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Imagine a future in which all you need to tell an AI agent is:“Use half of the available funds in my wallet to buy more ETH.”The agent immediately begins checking your balance, searching across liquidity pools, comparing quotes, and building an execution route. A few dozen seconds later, it sends you a message:“I found a suitable route. Confirm?”You reply with a simple “Yes.”But what exactly have you approved?Which pool did the agent choose? What execution price and slippage should you expect? Which protocol will it interact with? Which wallet will it use, and how much will it spend? Does the operation involve token approvals or any other actions?You have not actually seen any of this information. You are simply choosing to trust the agent’s summary.This is a new category of risk emerging as AI agents move from answering questions to acting on behalf of users.Agents can now browse websites, log in to accounts, complete payments, and even initiate or sign on-chain transactions. Yet the final authorization step presented to users is often still little more than a vague chat message and a confirmation option containing almost no meaningful information.A single “Yes” can determine what happens to a user’s funds, data, and devices.This is why imToken’s latest brand evolution introduces a fourth S alongside Store, Send, and Stake: Sign.If the first three pillars correspond to asset custody, value transfer, and network participation, Sign addresses a new question: as more software begins acting on behalf of users, how can users retain the right to understand, approve, and remain in control?Sigil is the first proof-of-concept product built around this Sign vision.Its core principle is simple but important:What you see is what you sign.1. When Agents Start Acting, Why Do Wallets Need to Rethink Signing?Historically, many signing risks in crypto wallets have stemmed from users not understanding what they were signing.At the protocol level, an on-chain transaction may appear only as a contract address, function parameters, and hexadecimal data. For ordinary users, it can be extremely difficult to determine whether the request represents a transfer, a swap, or a more dangerous asset operation.That is why wallets need to translate raw transaction data into human-readable details that users can review before signing.Clear signing, also known as “what you see is what you sign,” is designed to bridge the gap between machine-readable data and human understanding.Further reading: Why Clear Signing Is Becoming Essential in the AI Era.AI agents, however, make the problem more complex.Users may no longer be authorizing a single on-chain transaction. Instead, they may be authorizing an entire chain of actions planned and executed by an agent.To complete a goal such as “use half of my available liquid funds to buy more ETH,” an agent may need to check wallet balances, search on-chain liquidity pools, call third-party tools, run scripts, and prepare a transaction.Users cannot realistically inspect every underlying request one by one. Yet before any assets are exchanged, they still need to make the final decision.Many agents today handle authorization by sending a short message in a chat window and waiting for the user to reply “Yes” or “Confirm,” or to tap a standard confirmation button.This may resemble user authorization, but in practice it creates several obvious problems.First, it is a black box.Users know they are approving something, but they may not know the exact amount, recipient, protocol, or action the agent will ultimately execute on their behalf.The real execution parameters are hidden behind a highly summarized natural-language sentence. The user is confirming only a vague intent, not the exact action the system is about to perform.Second, a chat reply is not equivalent to a digital signature.Anyone with access to an already authenticated device or session may be able to type “Yes.” At most, the system can verify that the message came from an authenticated account or session. It cannot necessarily confirm that the approval was intentionally provided by the account owner.More importantly, the confirmation interface itself may also be manipulated.If the same agent that initiates an operation also controls how that operation is presented to the user, it could omit key parameters, use ambiguous wording, or display something that appears harmless while submitting a different request in the background.This creates a clear trust paradox.We want the confirmation interface to constrain the agent, yet we may also allow the agent itself to determine what the user sees at the moment of confirmation.When an agent is only summarizing articles or organizing information, this lack of transparency may result in an inaccurate answer.But when an agent gains access to accounts, funds, file systems, and terminal environments, vague approval can lead to real asset loss, data leakage, or device-level risk.Further reading: A Signature Is More Than a Signature: When an AI Agent Signs for You, Who’s in Control?What agent-based systems need is not more “Yes” buttons.They need an authorization mechanism that can create a verifiable link between what the user saw, what the user approved, and what the system ultimately executed.2. Sigil: A Signing Guardrail Between AI Agents and WalletsThis is the problem Sigil, imToken’s newly introduced proof of concept, is designed to address.Sigil acts as a safety guardrail between AI agents and wallets.It does not seek to prevent agents from automating tasks altogether.Instead, during setup, users can explicitly authorize an agent and define which low-risk actions it may complete autonomously and which sensitive actions require separate, explicit, and verifiable user approval.Within the boundaries defined by the user, the agent can continue operating efficiently.But when an operation involves something the user has classified as sensitive—particularly spending funds or authorizing on-chain transactions—Sigil pauses the flow, parses the actual request into a structured confirmation card, and delivers it to the user through Telegram.The user must then approve the request using a passkey and biometric verification before the operation can continue.The flow can be summarized in four steps.Step 1: The agent initiates an actionThe agent continues its task, whether that involves browsing websites, booking services, sending requests, or preparing a transaction.Step 2: Sigil checks the user’s security policySigil determines whether the action triggers the user’s preconfigured security policy.If the action is classified as low risk and the user has allowed the agent to complete it autonomously, the flow can continue.If it involves actions such as sending messages, deleting files, executing code, spending funds, or authorizing on-chain transactions, Sigil pauses execution and parses the request.Step 3: The user reviews and approves the requestA structured confirmation card is delivered through Telegram.Depending on the operation, the card may display key parameters such as the action type, merchant, protocol, asset, amount, recipient, and other relevant details.The confirmation is not based solely on a natural-language summary generated by the agent. It is based on structured information parsed from the actual request.The user then provides explicit approval using a passkey and biometric verification.Step 4: Sigil verifies the approvalOnly after the Sigil gateway verifies the user’s signature can the agent continue.Without user approval, no funds are moved and no transaction is signed.The key point is not simply that Sigil adds another biometric verification step.More importantly, it establishes a verifiable connection between display, signing, and execution.What is displayed is derived from the actual request.What the user signs is cryptographically bound to the displayed content.What the system executes must match the signed request.If these elements do not match, Sigil blocks the operation.Sigil does not require users to approve every action an agent takes.Instead, it allows users to define in advance which actions may be automated and which require personal approval.Users can select different security levels, such as Relaxed, Balanced, or Strict, or use Custom mode to define rules for individual categories of actions.In Balanced mode, for example, some lower-risk actions may proceed without additional approval, while higher-risk actions involving code execution, terminal access, sensitive data, or asset security must go through Sigil confirmation.Spending funds and authorizing on-chain transactions always require user approval, regardless of the selected security mode.This requirement applies across all security settings.3. From Crypto to AI Agents: What Is Sigil Trying to Protect?Built around the principle of “What you see is what you sign,” Sigil provides three layers of protection.First, users can clearly see what they are approvingIn Sigil’s confirmation card, key parameters such as the protocol, amount, asset, recipient, and action type are presented as structured fields.Users do not need to rely solely on the agent’s summary, nor do they need to interpret raw data they cannot understand.The user’s approval is bound to the content shown on the card.Returning to the ETH transaction at the beginning of this article, the final confirmation should not simply say “Buy ETH.”It should show the asset being spent, the amount, the recipient or contract, the relevant protocol, and the key transaction parameters the user needs in order to make an informed decision.The same principle applies to real-world payments.The interface should not merely display “Confirm payment.” It should clearly show the merchant, amount, recipient, and other relevant details.The more closely the displayed information reflects the actual operation, the more meaningful the user’s authorization becomes.Second, approval requires the user’s registered authentication methodSigil uses a passkey as the authentication mechanism for approvals and verifies the request through device biometrics.This means that even if someone gains access to a device already logged in to Telegram and can view the confirmation message, they cannot complete approval simply by typing a sentence or tapping an ordinary button.Approval is tied to the user’s registered passkey and biometric verification, not merely to whoever has access to the active device or messaging session.Sigil also adopts a mnemonic-free design.Users do not need to store or enter a new mnemonic phrase, nor do they need to expose their wallet private key to the agent.The ability to approve requests remains controlled through the user’s passkey and biometric verification.Third, the confirmation interface is independent of the agentSigil’s confirmation page is not an ordinary message dynamically generated and controlled by the agent.It is a separately registered module whose rendering logic is anchored on-chain and executed in a sandboxed environment.This means that after initiating a sensitive operation, the agent cannot simply replace the page, alter its display logic, or imitate the confirmation interface in order to mislead the user.The party initiating the request no longer controls how that request is presented for approval.Sigil also uses mechanisms such as single-use approvals, short validity periods, and cryptographic binding between the signature and the request parameters.These mechanisms help ensure that the content displayed in the confirmation card corresponds to the request awaiting execution.An approval cannot be reused indefinitely, and the underlying request parameters cannot be altered after approval without invalidating the signature.If the previewed content does not match the request submitted for execution, the operation is blocked.Seen in this context, Sigil is not merely another wallet feature.It is imToken’s product-level exploration of the Sign vision and addresses a more fundamental question:When agents begin to act, how can we ensure that they continue operating only within the boundaries users have authorized?In crypto, this need is especially intuitive.On-chain agents may eventually help users manage recurring purchases, yield strategies, transaction fees, position adjustments, risk monitoring, and automated execution across multiple protocols based on predefined conditions.In that environment, one question becomes increasingly important:If an agent’s behavior deviates from the user’s expectations, can it be stopped immediately?At the same time, Sigil’s relevance is not limited to crypto.Whether through OpenClaw, Hermes, or future agents running on personal devices and in cloud environments, agents are gradually gaining access to email, messaging apps, calendars, files, browsers, terminals, payment tools, and a growing range of online services.These operations may not take place on-chain, but the underlying relationship is fundamentally similar.The agent is exercising a capability owned by the user and acting under the user’s identity or authority.Sigil could therefore extend beyond on-chain transactions into areas such as data access, identity use, file modification, content publishing, service purchases, and automated workflows.This also explains why capabilities developed by the wallet industry may take on new significance in the AI agent era.Private key management, digital signatures, identity verification, permission confirmation, and asset security were once used primarily for on-chain transactions.But the more fundamental problem they have always addressed is how to prove that an action was genuinely authorized by a specific user or entity.As agents begin acting on behalf of users at scale, these capabilities may expand from the crypto world into broader infrastructure for managing agent identities, automated actions, and machine permissions.As a joint exploration by imToken and OpenClaw, Sigil applies imToken’s ten years of experience in self-custody, wallets, and digital signatures to a new environment in which autonomous agents are beginning to perform real actions.It does not replace the agent.Nor does it replace the wallet.It stands between the two.Closing ThoughtsAI is making complex actions easier and cheaper to execute than ever before.Tasks that once required users to switch between multiple applications, search for information, complete forms, verify details, and make payments may soon be planned and executed automatically by an agent in response to a single natural-language instruction.But being capable of acting on behalf of a user and having received valid authorization from that user are two different things.What determines whether an intelligent system can be trusted is not only how many tasks it can complete.It is whether users can understand what the system is doing, limit its authority, and stop it when necessary.From this perspective, Sign is not merely an additional layer of friction that slows agents down.It may become one of the most important layers of trust required before agents can be safely integrated into financial and real-world services.Store gives users custody of their assets.Send enables value transfer.Stake enables participation in open networks.Sign helps users retain final authority when machines act on their behalf.The value of Sigil lies in turning this abstract question of control into a functional proof of concept that can be tested, validated, and continuously improved.

