specialized computational scaling solution for signature and proof verification, alleviating the mainchain’s burden by distributing part of the computation across network nodes for parallel processing.
This mechanism is expected to optimize costs for scenarios such as quantum-resistant transactions, private transactions, and Layer2 state proof submissions. Vitalik noted that as proof verification costs decrease, the frequency with which Layer2 systems submit proofs to Ethereum could increase further, potentially reducing intervals from several minutes to per minute or even less. Additionally, developers can offload certain high-cost computations to clients, then submit the resulting proofs for on-chain verification, thereby expanding Ethereum’s support for diverse computational architectures and external applications.
Vitalik believes this direction reflects Ethereum's architectural evolution from general-purpose computing toward specialized, modular computing, and mentions that novel instruction sets like RISC-V may find increased application. Currently, the relevant mechanisms are still in the proposal, simulation, and testing phases.
Dr. Xiao Feng, Vice Chairman of Wanxiang Holdings and Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain, stated that the original support for Ethereum was not merely an investment judgment, but rather an alignment with its vision of enabling third-party developers to build diverse applications through blockchain as a new type of ledger system. He believes Ethereum’s original intent was to build application-oriented infrastructure; although there are aspects worth reflecting on during its development, its long-term value remains significant. Ethereum does not need a renaissance, he argues, as it remains a widely adopted blockchain infrastructure with a solid foundation for applications. The ultimate fate of all infrastructure is to be forgotten—the deeper it is embedded in the underlying layers, the less users and application developers need to be consciously aware of its existence.
Regarding the development of the Ethereum Foundation, Xiao Feng believes that the foundation’s idealistic characteristics are commendable, but its ultimate goal should be to gradually decentralize its role until it is no longer needed. He noted that this year, more organizations independent of the foundation have emerged within the Ethereum ecosystem, representing a significant sign of Ethereum’s maturation. One of Ethereum’s key areas for future growth lies in further expanding into important markets such as the United States and China.
Regarding Hong Kong’s role in this crypto cycle, Xiao Feng believes that Hong Kong’s common law system and status as an international financial center give it a valuable experimental role for mainland China, allowing it to explore practical applications in digital assets, stablecoins, and blockchain technologies to accumulate experience for future policy research. However, for Hong Kong itself, developing these industries is not merely an experiment, but a crucial component of maintaining and enhancing its position as an international financial center. He also emphasized that Hong Kong’s regulatory prudence is closely tied to the size of its financial market and its risk tolerance. Compared to the United States, markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and the EU tend to be more cautious in responding to financial innovation, as risks from a single project could have a more pronounced impact on their relatively smaller local financial systems.
Regarding the integration of cryptography and AI, Xiao Feng believes they are two aspects of the same thing and will further converge in the future. He noted that payment tools for AI applications will involve digital currencies such as stablecoins, particularly tokenized digital twins based on real-world fiat currencies. As AI applications and intelligent agents evolve, tokenized currencies are expected to become vital tools for their transactions and payments. Meanwhile, the AI industry chain faces risks such as volatility in chip, electricity, and computing power prices, necessitating appropriate financial instruments for risk management. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange plans to launch a computing power index futures contract in October this year. As the AI industry grows, price risk management of foundational resources like computing power will become a significant application area for financial derivatives markets, including tokenized perpetual contracts.
Xiao Feng concluded by noting that building AI infrastructure requires massive financing, with future funding needs potentially reaching trillions of dollars or more. The existing capital market structure may not be sufficient to fully meet this demand. Therefore, the United States is exploring ways to further connect global capital, investors, and liquidity through asset tokenization and round-the-clock trading. He believes that establishing a more globalized capital market that supports 24/7 trading would help meet the enormous financing needs of AI infrastructure development.
At the roundtable discussion themed “What Are We Losing?”, several crypto veterans explored perspectives ranging from reflecting on shifts in their original intentions to examining the impact of AI.
