ETHDenver 2026: Vitalik Outlines Ethereum's Path Forward
ETHDenver 2026 opened today at Denver's National Western Center under the banner of the "New #BUIDL City." As the largest Web3 BUIDLathon and innovation gathering, it runs through February 21 and is expected to draw more than 25,000 participants. The event remains fully community-led and open-source, centered on Ethereum ecosystem development through workshops, summits, art installations, Camp BUIDL, and numerous side events.
The Opening Ceremony featured Colorado Governor Jared Polis, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, and key Ethereum figures. The event's clearest directional signal was provided early on by Vitalik Buterin in his main stage presentation, "The Next Epoch of Ethereum," in which he examined the impact of AI on ETH and society at large.
Vitalik opened with a step back, outlining idealistic visions from 20 years ago, such as perfect markets, direct democracy, disintermediation and trust minimization. He explained that they all failed due to one common theme -- the limits of human attention -- before asking: If AI can solve the problem of limited human attention, then many of these old ideas could come back.
Vitalik caveated that LLMs, even local ones, are not trustless, and encouraged the need for a security-first mindset in building proofs. In his own words: "It's very irresponsible to treat AI as inscrutable magic." This was balanced by a more hawkish POV: that AI and ETH will wash away many of the half-solutions that are relics of the old era of development, in favor of new ones.
Even with AI superpowers, Vitalik encouraged the developer community to build with a deep commitment to the original mission: Think of the underlying goals that motivated the creation of Ethereum in the first place, and ask the question: What would you do?
Coinciding with the event, the Ethereum Foundation released its Protocol Priorities Update for 2026. The announcement outlined new focused tracks, including Scale targeting consensus, execution, and blob scaling; and Improve UX for seamless, secure interactions.
ETHDenver continues to serve as an important gauge of Ethereum's trajectory. The week ahead will bring further discussion on scaling, decentralization, and emerging use cases.
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