Ethereum’s next major upgrade is beginning to take shape.According to Ethereum’s official roadmap, Glamsterdam is planned for mainnet activation in the second half of 2026. As of late June, it had entered an advanced stage of devnet testing, with multi-client devnets continuing to test core features such as enshrined proposer-builder separation, block-level access lists, and gas repricing. The exact activation date has not yet been finalized.Much of the discussion across major social platforms has focused on the headline claim that Ethereum mainnet could eventually push toward 10,000 transactions per second after the upgrade. But Glamsterdam is about more than throughput. It introduces major changes to Ethereum’s block-production pipeline and execution architecture. Because of the depth and scope of these changes, many developers have described it as the largest Ethereum upgrade since the Merge.So what exactly does Glamsterdam change?The name combines Gloas, the consensus-layer upgrade, with Amsterdam, the execution-layer upgrade. Together, they are intended to address several of Ethereum’s most persistent bottlenecks.What could this mean for Ethereum—and for everyday on-chain users?1. Why Is Glamsterdam Being Called the Largest Upgrade Since the Merge?If Dencun and Fusaka were primarily focused on expanding data availability for Layer 2 networks through blobs, Glamsterdam shifts more attention back to Layer 1 and introduces a broad overhaul of L1 performance and architecture.In many ways, it reflects Ethereum’s renewed protocol-level focus on strengthening L1: allowing the network to process more transactions without simultaneously increasing node operating costs or centralization risks.For everyday users, Ethereum upgrades are often reduced to two questions: will gas become cheaper, and will throughput increase?But Glamsterdam is difficult to summarize as either a simple fee-reduction upgrade or a conventional scaling upgrade.It affects several core components of Ethereum’s architecture, including who builds blocks, how transactions are executed, how nodes access and synchronize state, and how different on-chain operations are priced.In other words, it aims to redesign the way Ethereum produces and processes blocks.Based on the technical details disclosed so far, the most important changes are concentrated in three areas:Enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS: redesigning the relationship between block proposers and builders while reducing reliance on external relays.Block-Level Access Lists, or BALs: giving transaction execution a clearer map of state access in advance, laying the groundwork for more parallelized processing and faster node synchronization.Gas repricing: introducing a more accurate resource-pricing model to limit unsustainable state growth in a higher-throughput environment.Enshrined Proposer-Builder SeparationTo understand ePBS, it helps to know that Ethereum blocks today are not always assembled by proposers themselves.Under the current MEV-Boost architecture, most proposers outsource transaction collection, ordering, and MEV extraction to professional block builders. The proposer mainly selects the highest-paying candidate block and submits it to the network.This division of labor—where the builder assembles the block and the proposer submits it—is known as proposer-builder separation, or PBS.The problem is that the current mechanism is not fully integrated into Ethereum’s base protocol.Proposers and builders still rely on off-protocol third-party software and MEV-Boost relays to handle block bids, payload delivery, and payments.These relays must ensure that builders eventually reveal the full block while also preventing proposers from viewing the block contents in advance and using them without compensating the builder.As a result, relays occupy a centralized and potentially fragile intermediary position.EIP-7732’s ePBS is designed to address this problem by bringing the proposer-builder relationship directly into Ethereum’s consensus protocol.Instead of relying on third-party relays, builders become protocol-native actors. They first submit block commitments and bids, the protocol locks the corresponding payment, and a dedicated Payload Timeliness Committee determines whether the builder revealed the execution payload on time.This separates consensus-layer block processing from execution-payload processing, extending the propagation and processing window for execution payloads from approximately two seconds to around nine seconds.These additional seconds may not sound significant, but they matter for Ethereum scaling.They give nodes more time to receive and process larger blocks and more blob data, creating room for further increases in the gas limit.Block-Level Access ListsAnother major execution-layer proposal in Glamsterdam is EIP-7928, which introduces Block-Level Access Lists.Today, when an Ethereum node receives a block, the block itself does not directly tell the node which accounts each transaction will read from, which storage slots it will access, or which parts of state it will modify.These dependencies are usually discovered during execution.It is similar to entering a large warehouse without a complete inventory map. Workers must discover where each item is stored while carrying out the work itself.To prevent conflicting updates, much of the work must be performed in a strict sequence.Block-Level Access Lists are designed to function like a state-access map attached to each block.They record which addresses and storage slots the block accesses, together with the resulting state changes.With this information, nodes can identify in advance which transactions access the same data and which do not conflict with one another.For non-conflicting operations, nodes can prefetch relevant state from disk and parallelize parts of transaction verification and state-root computation, rather than forcing all work into a strictly serial process.Because BALs also record post-execution state changes, some nodes may be able to use those results when synchronizing or catching up, rather than always re-executing every transaction from scratch.In this sense, BALs introduce some of the benefits associated with sharded or parallelized execution.Over time, they could become an important foundation for raising Ethereum mainnet’s current performance ceiling.Gas RepricingThe third major component is gas repricing, which uses economic incentives to better align gas costs with the actual resources consumed by different on-chain operations.Ethereum’s current gas schedule does not always reflect the real burden that operations place on nodes.For example, computationally intensive operations may impose relatively little long-term burden once execution is complete.By contrast, creating a new account, deploying a smart contract, or writing to a new storage slot creates data that full nodes around the world may need to store permanently.Historically, fees for these state-creating operations have not always fully reflected the long-term storage burden they introduce. This is commonly described as state growth or state bloat.If Ethereum raises the gas limit while preserving the existing pricing model, additional block space could quickly accelerate state growth and place greater pressure on node hardware.EIP-8037, which has been included in the Glamsterdam scope, is intended to overhaul this pricing model.It separates computation and state accounting, recalculates costs based on the amount of newly created state, and distinguishes conventional computation gas from state-related gas.It is also intended to limit rapid state growth.Applications that create large numbers of accounts, deploy redundant contracts, or frequently write new state may face higher costs. Meanwhile, applications that primarily consume computation without continuously expanding state may benefit from a more favorable fee structure.Glamsterdam’s gas reform should therefore not be understood as making every transaction cheaper.Its goal is to distinguish between immediate computation and long-term storage, then charge operations in a way that more closely reflects the actual resources they consume.Taken together, these three components point toward the same broader goal: strengthening Ethereum mainnet’s core infrastructure before significantly increasing capacity.2. Why Not Simply Make Blocks Bigger?A common question is straightforward: if Ethereum is slow and expensive, why not simply increase the gas limit and double block capacity?In theory, raising the amount of gas available per block is the most direct way to increase mainnet throughput.The higher the gas limit, the more transactions and computation each block can contain.But the gas limit cannot be increased indefinitely.If blocks become too large too quickly, they can trigger a chain reaction.Nodes must receive more data, execute more transactions, and calculate a new state within the same time window.If processing cannot keep up, lower-specification nodes are more likely to fall behind. Block propagation and validation may also slow down, increasing the risk of forks and network centralization.At the same time, more transactions can also mean more accounts, contracts, and storage data being written permanently into Ethereum’s database.This data does not disappear once a transaction has been processed. It continues to accumulate in Ethereum’s state database, accelerating state growth over time.Sustainable Ethereum scaling must therefore address three problems at once:First, giving nodes more time to propagate and process larger blocks.Second, reducing the bottlenecks created by sequential execution.Third, preventing additional block space from accelerating unsustainable state growth.This is the core logic behind Glamsterdam.It does not increase capacity first and leave nodes to absorb the consequences.Instead, it redesigns how blocks are produced, how transactions are executed, and how network resources are priced.By improving the underlying processing pipeline, it creates a stronger foundation for higher mainnet capacity.Among these changes, ePBS gives nodes more time to propagate and validate larger blocks by rearranging the processing flow within each slot.BALs improve client efficiency by making state-access relationships explicit.Gas repricing helps limit unsustainable state growth.During coordinated Glamsterdam testing in April 2026, core developers stress-tested multi-client implementations and proposed 200 million gas as a credible lower-bound estimate for post-upgrade capacity.That estimate reflects the combined foundation provided by ePBS, BALs, and state gas repricing.Of course, 200 million gas should be understood as an indication of possible post-upgrade capacity and the direction in which the network could gradually evolve.It does not mean Ethereum mainnet will immediately move to that gas limit on the day Glamsterdam activates.What matters is that Ethereum is shifting from cautious, incremental scaling toward preparing for substantially greater mainnet capacity through deeper architectural redesign.3. How Could Glamsterdam Affect Users and the Ethereum Ecosystem?For everyday users, the most important question remains whether transaction fees will decrease.The answer is nuanced.Fees may fall and become more stable, but not every transaction will immediately become cheaper.Because ePBS and BALs create the conditions for a higher gas limit, each block should eventually be able to include more transactions.If demand remains unchanged, an increase in block-space supply should help reduce congestion and lower the likelihood of sudden base-fee spikes.At the level of individual transactions, however, the effects may vary.A standard ETH transfer may benefit from broader execution and pricing improvements.More predictable state-access information may also help wallets improve gas estimation, reducing some cases in which users submit transactions with insufficient gas while still incurring gas costs.However, operations such as deploying contracts, creating accounts in batches, or writing large amounts of new state may become more expensive under the new state-pricing model.The more likely outcome is therefore that simple transactions become cheaper, fees become more stable during periods of congestion, and state-intensive applications begin paying prices that more accurately reflect the long-term resources they consume.Impact on Layer 2 UsersFor users who primarily interact with Layer 2 networks, Glamsterdam is also relevant.ePBS extends the processing window for execution payloads from approximately two seconds to around nine seconds.This supports not only larger mainnet blocks, but also greater room for processing blob data.As blob capacity continues to expand, rollups may gain more space to submit transaction data, which could help stabilize Layer 2 data costs over time.Clearer ETH Activity RecordsFor wallets, exchanges, and cross-chain