Cancer, partner at Waterdrop Capital, noted that among the founders of early blockchain projects, there were many skilled software architects, but technical expertise does not necessarily mean a commitment to decentralization. Using EOS founder BM as an example, she argued that BM made too many compromises in practice, causing certain design elements to deviate from the original intent of decentralization. However, many of these ideas ultimately came to fruition thanks to the continuous participation and advocacy of community developers. Regarding industry development, she believes it is no longer easy for Ethereum to replicate the rapid growth seen in early-stage projects; it is crucial for young people to enter rapidly growing industries, and the crypto sector has already moved past its initial phase of explosive growth. She acknowledges that Ethereum’s exploration of on-chain democratic mechanisms still holds unique significance for the industry, but its deep integration with finance also makes it easy for outsiders to view it as a “big casino.”
Zhang Yuanjie, co-founder of Conflux, said that the appeal of blockchain lies in providing an open financial infrastructure that gives people from diverse backgrounds, educational levels, and skill sets the opportunity to participate. The early cryptocurrency industry demonstrated strong inclusivity; while still adhering to market competition mechanisms, it fostered important innovations such as stablecoins and DeFi, offering new options to populations underserved by traditional financial services.
Zhang Yuanjie recalled that around 2018, the barrier to entry in the crypto industry was relatively low, allowing small teams to experiment with innovation and rapidly launch products. Compared to many traditional industries, crypto entrepreneurship once offered smaller teams greater room for experimentation. However, as the industry gradually integrated with traditional finance, costs related to technological development, capital investment, team management, and compliance have continuously risen, raising the barrier to entry. The current entrepreneurial environment has changed significantly, making it difficult to simply replicate the early model of launching projects with minimal personnel. Meanwhile, emerging technologies such as AI have also provided entrepreneurs with new directions to explore. In response to these industry shifts, entrepreneurs need to reassess their own skills, interests, and market demands. Nevertheless, according to Zhang Yuanjie, the crypto industry still retains a degree of openness compared to many other fields, offering entrepreneurs opportunities to explore and participate.
Sun Ming, General Counsel of Distributed Capital, examined the compliance journey of the crypto industry from the perspectives of law and financial systems. He believes that the crypto industry is exploring a new generation of financial development models, and as the industry evolves, the regulatory environment is shifting from an initially ambiguous state toward clearer administrative guidelines and institutional frameworks.
Sun Ming noted that the U.S. SEC’s practices regarding the approval of crypto-related financial products reflect regulatory bodies beginning to respond to emerging assets and transaction models through existing financial frameworks. However, regulatory recognition does not imply equal acknowledgment of all crypto businesses; individual projects must still be assessed based on their asset characteristics, issuance methods, and business models. In his view, compliance is an unavoidable issue in the development of the crypto industry.
At the AI-themed roundtable, Heyang Zhou, co-founder of AFK AI; Lauging, Head of Asia-Pacific Business at Kite AI; and Ian Xu, co-founder of OpenBui, discussed the measurement and incentivization of open-source contributions, collaboration models between commercial companies and open-source communities, and the integration of AI and blockchain. They agreed that effective methods for quantifying and incentivizing open-source contributions remain lacking; models that simply award points based on code commits or article publications are unsustainable. In contrast, shared community values and common goals are crucial for retaining long-term contributors.
Regarding AI open source, they believe that ordinary developers find it difficult to directly participate in core activities such as model training, but there are more opportunities to contribute through toolchains, documentation, and ecosystem applications. Although they previously attempted to use blockchain to record individual contributors' involvement in specific tasks, they found it challenging to accurately determine which contributions led to the final outcomes, and thus adjusted their exploration direction accordingly.
Regarding developer migration trends, the three guests noted that in recent years, some developers have shifted from Web3 to AI. Professor Ye believes that there is still potential for integration between AI and blockchain, particularly in addressing privacy protection needs for institutions such as hospitals, and in building application ecosystems around open-source models.
Regarding the integration of AI and blockchain payments, they note that in the future, agents may generate high-frequency, low-value demands for API calls and service payments. Blockchain and smart contracts can precisely constrain agent spending by setting access permissions, per-call expenditure limits, and total budgets, offering a promising direction for related payment scenarios.
