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 will take to securely assist a trillion-dollar Ethereum financial system.
The occasion introduced collectively round eighty members 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 related components of the stack to evaluate present safety posture, share operational realities, and determine near-term priorities. The outcomes of those periods have been then synthesized to spotlight patterns and dependencies throughout the broader ecosystem.
The objectives of the Trillion Greenback Safety gathering have been to:
- Consider Ethereum’s safety posture throughout the total stack, figuring out gaps, challenges, and rising dangers
- Allow short-term execution by aligning ecosystem actors round actionable priorities
- Strengthen long-term safety via coordination, shared requirements, and ecosystem empowerment
Individuals cut up into breakout periods by layer, discussing what’s working at this time, what is just not, and the place effort is most urgently wanted.
Snapshot: Cross-Layer Observations
Throughout the seven layers, members surfaced a number of recurring themes:
- Safety is commonly handled as a milestone relatively than a steady course of
- Belief assumptions are insufficiently communicated to customers
- Crucial safety tooling and public items lack sustainable funding
- Coordination and incentives—not cryptography—stay dominant threat components
The desk under captures a condensed view of key points and fast subsequent steps recognized in the course of the periods.
| Layer | Key Points | Recognized Rapid Subsequent Steps |
|---|---|---|
| Layer 1 & 2 | Quantum threat, weak L1/L2 coordination, cloud dependence, compressed testing | Develop EPF onboarding, create L2 liaisons, enhance EIP versioning & possession |
| Wallets | Blind signing, paywalled safety, low coordination | Type an Open Signing Alliance, impartial/on-chain EIP-7730 registry, pockets dashboards |
| Onchain | “Audited ≠ safe”, weak IR, OpSec failures | Fund OSS safety tooling, create DeFi safety visibility, promote SEAL |
| Interop | Unsafe belief assumptions, UX favors velocity over security | Interop belief scores, clearer disclosures, enhance canonical bridge UX |
| Infrastructure | Frontend hacks, RPC centralization, DNS SPOFs | Verifiable frontends, infra transparency dashboards, light-client wallets |
| Offchain | Misaligned incentives, Web2 attack-surface blind spots | Safety frameworks, certifications, public-goods staffing fashions |
Key Themes by Layer
Full displays for every layer could be discovered right here.
Layer 1 & 2: Coordination Stays a Bottleneck
Ethereum’s multiclient structure, specification-driven growth, and conservative Layer 1 change course of proceed to supply robust safety foundations. Nevertheless, members 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 group and L2 participation in All Core Devs calls, constrained consumer group capability to evaluation 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, bettering EIP versioning and possession expectations, and strengthening moderation and accessibility in coordination boards.
Wallets: Consumer Safety Stays Too Opaque
Progress on signing requirements similar to EIP-7730 and enhancements to pockets discoverability have been famous as positives. On the similar time, most {hardware} wallets nonetheless depend on blind signing, and pockets participation in shared safety discussions stays restricted.
Individuals 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 similar to SEAL911. Nevertheless, safety continues to be usually handled as a checkbox, and “audited” is ceaselessly conflated with “safe.”
Individuals emphasised that almost all latest losses stem from operational safety failures, not novel smart-contract exploits. Different challenges embrace growing protocol complexity, restricted invariant monitoring, and a scarcity of financial audits.
Rapid 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 Express
Ethereum customers profit from a variety of interoperability choices and more and more quick, low-cost UX. On the similar time, members highlighted that many interop protocols depend on poorly communicated belief assumptions, main customers to mistake “quick and low cost” for secure.
Many non-canonical bridges fail the walkaway take a look at, and threat usually 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 robust expectations for express belief disclosures by cross-chain aggregators, and bettering the velocity and price of canonical bridges to cut back reliance on unsafe options. A follow-up interoperability workshop was additionally proposed.
Privateness: UX and Infrastructure Are the Main Constraints
There was broad settlement that privateness is more and more seen as a traditional and crucial a part of Ethereum’s future, with encouraging progress in zero-knowledge analysis and institutional adoption. Nevertheless, consumer expertise, price, and infrastructure limitations stay main blockers.
Key challenges embrace RPC-based monitoring, difficulties round non-public knowledge storage and restoration, a scarcity of builders centered on non-public pockets UX, and the absence of {hardware} assist for privacy-preserving keys.
Prompt subsequent steps embrace larger use of light-client knowledge over P2P RPC, funding in non-public pockets UX, analysis into ZK-capable {hardware} signers, and engagement with regulators to hunt clearer steerage for permissionless privateness applied sciences.
Infrastructure & Offchain Safety: The Invisible Assault Floor
Frontend compromises, DNS hijacks, RPC centralization, and software program supply-chain assaults have been repeatedly cited as underappreciated dangers. Individuals additionally famous a scarcity of sustainable financial alignment for non-profits offering essential 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, growing transparency round RPC and infrastructure well being, advancing safety frameworks and certifications, and creating structured collaboration fashions the place non-public corporations contribute devoted time and sources to safety public items.
Occasion Reflections
Individuals rated the standard of dialogue and relevance of matters as glorious, highlighting the worth of in-person, cross-layer trade. The first areas for enchancment have been logistical, together with group measurement and alternatives for structured networking.
There was robust demand for future work centered on utilized safety requirements, shared tooling, and sensible “how-to” steerage 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 repeatedly 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 assist 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 due to the safety layer champions @vdWijden, @barnabas, @zachobront, @ethzed, @mattaereal, @ncsgy and @ThewizardofPOS. And @0xRajeev and @fredrik0x for internet hosting.