bridges, one of the more visible changes could come from EIP-7708.Today, ERC-20 token transfers usually emit standardized Transfer logs. Some native ETH transfers between smart contracts, however, do not produce equivalent standardized event logs.Wallets and exchanges often need to rely on internal transaction tracing to identify these ETH movements.EIP-7708 requires non-zero ETH transfers and operations that burn ETH to generate standardized logs.This could allow wallets, exchanges, and bridges to identify deposits, withdrawals, and internal ETH movements more reliably.Users may eventually see more complete ETH activity records in their wallets, while some internal transfers that currently require complex tracing may become easier to recognize directly.Impact on Node Operators and StakersFor node operators and stakers, the impact will be more direct.Glamsterdam changes block processing at both the execution and consensus layers, so nodes and validators will need to upgrade to client versions that support Glamsterdam before mainnet activation.Ordinary ETH holders will not need to migrate their ETH, upgrade their assets, or perform a token swap.Over the longer term, Glamsterdam’s real significance lies in how Ethereum attempts to balance scaling with decentralization.If higher block capacity leads to sharply higher hardware requirements, throughput may improve while the network becomes increasingly dependent on large institutions and professional infrastructure providers.The combination of ePBS, BALs, and state gas repricing attempts to create a different scaling path.Instead of simply asking nodes to process more work within the same amount of time, Ethereum is rearranging the block-production process, providing transaction dependency information in advance, and pricing different operations according to the computational and storage burden they impose.This is the fundamental difference between Glamsterdam and a simple gas-limit increase.It does not rely on a single EIP to solve Ethereum’s scaling challenges.Instead, it redesigns three interconnected mechanisms at once: block production, transaction execution, and state growth.Closing ThoughtsIn the long run, Glamsterdam’s most important impact may be its role in helping Ethereum find a new balance between higher performance and strong decentralization.This reflects a long-standing Ethereum principle.As high-performance monolithic chains continue to apply pressure, Ethereum is not choosing the simplest path of aggressively increasing hardware requirements.Instead, it is attempting to preserve its decentralized foundation while strengthening the resilience and efficiency of the underlying protocol.That is what Glamsterdam’s combination of changes is ultimately designed to achieve.ePBS restructures the block pipeline.BALs make transaction dependencies more explicit.Gas repricing aligns fees more closely with the computational and storage burden different operations impose.Together, these changes are intended to create substantially greater mainnet capacity while preserving the ability of ordinary participants to run nodes and take part in validation.From this perspective, future reductions in gas costs, clearer ETH activity records in wallets, and greater room for Layer 2 fees to decline may all trace back, at least in part, to the groundwork laid by Glamsterdam.Its significance lies not in any single headline metric, but in the deeper architectural foundation it creates for Ethereum’s next stage of scaling.

The World Cup is a useful lens for observing how wallets are evolving.Whether a team will qualify or how championship odds are changing — topics fans discuss every day — can become tradable, priceable events in prediction markets such as Polymarket. In the longer run, World Cup prediction activities integrated into mainstream Web3 wallets can indeed serve as a lightweight starting point for users to try on-chain interactions. Further reading: “World Cup Fever Propels Prediction Markets: How Polymarket and Peers Are Driving Mainstream Crypto Adoption”At the same time, another more nascent, yet highly imaginative shift is worth watching: as AI Agents begin entering wallet use cases, the way users interact with the on-chain world may also start to change.For example, in its World Cup-related exploration, imToken has started putting AI Agents into real use cases. Its web-based and Discord Agents can help users act on specific prediction needs and complete prediction-related trades more naturally. Users no longer have to complete every step inside the wallet app. Instead, they can participate in prediction markets through Discord, web pages, and other platforms, while being smoothly guided back on-chain by the Agent.This may well be an early form of the Agentic Wallet: the Web3 wallet of the future may not be limited to a wallet app, but it will likely take the form of an AI-powered wallet experience that is available almost everywhere.1. The World Cup Experiment: When AI Agents Begin to Understand “Intent”Let’s return to a familiar topic. Over the past decade, the core problems wallets solved were clear: where assets are stored, who controls the private key, and who signs transactions.For example, when users open imToken, they mainly want to check balances, make transfers, interact with DApps, and manage multi-chain assets. In this stage, wallets have functioned more like gateways to assets and signatures: as long as users know what they want to do, the wallet helps them complete the final step.But in the Agentic era, the change is that users may not know exactly which button to tap at the very beginning.In a World Cup scenario, for example, an everyday user may not start by thinking, “I need to open Polymarket, find a specific market, assess the odds, and complete the trade.” More likely, they may ask: “What should I watch for in tonight’s match?” “I think Portugal will qualify. Are there any related markets?” “Are these odds already too low?” “If I only want to participate with a small amount, how does the process work?”In the past, these questions may have been scattered across Telegram groups, social platforms, or search engines. Each user had to piece the information together and then execute each step on their own. Once an Agent is involved, however, the interaction changes significantly: users only need to express a general intent, and the Agent can proactively break down the path, while the wallet turns that path into a series of on-chain actions.So this is certainly not as simple as adding a chat box to a wallet.The real change is that wallets are beginning to shift from “function menus” to “intent interpreters.” In the past, wallets mainly asked users to decide whether they wanted to transfer, swap, stake, or connect to a DApp. In the future, wallets may go one step further: users may only need to describe what they want to accomplish in natural language.This is also why a mainstream event like the World Cup is a suitable entry point for Agentic Wallets. It naturally comes with context, gives users something to talk about, and requires them to make decisions. An Agent does not need to start by managing complex portfolios for users — especially given the higher risks involved in complex asset management. It can first help users find an interaction path within a specific context, and then return final control to the wallet and the user.The imToken web-based and Discord Agents mentioned earlier are a typical example. They bring wallet capabilities into lighter entry points, allowing users to find an interaction path through an Agent on an event page or in a World Cup scenario, without first opening the app or entering a traditional DApp browser.This means the boundaries of wallets are expanding outward.In the past, the wallet entry point was relatively clear: users opened the app, entered the asset page, tapped a function, and then connected to a DApp. In the future, wallet entry points may be scattered across more places: web pages, Discord, Telegram, AI chat interfaces, event pages, developer tools, or even lightweight wallet interfaces generated by users themselves.From this perspective, World Cup prediction itself is not the main point. The real point is that it allows wallets, for the first time, to position themselves more naturally around user intent.2. Agent Pay Shows That AI Is Entering the Payment LayerIf we look only within crypto, Agentic Wallets can easily be understood as another narrative: AI helps users read the market, find opportunities, and make trades. It sounds like a continuation of the previous wave of AI Agent hype.But Mastercard’s launch of Agent Pay for Machines on June 10 suddenly made this more than just a Web3 story.Mastercard’s definition of Agent Pay is clear: it allows trusted AI Agents to participate in payments under user authorization. This includes how an Agent is identified, how it is authorized, how it is verified within a payment network, and how merchants, issuers, and users can know that a transaction was completed with the assistance of an Agent.This is highly similar to the challenge Web3 wallets are facing.When AI only helps you write copy, the cost of mistakes is usually manageable. But once AI begins to participate in asset interactions, the problem changes: does it really have permission? Has it understood the user’s intent correctly? Is the service it calls trustworthy? Does the transaction it initiates go beyond the allowed boundary? If the result differs from what the user expected, who is responsible?Mastercard’s answer is to redesign the identity, tokens, authorization, risk controls, and dispute handling for “trusted Agents” within the payment network.This signal matters. If Agentic ideas in Web3 still carry a hint of geek imagination, then a traditional financial giant designing payment infrastructure for Agentic Commerce shows that this shift has already entered a more practical business context.A closer example can also be found among Chinese payment giants. WeChat Pay is working with Tencent’s AI agent product WorkBuddy to test AI payment features, such as an “AI-only card” in WeChat Wallet. Based on the information disclosed so far, the core idea is not to let AI spend money freely, but to set boundaries for agent payments through prepaid limits, payment authorization limits, and password or PIN confirmation.This follows the same logic as Mastercard Agent Pay: AI can participate in payments, but it must be identified, authorized, restricted, and auditable.Web3 wallets are facing the on-chain version of the same problem. The difference is that traditional payment systems place more emphasis on networks, merchants, issuers, and compliance responsibilities, while on-chain wallets place more emphasis on private keys, signatures, approvals, contract calls, and user self-custody.Precisely because of this, Agentic Wallets cannot simply copy the traditional payment path. In traditional payments, users can rely on banks, card networks, merchants, dispute handling, and risk control systems. But in the on-chain world, once a transaction is recorded on-chain, there is often no undo button.The more efficiency AI Agents bring, the more important the wallet becomes as the final safety perimeter. The wallet of the future should not only allow Agents to “do things”; it must also ensure that Agents can only act within the scope users have allowed.This is also why Web3 may actually be a more suitable place to discuss Agentic Wallets.3. In the Agentic Era, How Should Wallets Redefine On-Chain Interaction?When people discuss AI Agents, they often instinctively move toward an extreme vision: in the future, AI will automatically trade for me, manage my assets for me, find airdrops for me, and arbitrage for me.This direction is certainly appealing. But for wallets, the truly difficult part is not “automation”; it is maintaining clear boundaries.A wallet is not an ordinary app. In an ordinary app, if AI recommends the wrong song, writes the wrong paragraph, or taps the wrong page, it is mostly an experience issue. But in a wallet, if AI misunderstands an instruction, calls the wrong contract, or grants excessive permissions, it may lead to actual financial loss. Further reading: “Sign Is More Than a Signature: When an AI Agent Signs for You, Who Is Still in Control?”So the first-principles question for Agentic Wallets is not “How much can AI help users do?” It is “How can users know what AI is doing?”This is also why imToken has emphasized control over the past few years. From self-custodial wallets to multi-chain asset management, and now to AI co-creation and Agent exploration, the continuous thread has never been simply “more features.” It has been that users should always be able to understand, confirm, and control their own digital world.In the Agentic era, this thread becomes more concrete.Wallets need to help users understand who an Agent is, what capabilities it can call, how long the authorization lasts, whether it can operate across DApps, when the user needs to confirm again, and whether the user can pause or revoke it with one tap. These questions may sound tedious, but they are the foundation that determines whether Agentic Wallets can truly work.The power of AI Agents comes precisely from their ability to simplify complex processes. A user says one sentence, and the Agent may break it down into more than a dozen execution steps. This is good for user experience, but it is also a security challenge. The longer the path and the more intermediate steps involved, the more wallets need to bring key checkpoints back in front of the user.A good wallet interaction in the future may not be about showing users more technical details. Instead, it may be about translating complex transactions into language users can understand: You are authorizing an Agent to call a specific contract within the next 24 hours. This action can use up to a specified amount of USDC. It can only access World Cup-related prediction markets and cannot touch your other assets. Any transaction above a certain amount must be confirmed again. The authorization will automatically expire when the time limit ends. You can pause this Agent in the wallet at any time. This may sound like a distant future, but it is already starting from small scenarios. World Cup prediction activities are an event-based entry point, while the web-based Agent and Discord Agent that imToken is testing are community-based entry points.At moments like this, wallets should not retreat into the background.

