Throughout Devconnect Buenos Aires, the Ethereum Basis and Secureum TrustX introduced collectively Ethereum safety practitioners for Trillion Greenback Safety Day, a centered occasion exploring what it could take to securely help a trillion-dollar Ethereum financial system.
The occasion introduced collectively round eighty contributors from throughout the Ethereum Safety Ecosystem—spanning Infrastructure, Interoperability, Layer 1 & 2, Onchain, Offchain, Privateness, and Wallets—to evaluate the present safety panorama, floor shared challenges, and determine concrete subsequent steps throughout the stack.
The discussions and outputs from this occasion contribute to the Ethereum Basis’s ongoing One Trillion Greenback Safety (1TS) initiative.
Why a Trillion Greenback Safety Day?
The Trillion Greenback Safety day was designed to create centered, in-person discussions inside particular person layers, bringing collectively practitioners who work on comparable elements of the stack to evaluate present safety posture, share operational realities, and determine near-term priorities. The outcomes of those classes had been then synthesized to spotlight patterns and dependencies throughout the broader ecosystem.
The objectives of the Trillion Greenback Safety gathering had been to:
Consider Ethereum’s safety posture throughout the complete stack, figuring out gaps, challenges, and rising risksEnable short-term execution by aligning ecosystem actors round actionable prioritiesStrengthen long-term safety via coordination, shared requirements, and ecosystem empowerment
Members break up into breakout classes by layer, discussing what’s working in the present day, what just isn’t, and the place effort is most urgently wanted.
Snapshot: Cross-Layer Observations
Throughout the seven layers, contributors surfaced a number of recurring themes:
Safety is usually handled as a milestone moderately than a steady processTrust assumptions are insufficiently communicated to usersCritical safety tooling and public items lack sustainable fundingCoordination and incentives—not cryptography—stay dominant danger elements
The desk under captures a condensed view of key points and quick subsequent steps recognized through the classes.
Key Themes by Layer
Full shows for every layer will be discovered right here.
Layer 1 & 2: Coordination Stays a Bottleneck
Ethereum’s multiclient structure, specification-driven improvement, and conservative Layer 1 change course of proceed to supply sturdy safety foundations. Nevertheless, contributors highlighted dangers stemming from restricted coordination between L1 and L2s, compressed testing timelines, over-reliance on cloud infrastructure, and considerations round supply-chain assaults.
Key challenges embrace restricted neighborhood and L2 participation in All Core Devs calls, constrained shopper staff capability to overview evolving EIPs early, and ongoing L1–L2 bridging and RPC resilience considerations.
Proposed subsequent steps concentrate on increasing the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF), creating clearer L2 liaison roles, enhancing EIP versioning and possession expectations, and strengthening moderation and accessibility in coordination boards.
Wallets: Consumer Safety Stays Too Opaque
Progress on signing requirements akin to EIP-7730 and enhancements to pockets discoverability had been famous as positives. On the identical time, most {hardware} wallets nonetheless depend on blind signing, and pockets participation in shared safety discussions stays restricted.
Members pointed to the aggressive pockets panorama as a structural barrier to collaboration, alongside an over-reliance on the Ethereum Basis to drive coordination.
A key proposal was the creation of an Open Signing Alliance, anchored in Ethereum’s values of openness, neutrality, and the walkaway take a look at. Extra priorities embrace internet hosting the EIP-7730 registry in a impartial—or on-chain—context and funding wallet-focused safety dashboards to enhance transparency and legitimacy.
Onchain Safety: Tooling and Visibility Lag Behind Danger
Onchain safety continues to profit from a rising pool of skilled safety researchers, improved tooling (e.g. Foundry), and elevated consciousness of incident response via efforts akin to SEAL911. Nevertheless, safety remains to be typically handled as a checkbox, and “audited” is often conflated with “safe.”
Members emphasised that almost all current losses stem from operational safety failures, not novel smart-contract exploits. Different challenges embrace rising protocol complexity, restricted invariant monitoring, and a scarcity of financial audits.