At the "Cryptography Sanctuary" panel, Guo Yu, founder of Amoy Lab, stated that cypherpunks represent a way of life in the future digital world, centered on not easily surrendering personal information and rights while retaining the freedom to choose. Cypherpunks not only emphasize self-protection but also enhance others' ability to safeguard themselves by inventing and promoting cryptographic protocols and tools. He noted that the cryptography war has not truly ended; as software becomes increasingly open-source, hardware centralization, and on-chain transaction-related security and privacy concerns remain significant.
Xavier, co-founder of Primus Labs, stated that privacy protection is a capability not yet fully realized by many Web2 systems and is a crucial safeguard for individuals to uphold their rights in the digital world. He believes that cryptography is a relatively pure technology, but security is a complex systemic issue that cannot rely solely on cryptographic algorithms themselves; instead, it must be integrated with specific application environments such as blockchain to clearly define the scope and limits of technological capabilities. When cryptographic algorithms present security vulnerabilities, they must be promptly upgraded and iterated. Additionally, challenges remain between the cypherpunk ethos and commercialization, with projects like Zcash continuously exploring practical applications of privacy technologies.
Petri, a fan of fully homomorphic encryption, discussed the issue from the perspective of technology and the boundaries of power, emphasizing that during technological development, it is essential to maintain a balance between individual rights and public authority, and to avoid weakening cryptographic protection mechanisms through methods such as backdoors.
During the roundtable discussion on future applications, Gus, Chairman of Starlink AI, noted that the primary current applications of the space economy remain focused on communications and computing power, while satellite remote sensing can provide real-world data support for financial institutions, prediction markets, and other sectors. Looking ahead, as satellites and related infrastructure continue to develop, how to integrate fragmented satellite resources and build an open collaborative network has become a promising direction for exploration. Communications, in particular, is a key application area of the space economy. Satellite communications hold the potential to deliver connectivity to regions with inadequate ground base station coverage and weak network infrastructure, further enabling internet services, AI applications, and digital payments. He believes that the future development of the space economy should not be limited to replicating the satellite deployment models of large corporations; instead, it should explore collaborative approaches that connect dispersed resources to create a more open and autonomous space infrastructure network.
Regarding stablecoin applications, Shawn Pang, CEO of All Scale, shared experiences serving overseas creator economy businesses. These companies previously hired large numbers of content creators in regions such as Southeast Asia and Brazil for content production and promotion, but cross-border payments faced challenges including reporting requirements, delays in fund settlement, and limitations in local payment infrastructure. In some areas, opening and using USD accounts also involved high barriers. Stablecoins can provide overseas users with USD-denominated accounts and cross-border payment solutions. Especially in regions with high local currency volatility and limited access to USD, demand for stablecoins stems not only from crypto asset trading but also from business operations and everyday payments. In the future, with the development of programmable payments, stablecoins may also be applied to machine payments and new digital economy scenarios.
Miles, founder of Sigmarket, noted that prediction markets have strong hedging capabilities. A key distinction between prediction markets and traditional gambling lies in whether the underlying assets are directly linked to real-world events and have real-world spillover effects. Additionally, prediction markets possess derivative characteristics—predictions formed around real-world events such as politics, war, and economics may connect to risk management and financial markets. Furthermore, the project is leveraging AI to uncover potential causal relationships between different events, which could introduce new differentiating directions for prediction markets.
In the final panel on digital nomad communities, builders from Nantang DAO, The Mu, GCC, Rural Development DAO, and the 706 Youth Community engaged in a discussion on the long-term development of public goods, charitable donations, and social innovation initiatives. They emphasized that community growth requires not only technological and business resources but also humanistic values and trust-based connections among members. Additionally, advancing the long-term sustainability of these projects demands attention to resource allocation, project selection, execution efficiency, and enduring value—rather than measuring success solely by short-term gains or interim metrics.