Dear imToken users, partners, and friends,Ten years ago, when we started building imToken, there was no clear map of the industry. Blockchain was still in its early days, and crypto wallets had not yet become a mature product category. For most people, private keys, seed phrases, signatures, gas fees, and smart contracts were unfamiliar and difficult concepts. The world did not yet fully understand crypto assets, and few believed that individuals could truly own and control their own value.But we made a choice that later proved to be very important: we chose to build a wallet. We believed that the internet should not only give you accounts; it should also give you assets, identity, and choice. What truly belongs to you should be in your own hands. This is where imToken began.Over the past ten years, we have gone through bull and bear cycles, the rise of DeFi and multi-chain ecosystems, and repeated tests of trust, risk, and long-term thinking together with tens of millions of users. Many things have changed, but one belief has remained the same: imToken has always believed that what truly belongs to you should be under your control.Digital Assets, Under Your Control.This idea sounds simple, but it has been our most important product principle over the past decade. It is also the starting point for where we go next.The First Decade: Store, Send, StakeLooking back on imToken’s first ten years, the core value that wallets created for users can be summarized in three words: Store, Send, and Stake.Store means enabling users to truly hold their own digital assets. Wallets first solved the challenge of self-custody: how to hold assets securely, how to avoid relying on centralized institutions, and how to return final control over value to individuals. Self-custody is not merely a feature; it defines where control resides. It means that assets that truly belong to you do not need to be entrusted to another centralized account.Send means enabling value to move freely. Once users can own assets, the next step is to transfer value freely. Send is not just about making transfers. It is the ability for value to flow across an open network, allowing anyone to move what belongs to them across geographic and institutional boundaries without needing permission.Stake means helping users move from holders to participants. As open networks evolved, wallets became more than tools for storing and transferring assets. They became gateways for users to participate in networks, earn rewards, and support ecosystem operations. From staking to DeFi, from governance to broader forms of on-chain participation, wallets helped users move from “owning assets” to “participating in networks.”Store, Send, and Stake have formed the core product value of imToken’s first decade. Over these ten years, imToken has grown much like a tree. Our mission, vision, values, and long-term principles are the roots of this tree; our products, technology, security, user experience, and services are the branches growing upward. Only deep roots can support flourishing leaves. And the farther we go, the more clearly we understand what must never be lost.The tenth anniversary is not an endpoint. It is a new beginning after looking back. As we stand here today and look toward the next decade, a larger shift is taking place.The Intelligent Age: Abundant Agency, Scarce ControlAI is bringing the internet into a new era. In the future, more and more software will no longer simply wait for people to click buttons. It will understand goals, break down tasks, call tools, and act on behalf of people. We are entering the age of intelligent agents: AI agents will have increasingly powerful agency, enabling them to search, reason, trade, collaborate, pay, and execute in the digital world.This will bring enormous productivity, but it will also create new risks. In the past, the core question of the digital world was: How can people own assets? In the future, an increasingly important question will be: When intelligent agents can act on behalf of people, how can people still remain in control?We see three forces converging. First, AI is sweeping across the world, transforming software from “waiting for human operation” to “acting on behalf of humans.” Second, the value of blockchain is becoming visible again. Permissionlessness, censorship resistance, self-custody, verifiability, and traceability were once foundations of open finance. In an AI-native internet, they will also become important defensive infrastructure for collaboration between humans and intelligent systems. Third, control is becoming a new personal challenge. In the future, every individual will not only manage assets, identity, and data, but also their own AI agents, automated tasks, and authorization boundaries.Agency will become increasingly abundant. What will truly be scarce is control.This is not an abstract issue. In the future, users will need to know: Who can act on my behalf? What are they allowed to do? What is the spending limit? How long does the authorization last? Which actions require my confirmation? When something abnormal happens, how can I pause, revoke, and trace it? Without clear mechanisms of control, intelligent agents may become a new kind of black box. The more powerful they become, the easier it will be for people to lose boundaries, accountability, and final decision-making power.So for imToken, the mission of the next decade is not to build another AI agent, nor is it simply to add AI features to a wallet. What we truly care about is this: In an AI-native internet, how can people still retain final control?The Fourth S: SignIf the 3S of the first decade were Store, Send, and Stake, then the fourth S for the next decade is Sign.In the past, Sign usually meant signing a transaction. But in the age of intelligent agents, the meaning of Sign will expand. It will no longer be just a transaction approval. It will become a foundational interface through which humans express authorization, define boundaries, delegate actions, and retain control.In the future, what you sign may not only be a transaction. It may be an intent, a permission and delegation, a policy, or a revocation.AI agents can propose plans, execute tasks, and amplify efficiency. But their actions must be built on top of your clear, verifiable, constrained and revocable authorization.Sign to permit intelligent actions under your control.This is how we understand the fourth S. It is also the core product thesis for imToken’s next decade.From a Trusted Main Wallet to a Personal Control InterfaceOver the past ten years, imToken has become a trusted main wallet for many users. We treat this with deep respect. “Main wallet” is not a title we take lightly. It means users have entrusted us with long-term assets, important identities, critical transactions, and a sense of security. It also requires us to remain restrained, reliable, and long-term oriented in product, technology, security, user experience, and risk communication.In the future, imToken will still first and foremost be a trustworthy wallet. We will not abandon the clarity of what a wallet is in order to chase concepts, nor will we push users into complex systems they cannot understand or control. But we also know that the role of the wallet is naturally expanding. In an open and intelligent internet, individuals need to manage not only assets, but also identity, permissions, data, AI agents, automated tasks, and increasingly complex digital relationships.Therefore, imToken will gradually evolve from a trusted main wallet into a personal control interface — an interface that helps you control your assets, identity, permissions, and intelligent actions.This is not a leap from wallet to abstract platform. It is a natural extension of the wallet’s core logic: keys are the root of control; signatures are the expression of authorization; permissions define boundaries; policies set the rules for actions; revocation protects freedom; and auditability is the foundation of accountability.The wallet of the future will not only be an entry point for assets. It will also become a trusted control interface for collaboration between humans and intelligent systems.The Direction of the Next DecadeGuided by this direction, imToken will continue to protect the root of self-custody. No matter how technology changes, users should not easily give away final control over their assets and critical rights.We will also move from transaction security toward authorization security and action security. In the past, users were most concerned about private key leaks, signing the wrong transaction, or interacting with malicious contracts. In the future, users will also need to know whether they have authorized an agent to act over the long term, whether they have granted excessive limits, and whether they can pause or revoke that authorization at any time. What imToken needs to do is make these originally complex, hidden, and hard-to-understand authorization relationships clearer and more controllable.AI can help people accomplish more. But people should always be able to understand, approve, limit, and audit those actions. We want to make intelligent actions more controllable, not make control more ambiguous.This is a long-term direction, and it is not a question that imToken can answer alone. But it is a question we must help build toward.Building for the Long Road AheadTen years is not an endpoint. It is a clearer starting point.We will continue moving forward as builders: fewer slogans, more products; less chasing of hype, more infrastructure; less short-term noise, more long-term trust. We will also continue to stay true to why we started, sense the direction of change, understand what is essential, endure through time, keep iterating, and move forward with conviction.If imToken’s first decade was about helping you truly own your digital assets, then imToken’s next decade is about helping you continue to control your digital world in the intelligent age.Your Digital World, Under Your Control.Thank you to every user, developer, investor, partner, and team member who has experienced, believed, and built with imToken over the past ten years.The road ahead is still long. We will continue exploring, continue building, and continue moving toward the horizon. Ben HeFounder & CEO, imTokenJune 2026

