The Ethereum Foundation on Wednesday launched a new initiative to boost the Ethereum network’s security standards to meet the demands of a “civilization-scale infrastructure” capable of securing trillions of dollars in value. Ethereum’s New Initiative To Future-Proof Network For Global Scale Financial Demand Dubbed the “Trillion Dollar Security” initiative, the Ethereum Foundation aims to make Ethereum strong enough for billions of people to confidently hold over $1,000 on-chain. The effort will unfold in three phases, starting with a comprehensive assessment of Ethereum’s security across areas such as wallet UX, smart contract tooling, and consensus protocol. While the Ethereum blockchain currently secures over $70 billion as the leading ecosystem for decentralized finance, the Ethereum Foundation believes further steps are required to prepare the network for wider economic integration and ultimately supplant security guarantees provided by legacy systems. “Being the most secure platform in the crypto ecosystem isn’t enough,” the foundation wrote in the May 14 blog post. “Ethereum’s ambition is far greater: to be civilization-scale infrastructure that securely underpins the internet and global economy, surpassing the safety and trustworthiness of the world’s legacy systems.” The non-profit also considers participation from firms, institutions, or governments that could be “comfortable storing more than 1 trillion dollars of value inside a single contract or application.” As per the announcement, the Ethereum Foundation Protocol Security Lead, Fredrik Svantes, and Josh Stark from the foundation management team will co-chair the initiative. Additionally, security luminaries, including research-driven crypto investment firm Paradigm’s Samczsun, blockchain security and research firm Sigma Prime co-founder Mehdi Zerouali, and Etherealize co-founder Zach Obront, will help guide the project. The Trillion Dollar Security plan comes shortly after the Ethereum network successfully implemented its long-awaited Pectra Upgrade . Pectra, which is the blockchain’s biggest code change since the Merge in 2022, has introduced three important improvements, including external accounts as smart contracts and increasing the amount of ETH one can stake from 32 to 2,048, which could speed up and streamline operations for stakers. Meanwhile, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has laid out plans for a long-term roadmap that dramatically reduces the complexity of Ethereum’s technology to a level closer to Bitcoin’s while maintaining its unique capabilities in programmability and scalability.
