What did Ethereum builders discuss at the EthCC conference in Cannes?

Original Title: Hot Topics at EthCC 2025

Original author: David C, Bankless

Original translation: Shaw, Golden Finance

Last week, the annual Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) attracted thousands of attendees in Cannes, with the scorching Mediterranean weather doing nothing to dampen the participants’ enthusiasm for the packed agenda.

While the broader discussions surrounding Ethereum, the Ethereum Foundation, and the Ethereum Community Fund deserve separate analysis, the most striking signals from this conference come from the surrounding ecosystem—topics such as the tokenized market, mobile experience, and privacy infrastructure were frequently mentioned in conversations at the conference.

Privacy: Institutional Premise

This week, it has been refreshing to hear so much discussion about privacy. People are not only interested in it from a technical perspective (given the plethora of acronyms like TEE, FHE, MPC, ZK, etc. emerging today), but they are also paying attention to it from a practical everyday life angle. Many people I have spoken with have previously used consumer-facing privacy applications like ZKP2P and expressed excitement about the relaunch of Aztec.

When discussing the future direction of privacy protection, the focus is on integrating zero-knowledge proofs more broadly into everyday on-chain activities, coupled with trusted execution environments (TEE) to enhance security.

Indeed, multi-party computation and fully homomorphic encryption are recognized as top technologies worth pursuing, but they are generally considered too complex for practical application environments in their current forms (especially fully homomorphic encryption). However, Yehuda Lindell from Coinbase has introduced their open-source multi-party computation (MPC) library—an initiative aimed at raising security standards across the industry and addressing the talent shortage in MPC to drive relevant innovations.

In addition to discussing privacy as a key component of the vulnerabilities in our digital age, it is also a necessary condition for attracting institutions to join the blockchain.

Paul Brody, Global Blockchain Leader at EY, pointed out in his speech that privacy is not a feature that businesses can choose, but rather a prerequisite for using blockchain in actual business operations. Coordination, rather than computation, is where the core bottleneck for enterprises lies. Although tokenized workflows and smart contracts can simplify agreements and reduce inventory costs, it all becomes meaningless if sensitive information is leaked. Without privacy, no company will move high-value business logic or transactions onto the chain. This is even more true for institutions, especially in situations where dark pools are deeply entrenched in traditional stock trading. We need solutions that allow large participants to go on-chain without having to publicly disclose every step of their operations.

Tokenized Market: The Intersection of Stocks and Blockchain

Although Robinhood’s announcement regarding tokenized stocks has indeed attracted a lot of attention, I believe BackedFi is equally commendable for launching xStocks on the same day, allowing people to purchase popular stocks such as $SPY, $NVDA, and $TSLA on Solana.

At the EthCC conference, most people still believe that these statements are just temporary measures. Indeed, we can trade tokenized Apple stocks, but this is nothing new. The real excitement lies in our ability to use this as collateral for lending and to incorporate it into yield strategies. So, we are currently in an awkward transitional phase - progress is being made, but integration has not yet been achieved.

However, in addition to tokenized stocks, there is a general excitement about tokenization, especially regarding the tokenization of commodities. Given the recent performance of uranium ore, uranium digital assets have been mentioned in several discussions, while interest in tokenized gold remains strong.

This model is very clear: start with familiar assets to demonstrate the feasibility of the pipeline system, and then venture into markets where the advantages of blockchain’s 24/7 settlement and fractional ownership clearly surpass traditional infrastructure.

Mobile First

One of the most exciting discussions at this conference came from the burgeoning experimental craze surrounding consumer crypto applications—almost without exception, these applications are built starting from mobile. Since most wallet activity currently comes from mobile devices, developers (and users) have considered product design, user interaction, and native mobile processes from the very beginning.

The redesigned version of Coinbase Wallet, which is about to be launched, features social dynamic capabilities, which is particularly prominent as it is not only mobile-first but also incorporates the native mobile mode into the wallet’s design.

Interestingly, people are also looking forward to the convenience that mobile applications bring to perpetual contract trading on Hyperliquid, especially the two apps Lootbase and Dexari. The announcement of Robinhood launching its own perpetual contract platform has further fueled people’s enthusiasm. In summary, these applications showcase the endless possibilities that a thumb-first design philosophy can offer: fast execution, clear visuals, and a gamified interface.

The EthCC conference reinforced what we have seen online: cryptocurrency is no longer just an endless debate about architecture; it is committed to addressing issues of coordination, compliance, and high-quality design for consumers. The question is not whether blockchain can support significant real-world applications, but how quickly we can make them usable, private, and portable, so they can truly make an impact.