For a long time, when we talked about wallets, we were mostly talking about assets.Where should BTC be stored? How do you transfer ETH? How should NFTs be managed? How do users access and use DeFi or RWAs? For most crypto users, a wallet was, in a sense, their gateway to assets.But AI is changing this.When users can describe what they need in natural language, and when AI can help break down the steps required to complete an action, the role of the wallet also begins to change. This has become especially clear over the past six months. A wallet is increasingly becoming the command center for a user’s digital world.From this perspective, the real question for wallets in the AI era may not be whether they can do more things on behalf of users. It is this: when more and more actions can be automated, how can users continue to understand each interaction and retain ultimate control?This is the new question imToken continues to answer as it enters its next decade.1. The New Wallet Narrative: From an Asset Entry Point to a Personal Digital HubIf you had told an Ethereum user in 2016 that ten years later, they could simply type into a chat box, “Help me generate a minimalist wallet that only shows NFTs, AI-related tokens, and common actions,” and then receive an app that could run on a testnet, they would probably think you were a project founder who could not even write a convincing whitepaper.But by 2026, this no longer feels like science fiction.If you recently took part in imToken’s 10th anniversary event, you may have seen something similar already becoming possible: a user only needs to describe their need in natural language, and an initial wallet interface can be generated, showing NFTs, AI tokens, and common actions such as Receive, Sign, and Swap.“Your Digital World, Under Your Control” is a fitting way to summarize imToken’s new narrative for its tenth anniversary. It is not about packaging the wallet as a platform that does everything. Rather, it recognizes that as the digital world users enter becomes more complex, they need a long-term, trusted, secure, and clear entry point that remains under their own control.That entry point has been the wallet, and the wallet will continue to evolve into it. The more complex the digital world becomes, the more it needs a trusted starting point.In the past, wallets mainly helped users prove that “these assets belong to me.” Whether it was ETH, ERC-20 tokens, NFTs, DeFi positions, or later RWA assets, the wallet’s core role was to serve as an asset container and a signing entry point.But in the AI era, wallets also need to help users confirm more things: Do these identities belong to me? Are these authorizations managed by me? Do I understand these actions? Are these automated workflows still within my control boundaries?This is the core of the “personal digital hub” narrative. It also means the wallet’s next stage is not merely to remain a wallet, but to become the foundational interface for entering the digital world.Take imToken as an example. If we divide its past decade into three stages, a clear trajectory emerges:From 2016 to 2023, the wallet was a container for assets. Starting from the Ethereum ecosystem and expanding alongside ERC-20 tokens, DeFi, NFTs, and other asset forms, the core question was simple: how to keep private keys as safely as possible on users’ own devices, and how to make every newly emerging token reliably fit into the same container. At this stage, users cared most about whether assets could be stored safely and accessed or moved out smoothly.From 2024 to 2025, wallets began to stand at a paradigm shift. Tokens were no longer just assets. They started to extend toward identity, data, agents, and permission relationships. Ethereum’s narrative also moved beyond scaling and toward directions closer to user experience, such as account abstraction. As the way users interact with blockchains began to be rewritten, the wallet, once a relatively stable piece of the puzzle, began to shift significantly for the first time.From 2026 onward, wallets are moving toward the role of a “personal digital hub.” As AI begins to participate in app generation, transaction understanding, risk detection, and automated execution, the wallet is no longer just a tool being used. It is becoming more like each person’s digital command center, coordinating collaboration between users and AI agents.These three stages can be summed up in one sentence: tokens evolve, control remains.Asset forms will change. Interaction models will change. AI capabilities will change. But what the wallet must protect remains the same: the user’s ultimate control over their own digital world.2. Functionality Is Not the Destination. Security Is the Foundation.Take imToken’s 10th anniversary AI co-creation initiative as an example. What matters most is not simply “generating a wallet interface with AI,” but how it brings the question of how wallets should work with AI down to a more foundational level.One thing needs to be made clear first: the AI direction imToken has shown so far is not the radical path of “handing private keys to AI and letting AI trade automatically for you.” Instead, it focuses on three more practical directions: allowing users to participate in wallet co-creation through natural language, making the wallet’s underlying capabilities easier for developers and AI to access, and embedding security rules into generation and interaction from the start.We believe this path is more consistent with how wallets should evolve.Because a wallet is not an ordinary app. If an ordinary app gets a button wrong, the result may simply be a poor user experience. But if a wallet gets a signature, an authorization, or a private key handling process wrong, it may lead to real asset loss. That is why wallets in the AI era cannot focus only on generating things quickly. They must also be secure by design, easy to understand, and verifiable.One of the most concrete steps is to further open Token Core capabilities to co-creation scenarios. For everyday users, Token Core may sound technical, but it can be understood as the “heart” of the imToken wallet. It handles the wallet’s most essential capabilities, such as private key and keystore management, address generation, transaction signing, and multi-chain support.In simple terms, wallet interfaces can take many forms. But what truly determines whether a wallet can securely manage assets, sign correctly, and run reliably across different chains is this underlying “heart.”Token Core was open-sourced as early as 2018. At the time, it mainly served imToken’s own mobile wallet, supporting multi-chain asset management and signing on iOS and Android. Today, Token Core has evolved into a wallet core library that supports multiple public chains and cross-platform calls.What is especially worth noting in the tenth anniversary-related branch is the emergence of a WebAssembly version.WebAssembly sounds technical. In plain language, WebAssembly makes it easier for core wallet capabilities that used to run mostly in apps or local environments to run in the browser. As a result, web-based wallet demos, AI-generated wallet applications, and wallet prototypes built by developers may be able to call underlying wallet capabilities more directly.The significance is that the wallet no longer has to be just a collection of features inside a closed app. It can become a more open and composable set of foundational capabilities. Alongside this, several easier-to-understand tools have also appeared: The Token Core CLI demo can be understood as a “command-line demo console.” It breaks down core wallet actions, such as creating a wallet, deriving addresses, managing keystores, and signing transactions, so developers and AI can see more clearly what the wallet is doing under the hood. Token UI can be understood as a “wallet interface template library.” Built on imToken’s design system, it helps participants build wallet-like interfaces more quickly. Users can ask AI to generate a wallet interface prototype without having to design every button, list, and asset card from scratch. security/SKILL.md is more like a “wallet security manual” written specifically for AI coding assistants. When AI generates code involving seed phrases, private keys, signatures, or authorizations, it cannot simply focus on making the feature work. It must first understand the hard boundaries, and any asset-related operation must require user confirmation. These open-source initiatives may differ from how many people used to think about wallet competition.In the past, it was easy to think of a wallet as an app: whoever supported more chains, had a better-looking interface, and offered more complete DApp entry points had the advantage. But after the arrival of the AI era, wallet competition may take a different form: whoever can provide more trusted underlying capabilities, help users and developers compose wallet functions more safely, and still maintain security boundaries when AI generates experiences will be better positioned to become the foundation of users’ digital worlds.This is why imToken’s AI efforts should not be reduced to “an AI wallet-generation event.” It is actually answering a more foundational question: when AI can generate more wallet interfaces, interactions, and applications, what must remain stable? What can be opened to users and the community for recomposition? And what must be constrained by security rules?imToken’s answer is: trust belongs in the core, control belongs to the user, and innovation belongs to the community.3. The New Map for Crypto Users: From Natural Language Entry Points to Agent Boundary ManagementWhat, then, can we expect Web3 wallets to look like over the next decade?If we bring the two threads above together, one side is imToken bringing the wallet core, UI templates, and security rules to users and developers. The other side is AI gaining stronger understanding and orchestration capabilities between users and blockchains. In this process, the position of an ordinary crypto user is undergoing a very interesting shift.In the past, users mostly adapted to wallets.Users used whatever homepage the wallet provided, clicked the features it supported, and followed its transaction flow step by step. Even heavy users were often just switching back and forth between fixed functions.But with AI involved, wallets may increasingly adapt to users. This means the Web3 wallet of the next decade may not simply have more and more features. Instead, its form may become increasingly personalized. You may no longer need to tolerate a wallet homepage that looks the same for everyone. If you are a DeFi power user, you could ask AI to generate a minimalist interface focused only on yield, risk, and position changes, bringing together major positions across chains, yield rates, redemption timelines, and risk status. If you only care about stablecoin inflows and outflows, your wallet homepage could show only your USDC and USDT balances, recent incoming payments, and frequently used receiving addresses, without distracting you with irrelevant assets and entry points. If you are deeply involved in LSTs or LRTs, the wallet could bring the real ETH positions, yields, exit windows, and potential risks behind different staking tokens into a clearer dashboard. If you simply want to set up a small wallet for a family member, it could keep only receiving, sending, and balance display, while hiding complex DApps, authorizations, and cross-chain features. The underlying signing, address, and transfer logic does not change. What changes is the upper-layer experience. In short, a wallet is no longer just a standardized product. It becomes a digital tool assembled from the wallet core, UI Kit, and personal needs.Looking further ahead, the next generation of crypto users may enter an on-chain world populated by many AI agents.Your AI assistant may scan stablecoin pool spreads for you every day. Your research agent may run small tests when a new protocol launches. Your payment agent may handle subscriptions, refunds, and payment splitting. Your asset management agent may remind you to rebalance according to rules you set.These scenarios may sound futuristic, but they do not mean users should hand their private keys to AI. Quite the opposite: the stronger agents become, the more important wallets become. A healthy relationship between AI and wallets is not about letting agents take unlimited control of user assets. It is about allowing agents to make requests, while the wallet translates those requests into transaction details users can understand and hands the final confirmation back to the user.In other words, AI agents can discover opportunities, make suggestions, and generate paths. The wallet must be responsible for risk warnings, permission constraints, and final signatures.Overall, AI will make wallets smarter and on-chain actions smoother. This is a major shift, and it has only just begun.Final ThoughtsThe underlying logic of the crypto world has always been built on user control. The question of private keys will not disappear because of AI. On the contrary, it will become even more important.This is where imToken’s new narrative, and the truly important direction of the wallet sector, come into focus.Especially as the digital world expands from assets to identity and AI agents, users will still need a trusted entry point that helps them understand, confirm, and control every digital action they take. From a trusted main wallet to a personal digital hub, this is not conceptual packaging. It is the natural extension of the wallet’s role in a new technological environment.Perhaps when we look back at 2026 from 2036, we will see a somewhat counterintuitive fact: the next decade of wallets will not only be about more powerful features. Users will no longer simply be the people services are built for; they will become the ones who define those services.Your digital world, under your control.