Quick subsequent steps embrace sustained funding for open-source safety tooling (fuzzers, static and dynamic analyzers), improved visibility into DeFi safety posture (a “L2BEAT-like” strategy), and broader adoption of SEAL frameworks and checklists for various contract lessons.
Interoperability: Belief Assumptions Should Be Specific
Ethereum customers profit from a variety of interoperability choices and more and more quick, low-cost UX. On the identical time, contributors highlighted that many interop protocols depend on poorly communicated belief assumptions, main customers to mistake “quick and low cost” for protected.
Many non-canonical bridges fail the walkaway take a look at, and danger typically persists after bridging as a consequence of wrapped belongings and downstream dependencies.
Proposed actions embrace creating interop belief scores that clearly specify assumptions and verification fashions, setting sturdy expectations for specific belief disclosures by cross-chain aggregators, and enhancing the velocity and value of canonical bridges to cut back reliance on unsafe alternate options. A follow-up interoperability workshop was additionally proposed.
Privateness: UX and Infrastructure Are the Major Constraints
There was broad settlement that privateness is more and more seen as a traditional and needed a part of Ethereum’s future, with encouraging progress in zero-knowledge analysis and institutional adoption. Nevertheless, person expertise, value, and infrastructure limitations stay main blockers.
Key challenges embrace RPC-based monitoring, difficulties round personal knowledge storage and restoration, a scarcity of builders centered on personal pockets UX, and the absence of {hardware} help for privacy-preserving keys.
Advised subsequent steps embrace better use of light-client knowledge over P2P RPC, funding in personal pockets UX, analysis into ZK-capable {hardware} signers, and engagement with regulators to hunt clearer steering for permissionless privateness applied sciences.
Infrastructure & Offchain Safety: The Invisible Assault Floor
Frontend compromises, DNS hijacks, RPC centralization, and software program supply-chain assaults had been repeatedly cited as underappreciated dangers. Members additionally famous a scarcity of sustainable financial alignment for non-profits offering vital safety public items.
Key challenges embrace the false separation between “Web2” and “Web3” safety, restricted accountability for off-chain failures, and the tendency to commerce safety for velocity or comfort. The shortcoming to simply run nodes over Tor was additionally highlighted.
Proposed subsequent steps embrace constructing verifiable frontend prototypes, rising transparency round RPC and infrastructure well being, advancing safety frameworks and certifications, and creating structured collaboration fashions the place personal corporations contribute devoted time and assets to safety public items.
Occasion Reflections
Members rated the standard of debate and relevance of matters as glorious, highlighting the worth of in-person, cross-layer trade. The first areas for enchancment had been logistical, together with group measurement and alternatives for structured networking.
There was sturdy demand for future work centered on utilized safety requirements, shared tooling, and sensible “how-to” steering for implementation.
What Comes Subsequent
The Trillion Greenback Safety gathering highlighted the worth of bringing safety practitioners collectively in individual to construct shared understanding and momentum. Targeted, face-to-face discussions helped speed up alignment on requirements, tooling, and sensible options in methods which can be troublesome to realize via asynchronous coordination alone.
The discussions additionally underscored the significance of sustaining a constantly up to date, shared view of Ethereum’s safety posture. Because the ecosystem evolves, staying forward of rising dangers requires usually reassessing what’s working, the place assumptions not maintain, and which areas want renewed consideration to help a trillion-dollar financial system.
The insights from Buenos Aires will proceed to tell the Ethereum Basis’s One Trillion Greenback Safety efforts, alongside ongoing work throughout the ecosystem. Close to-term focus stays on supporting execution, enabling adoption of open and impartial safety requirements, and strengthening the foundations wanted to maintain Ethereum safe at scale.
With because of the safety layer champions @vdWijden, @barnabas, @zachobront, @ethzed, @mattaereal, @ncsgy and @ThewizardofPOS. And @0xRajeev and @fredrik0x for internet hosting.
