self-sovereignty

Vitalik Buterin stated at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival that Ethereum's ultimate goal is to build a digital infrastructure where users do not need to trust any intermediaries, featuring "self-sovereignty," supporting various decentralized applications from finance, social interactions to identity verification, which will serve as trust anchors for off-chain applications (such as privacy voting, prediction markets, decentralized social).

Vitalik Buterin stated, "The relationship between 'institutions' (governments and corporations) and 'cypherpunks' is very complex, neither natural allies nor natural enemies."The optimal strategy for institutions in the game is to strengthen control within a manageable scope while resisting external intrusions, which also makes them often more concerned about data sovereignty and security issues than ordinary users. In the future, institutions will place greater emphasis on self-managed wallets and staking, which is beneficial for the decentralization of Ethereum; at the same time, KYC and privacy technologies will develop in parallel, and the game surrounding zero-knowledge proofs will exist for a long time. The core task of the Ethereum community is to build tools that protect individual self-sovereignty and freedom while maintaining its stance in cooperation with institutions.

ChainCatcher news, Bankless founder David Hoffman posted on the X platform stating: "The independent validator community is the ultimate line of defense for network security. The self-sovereignty of the network is related to its commitment to independent validators. Ignoring independent validators in 'good times' is a luxury (referring to the larger number of independent validators when the market is doing well), but in 'bad times' it will cost us (referring to the reduced number of independent validators when the market is doing poorly, which in turn affects the ecological network security)."

ChainCatcher news, according to BitcoinMagazine, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and White House Deputy Press Secretary Brian Morgenstern stated that a quarter of Americans own Bitcoin, which is more than those aged 65 and older. President Donald Trump has been working to attract Bitcoin users in his 2024 campaign. At the recent Libertarian National Convention, President Trump vowed to "stop Joe Biden's crusade to crush cryptocurrency," and specifically assured Bitcoin holders that he supports self-custody.Brian Morgenstern said, "President Trump will protect your right to own Bitcoin, mine Bitcoin, trade Bitcoin, and for many of us, the right to work in the Bitcoin industry. We believe he will support Bitcoin miners in helping to fundamentally change the American financial and energy sectors and maintain America's economic leadership in the future. He will ban CBDCs, protect self-custody, and stop out-of-control regulators from trying to bankrupt us. If you are a Bitcoin enthusiast, Trump is the best presidential candidate this year, I dare say, to make Bitcoin great again in the eyes of the U.S. government."