Ten years is a moment for reflection. More importantly, it is a moment to reaffirm where we are heading.In the past, the digital world in crypto was largely centered around assets. From BTC and ETH to ERC-20 tokens, NFTs, DeFi, and RWAs, the forms of token have continued to expand, and wallets have helped users securely hold, manage, and use these assets.Now, AI is reshaping digital infrastructure and the way people interact with it. As users’ relationship with the digital world become more flexible, efficient, and intent-driven, they are also becoming more complex. “You” are no longer just an address or an account, but a more complete digital presence — carrying identity, permissions, ownership, and boundaries of action into the open network. And the “digital world” is no longer limited to assets. It also includes identity, authorization, smart accounts, AI agents, and more automated interaction scenarios.That is why imToken needs to continue evolving. What remains unchanged is “under your control.” No matter how far the digital world expands, users should retain ultimate control over their assets, identity, and actions.imToken’s brand evolution starts from its role as a trusted main wallet. Built on Trust, Control, and Becoming, imToken is gradually evolving into a personal control interface for the open, intelligent internet.A Wallet Begins with TrustFor many users, a wallet is not just another app.An ordinary app can be replaced, uninstalled, or re-registered. A wallet is different. It holds the digital assets users truly own. It is the starting point of every on-chain action, and the entry point through which users build their relationship with the open network.That is why the core value of a wallet is not how many features it has, but whether it can be trusted.Over the past ten years, imToken has built around this foundational value: users hold their own private keys and control their own assets; assets are not held by the platform, nor is ownership defined by a centralized account. A wallet needs to be reliable, secure, stable, and worthy of being trusted with users’ primary assets.This is imToken’s most important product role today: a trusted main wallet for your digital world.This positioning is simple, but important. In an open network, true control is never just a slogan. It is supported by a series of concrete capabilities: users need to manage private keys securely, confirm signatures clearly, understand what they are authorizing, know what each transaction may result in, and receive clear risk signals in a complex on-chain environment.These specific and foundational capabilities form the basis of imToken’s trust. Ten years later, we still believe that wallet is imToken’s clearest and most important starting point. Now, we are building on top of it to answer the next question.The User’s Digital World Is Opening Up New PossibilitiesIn the past, when we talked about wallets, we were mostly talking about assets: which tokens users hold, how they participate in DeFi, how they manage NFTs, and how they complete an on-chain transaction.Today, AI, smart accounts, cross-application authorization, and richer on-chain applications are opening up more possibilities for users’ digital worlds. A wallet will no longer only help users store and transfer assets. It will also take part in identity verification, permission management, application access, and more digital actions assisted by AI agents.The digital world is becoming more capable and more automated. Users can enter applications more easily, call services, combine assets and identity, and let systems assist with complex operations that used to require manual effort.When more actions can be authorized, delegated, or executed automatically, users need to understand more clearly: What identity am I using to enter an application? Who have I authorized? Which permissions are still active? Which actions represent me? Who holds the final right to confirm and control?These changes will continue to drive the evolution of the wallet. A wallet will no longer be just an asset container. It will increasingly become the central interface of a user’s digital world: connecting assets and identity, managing transactions and authorization, and helping users stay in control across a broader digital world.From a Trusted Main Wallet to a Personal Control InterfaceThis is the direction imToken is moving toward: from a trusted main wallet to a personal control interface.In the past, that entry point was the wallet. In the future, the wallet will remain the foundation of that entry point.imToken remains committed to its legacy: a trusted main wallet for long-term self-custody, where users retain full control and true ownership of their assets. At the same time, we are building for what’s next. We are transforming imToken from a secure vault into a dynamic interface—supporting not just your assets, but your identity and every intelligent interaction in the open network.In short, your main wallet today. Your personal control interface tomorrow. Trust, Control, and Becoming‘Under your control’ is not just a slogan—it is a reality built on three unbreakable pillars: Trust, Control and Becoming.Trust is the foundation for a wallet to carry users’ assets over the long term. Without trust, users will not entrust a product with important assets, key identities, or high-value permissions.Control is the core that imToken has always upheld. In the past, this control was mostly reflected in asset self-custody. In the future, control will become broader. As identity, permissions, smart accounts, AI agents, and more on-chain behaviors enter users’ digital lives, users need to control not only “where the money is,” but also “who can act on my behalf,” “which permissions belong to me,” and “which actions require my final confirmation.”Becoming is our commitment to evolution. We are building beyond the traditional wallet to create the ultimate personal control interface. It is a gateway designed to solve the friction of the next digital era, turning complex permissions and interactions into a seamless, user-controlled experience.Our journey is defined by pragmatic innovation, and these are our commitments.Your Digital World, Under Your ControlThe tenth anniversary is not an endpoint. It is a new beginning.Over the past ten years, imToken has accompanied users as they entered the on-chain world, managed assets, understood self-custody, and built trust in the open network. In the next ten years, users’ digital worlds will continue to expand. Assets will become more diverse. Identity will become more important. The Permission relationship will become more complex. AI agents will participate in more digital actions. And the open network will carry more real user needs.What imToken wants to uphold remains unchanged: users should own their digital world, understand their digital actions, and control their assets, identity, and permissions.So this brand evolution is not a conceptual shift. It starts from the trusted main wallet and continues to answer the same question:In an ever-changing digital world, how can users remain in control?Your Digital World, Under Your Control. 

This past June, the crypto world experienced a wave of security incidents spanning multiple parts of the ecosystem.According to PeckShield’s latest monthly security report, 40 major hacks occurred in June, causing total losses of $75.87 million. More concerningly, the attacks were not limited to a single vector. They spanned flaws in wallet signing implementations, vulnerabilities in L2 protocols, and supply chain attacks involving third-party services, with multiple layers of defense failing in the same month.As Web3 security risks expand from isolated attack vectors to the entire on-chain interaction journey, every user must reconsider one fundamental question: Are my crypto assets truly secure?1. Beyond Private Keys: Why a Wallet’s Signing Implementation MattersThe security incident involving SecondFi, a wallet in the Cardano ecosystem, is one of the clearest examples.SecondFi evolved from Yoroi, another wallet in the Cardano ecosystem. Between June 21 and 23, attackers moved approximately 16 million ADA out of addresses belonging to some SecondFi users. Around 374 wallets were affected, representing roughly $2.4 million at the time. SecondFi later said that emergency measures had secured another 129 million ADA that might otherwise have been at risk.What makes this incident particularly notable is that the affected users never handed their mnemonic phrases to the attackers. The problem lay in the wallet’s underlying signing implementation.According to BlockSec, it incorrectly derived the signing nonce from public transaction messages and omitted the secret nonce prefix required by the relevant cryptographic standard.As a result, whenever a user signed a transaction with an affected wallet version, the public signature data posted on-chain could expose enough information to derive the private key corresponding to that address. Attackers did not need to compromise the user’s phone or obtain the mnemonic phrase; analyzing public on-chain data alone could be enough to recover the key.From the user’s perspective, the wallet still appeared to function normally: no pop-up had exposed the mnemonic phrase, the password had not been cracked, and the transactions had genuinely been initiated by the user.Cryptographically, however, once an address had generated valid signatures using an affected wallet version, the public transaction and signature data could help an attacker derive the corresponding private key.Ultimately, wallet security also depends on whether private keys are generated correctly, whether signatures strictly follow cryptographic standards, and whether the critical code can be independently reviewed and verified. This is precisely why open-sourcing core wallet components matters.Of course, this was an implementation flaw in a specific version of a particular wallet, not a problem common to all self-custodial wallets.For example, the repositories for imToken’s TokenCore are publicly available on GitHub and cover foundational wallet functions such as key management, address derivation, and transaction signing.Open-source code does not guarantee the absence of vulnerabilities, nor does it mean users can stop being vigilant. For a wallet’s most sensitive cryptographic and signing components, however, open source provides an essential foundation: researchers, developers, and community members can inspect the code, reproduce issues, and test it continuously instead of having to trust an unverifiable black box.For users, incidents like this also highlight several practical security principles. First, always download wallet apps from official websites or official app stores, and install security updates promptly. Second, avoid keeping all your assets in a single wallet used for everyday interactions. Large, long-term holdings can be stored in a hardware wallet or a separate cold wallet and kept apart from the hot wallet you regularly connect to DApps. More importantly, once a wallet provider confirms a flaw in how keys are generated or transactions are signed, simply importing the original mnemonic phrase into another wallet does not solve the problem. Importing the same mnemonic phrase into another wallet does not change any addresses or private keys that may already have been exposed. The affected assets need to be moved to a new address that has never signed a transaction with the vulnerable wallet version.For most users, the safer approach is to follow the provider’s official incident-response instructions, create an entirely new wallet with a new mnemonic phrase, and migrate the assets there, rather than repeatedly importing or continuing to use the affected addresses.2. L2s Are More Than “Cheaper Ethereum”—They Rely on Complex Chains of TrustBeyond wallets, several incidents in June also highlighted the risks within increasingly complex L2 systems.On June 14 and 18, two legacy rollup deployments associated with Aztec were attacked, resulting in combined losses of approximately $4.35 million.It is important to clarify that the affected systems were legacy deployments such as Aztec Connect, not the Aztec Network mainnet itself. Even so, the flaws exposed by the two incidents serve as an important warning for the broader ZK rollup ecosystem.In one incident, the attacker exploited a mismatch between the declared transaction count and the data actually processed. This caused the proof to record a deposit without the corresponding balance being deducted on L1.The other incident stemmed from missing constraints in a zero-knowledge proof circuit. The system accepted a formally valid proof without ensuring that the private state tree used in the proof matched the public state root used for settlement on Ethereum.The attacker could therefore generate a proof based on a fabricated state tree and withdraw assets from the L1 contract.Problems like these cannot be reduced to the traditional question of whether one particular line of smart contract code is vulnerable. A zero-knowledge proof can show that a computation followed a predefined set of rules, but only if those rules are themselves correct and complete.If a critical variable is left unconstrained, the proof may remain mathematically valid while proving a result that does not match the actual settlement state.A subsequent security incident involving Taiko exposed another form of risk in the L2 trust chain.On June 22, Taiko’s SGX-based proof-verification process was exploited, causing approximately $1.7 million in losses. According to BlockSec, the attacker used an SGX enclave signing key that had previously been checked into a public GitHub repository.The attacker also took advantage of an on-chain verification flaw that failed to reject enclaves running in DEBUG mode, allowing a malicious prover to register as a legitimate instance.The attacker then forged an L2 state proof, causing an Ethereum contract to accept an L2 state that did not actually exist and ultimately enabling unauthorized withdrawals from the bridge.At its core, the incident occurred because the key used to sign the trusted enclave had been publicly exposed, while the remote-attestation rules did not fully verify the environment’s runtime properties. A proof that had technically “passed attestation” therefore no longer carried the trust that the attestation was meant to provide.Meanwhile, Base experienced two mainnet block-production stalls on June 25 and 26.In its post-incident review, Base said both outages stemmed from the same flaw in its block-building logic: a transaction that failed during execution did not properly clear previously recorded state, causing gas for subsequent transactions to be calculated incorrectly and producing a block with an invalid state transition.Because other nodes could not accept the block, the network stopped progressing. Base said chain integrity was not compromised and user funds remained safe throughout the incidents.This was not an asset theft or an external attack, but a technical failure affecting network availability and recoverability. From a broader security perspective, availability is itself part of an L2’s security model.For users, a network’s security depends not only on whether attackers can forge assets or state, but also on whether blocks continue to be produced, bridges remain operational, nodes recover quickly, and users retain a viable exit path when the system fails.Users should therefore look beyond fees and potential airdrops when evaluating an L2.On smaller or newly launched L2s, or networks whose security mechanisms are still changing rapidly, avoid leaving more assets on-chain than you actually need.Before bridging, confirm that you are using the official bridge and understand the withdrawal period, pause mechanisms, and emergency exit options.If block production stops, bridge transactions behave unexpectedly, or the project issues a security alert, do not repeatedly resubmit transactions or continue moving assets across the bridge.A safer approach is to manage assets separately according to their purpose and risk level, rather than concentrating all your liquidity on a single L2, bridge, or exit mechanism.3. Even If the Contract Is Secure, Third-Party Services Can Still Expose Users to AttacksWhile the wallet and L2 incidents involved relatively low-level technical components, the Polymarket incident showed that the web front end closest to users can also become an attack vector targeting their funds.On June 25, Polymarket said that one of its third-party service providers had been compromised, allowing the attacker to inject malicious scripts into the version of the Polymarket front end served to some users.According to estimates from security firms and on-chain analysts, the incident caused approximately $3 million in user losses and affected around 11 wallets.The stolen funds were later bridged from Polygon to Ethereum and swapped for approximately 1,893 ETH. Polymarket subsequently said it had removed the affected dependency and would fully reimburse affected users.The key point is that affected users may still have been visiting the legitimate Polymarket domain,while public disclosures did not indicate any vulnerability in Polymarket’s core smart contracts. The problem lay primarily in a third-party front-end dependency loaded by the website.This incident reflects a broader reality: most Web3 applications do not operate entirely on-chain.The websites users interact with, including trading interfaces, still rely heavily on traditional internet infrastructure and third-party software packages. If any of these dependencies is compromised, a legitimate website may display false information, replace recipient addresses, or trick users into signing malicious transactions through their wallets.A legitimate URL does not necessarily mean that every piece of code currently loaded by the page is safe. Likewise, an audited smart contract does not mean that the entire interaction path between the user and the contract is risk-free.Users cannot realistically inspect every piece of code a webpage loads, but they can limit potential losses by reducing the permissions granted in each interaction and limiting the assets exposed to it.Use a separate wallet for DApp interactions. Avoid connecting wallets that hold long-term assets directly to DeFi, NFT, prediction-market, or airdrop websites. Keep only the funds you expect to use in the near term in your everyday interaction wallet. This limits the potential impact if a front end is compromised or a malicious approval is granted.Verify the action shown in your wallet, not just the button displayed on the webpage. A webpage may say “Log in,” “Claim,” or “Confirm Order,” but the signature request in your wallet may authorize something entirely different.Stop when a webpage behaves unexpectedly instead of continuing out of habit. If a page suddenly asks you to import your mnemonic phrase again, install an additional extension, or sign a transaction whose details do not match the action described on the website, stop interacting. Check the project’s status through multiple official channels, and review or revoke any old token approvals you no longer use.From a product perspective, this also means the role of wallets is changing.A wallet should do more than store private keys and display signature prompts. It should help users understand transaction intent, identify suspicious approvals, show expected asset changes, and provide clear warnings before high-risk interactions occur.However, wallets cannot eliminate every risk for users.A more realistic security model requires wallets, protocols, L2s, third-party service providers, and users to work together to reduce the attack surface, rather than placing all responsibility on any one party.Final ThoughtsPeople often say that whoever controls the private keys controls the on-chain assets.That remains true, but it does not cover the entire journey from initiating an on-chain action to reaching final settlement.Web3 security today is no longer just about protecting a mnemonic phrase. It means protecting the full path—from how a wallet generates keys and presents transaction details to how signatures are executed, networks verify state, and transactions reach final settlement.This does not mean users need to avoid all on-chain interactions. Effective security habits mean managing assets separately based on their purpose, risk level, and how they are used: keep long-term holdings isolated, limit the funds kept in everyday interaction wallets, grant minimal permissions to unfamiliar DApps, and double-check high-risk actions.After all, when security risks expand from a single point to an entire chain, users’ defenses must also evolve—from protecting private keys alone to building a complete set of security practices.

Over the past two weeks, Ethereum has undergone an unprecedented organizational shift.On June 22, 2026, five former Ethereum Foundation researchers announced the launch of Ethlabs, an independently operated nonprofit R&D lab.A day later, the Ethereum Foundation announced a new organizational structure and confirmed that 54 employees, representing approximately 20% of its total headcount, would leave the organization.On July 1, another independent nonprofit, Ethereum Institutional, officially launched and began carrying forward the institutional partnership work previously handled by EF’s market development team.Viewed in isolation, these developments could easily fit a familiar pessimistic narrative: the Foundation is under financial pressure, core talent is leaving, and the ecosystem is entering a period of turbulence.Similar views have indeed been circulating in market commentary.But when these developments are viewed together, a fuller picture emerges. Ethereum appears to be deliberately reducing its reliance on a single foundation and distributing functions once concentrated within EF across multiple independent ecosystem organizations with distinct roles.Ethereum seems to be addressing a long-standing question: when a decentralized network becomes global infrastructure, what kinds of organizations should support its continued development?1. Why Is EF Choosing to Scale Itself Back?To be fair, when viewed through a traditional business lens, these changes can easily be misinterpreted. In the world of conventional technology companies, layoffs almost always signal revenue pressure, business contraction, or strategic failure.But the Ethereum Foundation is not a typical company.It has no shareholders in the traditional sense, does not measure success by market share or quarterly profit, and does not “own” the Ethereum network in any practical sense. In many ways, EF is better understood as a steward of the protocol: it supports core protocol R&D, funds public goods, coordinates ecosystem resources, and safeguards principles that should not be easily compromised as Ethereum evolves.This creates an inherent tension for EF.On the one hand, Ethereum needs people committed to long-term protocol research, upgrade coordination, and public goods. On the other hand, if research, funding, talent, and decision-making become increasingly concentrated within the Foundation, EF itself risks becoming one of Ethereum’s largest sources of centralization.This is why EF has long followed an organizational philosophy of “doing subtraction.” A healthy Ethereum ecosystem should not depend on an ever-expanding foundation, but on a broad network of independent organizations and contributors. In that sense, the Foundation’s success should ultimately be measured by a gradual decline in its relative influence, rather than by continuous organizational growth.This was not a sudden shift. In its 2025 treasury policy, EF had already stated that it would gradually narrow its scope, reduce annual operating expenses over the following five years, and move toward a more sustainable long-term organizational model.As we noted several months ago, EF had been going through a strained and turbulent period since 2025. At the time, it was at the center of intense public criticism, with some community members even calling for a so-called “wartime CEO” to drive change.Eventually, those internal tensions became public, prompting EF to undertake its most high-profile leadership restructuring since its founding.In early 2025, Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi was elevated to President, while Vitalik Buterin pledged to restructure the leadership team.Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak were subsequently appointed co-executive directors.Etherealize, a new organization focused on marketing and ecosystem narratives and led by former researcher Danny Ryan, was also launched.At the same time, EF further reorganized its board and reaffirmed its commitment to cypherpunk values.By mid-year, the Foundation had also restructured its R&D function, consolidated teams, and adjusted staffing to keep core protocol priorities in focus.In hindsight, these changes appear to have brought greater focus and discipline to Ethereum’s protocol development. Pectra was activated on May 7, 2025. Less than seven months later, Fusaka also went live on mainnet on December 3.In its subsequent annual review, EF described 2025 as one of the most productive years for Ethereum’s protocol layer. Together, the two major upgrades brought Ethereum significantly closer to its long-discussed goal of accelerating the hard fork cadence.For more, see “Ethereum 2026: Interpreting EF’s Latest Protocol Roadmap—Is Ethereum Entering an Engineering-Driven Upgrade Era?”From this perspective, the June 2026 layoffs look less like an isolated crisis and more like the first clear public expression of a longer-term strategy.Following the restructuring, EF’s work was divided into five main clusters: Protocol, Access, User, Community, and Institutional, alongside operations, management, and related support functions.EF explained that reducing headcount by approximately 20% was intended to focus the organization and its resources on the work that “only EF can and must do.”In other words, EF is actively narrowing its own scope.The next question, then, is who will take on the work from which EF is stepping back.2. How Should We Understand Ethlabs and Ethereum Institutional?At first glance, this transition may resemble a three-way split, with talent, research, and institutional functions once concentrated within EF beginning to spread across different organizations.In practice, however, this is better understood as a functional separation than as a formal division of power.EF, Ethlabs, and Ethereum Institutional do not have a parent-subsidiary or superior-subordinate relationship. They are better understood as three connected organizations within Ethereum’s broader governance network, each with a distinct role.First, there is Ethlabs.Ethlabs was announced one day before EF disclosed its restructuring plan. Its founding members include Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma, all prominent researchers who have worked on Ethereum finality, scaling, data availability, the virtual machine, protocol economics, and related areas.Ethlabs describes itself as an independent nonprofit R&D lab serving Ethereum and ETH. Its mission can be summarized in one sentence: to make Ethereum the settlement layer for the global economy.In Ethlabs’ framing, Ethereum should be more than a blockchain for issuing tokens and running applications. It should become neutral settlement infrastructure for digital assets, stablecoins, on-chain markets, institutions, and AI agents.This mission highlights an important distinction between Ethlabs and EF.EF’s core responsibility is to ensure that Ethereum does not sacrifice censorship resistance, privacy, and user sovereignty in pursuit of short-term adoption or commercial interests.Its own organizational description explicitly states that the protocol team’s role is not to make Ethereum easier to market, nor to turn it into a financial rail controlled by intermediaries.Ethlabs operates from a different position. It can speak more directly about ecosystem growth, ETH value capture, institutional demand, and real-world adoption.In other words, Ethlabs positions itself between two worlds: wallets, applications, Layer 2 networks, infrastructure teams, institutions, and end users on one side; Ethereum’s core protocol, researchers, and core developers on the other.Its role is to translate real-world needs from the former into protocol R&D, shared standards, infrastructure, and deployable products.This also helps explain the role of Ethereum Institutional.If Ethlabs is intended to translate R&D into ecosystem growth as EF narrows its scope, Ethereum Institutional is intended to take on the institutional outreach and relationship-building work that EF had previously handled largely on its own.Put simply, the nonprofit continues the institutional partnership work carried out by EF’s market development team over the previous year.It positions itself as a “neutral front door” for traditional institutions entering the Ethereum ecosystem, aiming to address a question Ethereum has long struggled with: when a bank or asset manager wants to deploy a product on Ethereum, who exactly should it talk to?This question has become increasingly urgent in recent years.Ecosystems such as Solana have clearer foundations, business development teams, and institutional partnership channels. Supported by well-funded and highly proactive commercial teams, they have continued to gain ground among global financial institutions.Ethereum, by contrast, has long lacked a unified external interface because of its emphasis on decentralization and credible neutrality.There is a deeper contradiction here.Neutrality is an advantage in technology and governance, but in real-world business settings, it can also mean that there is “no clear owner.”When an institution such as BlackRock wants to deploy a product on Ethereum, it needs a team with which it can maintain an ongoing relationship, rather than a foundation that, in the name of absolute neutrality, avoids engaging with Wall Street or sovereign institutions in the way a traditional company might.Ethereum Institutional is attempting to resolve precisely this tension: no single organization can represent Ethereum, but institutions still need someone with whom they can maintain a sustained dialogue.Its funding and leadership may therefore become an important advantage.Incubated with support from Bitmine, Sharplink, and Joe Lubin, and led by experienced figures such as former BlackRock executive Joseph Chalom, Ethereum Institutional is well positioned to engage directly with banks, asset managers, custodians, market infrastructure providers, fintech companies, and sovereign institutions.Ethereum Institutional aims to help institutions understand Ethereum, articulate their needs, and translate those needs into viable on-chain projects.Its work focuses on five areas:Institutional education and communication: helping traditional financial institutions understand Ethereum’s technical architecture, governance model, and current ecosystem landscape.Institutional market intelligence: tracking and analyzing trends, obstacles, and best practices in institutional Ethereum adoption.ETH and Ethereum ecosystem advocacy: explaining Ethereum’s value proposition to the traditional financial sector.Industry needs and standards research: translating real institutional requirements into standards recommendations and product requirements.Institutional events and relationship-building: establishing sustained relationships in financial centers such as New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore.As a result, a clearer division of labor is emerging within Ethereum.EF safeguards the protocol’s core values and the public interest. Ethlabs connects protocol R&D with ecosystem growth. Ethereum Institutional supports institutional adoption. Wallets, applications, and infrastructure teams turn these underlying developments into products and user experiences.This also suggests that Ethereum governance is moving away from the relatively vague model in which “EF coordinates everything” and toward a more modular organizational structure.3. From “EF Drives Ethereum” to “The Ecosystem Stewards Ethereum Together”Ethereum’s governance structure has always been highly open, but many key responsibilities have still naturally flowed back to EF.The ecosystem could almost be summarized through the somewhat vague assumption that “EF coordinates everything.”When protocol research encountered difficulties, people looked to EF.When Ethereum’s market narrative fell behind, people criticized EF.When ETH underperformed, institutional adoption moved slowly, or the user experience failed to improve quickly enough, the outside world often treated EF as the organization ultimately responsible.This was itself a contradiction.Ethereum aims to become a decentralized network that does not depend on any single organization, yet the ecosystem has long been accustomed to treating EF as its ultimate point of accountability.Now, a more modular structure is taking shape.Each key function is increasingly being handled by a corresponding independent organization. These organizations are connected not by hierarchy, but by shared protocol goals and ecosystem interests.Of course, this does not mean Ethereum has already discovered a perfect new governance model.On the contrary, the real test is only beginning.Once different functions are distributed across independent organizations, Ethereum will face higher coordination costs.It will also need to prevent teams from working in silos, duplicating research, becoming overly influenced by funders, or allowing institutional priorities to outweigh the interests of ordinary users.From another perspective, however, this uncertainty is part of the price of decentralization.A truly decentralized protocol should not depend indefinitely on an ever-expanding foundation. Nor should its continued development depend on a small number of core contributors remaining within a single organization.The key to judging whether this transition succeeds lies not in how many people remain at EF, but in whether: the core protocol can continue to upgrade steadily; research talent can remain within the Ethereum ecosystem after leaving EF; independent organizations can collaborate effectively while maintaining meaningful checks and balances; institutional adoption can expand without sacrificing openness or user sovereignty; and wallets and applications can turn underlying progress into products that ordinary users can actually use. If these goals can be achieved, the decline of EF’s relative influence may ultimately prove that Ethereum is becoming more mature.At that point, Ethereum will no longer depend on a single foundation for its continued development. It will become an ecosystem jointly sustained by EF, independent research organizations, developers, wallets, applications, enterprises, and users.In 2026, Ethereum’s governance structure is finally beginning to reflect the distributed nature of the network itself.We believe this is not the endpoint of a crisis, but the beginning of a more resilient and vibrant Ethereum ecosystem.

Previously, we introduced features such as hiding risky transactions, address copy warnings, and risk labels to help users reduce the risk of sending assets to poisoned addresses. In imToken 2.21.0, we have further enhanced our address-checking capabilities by adding First-Time Interaction Address Alerts.When you enter a recipient address, imToken automatically checks relevant information associated with that address to see if it’s saved in your Address Book, an ENS domain, a first-time interaction, or flagged with a risk label.These prompts help you identify potential risks more easily while also providing additional context about the recipient address, allowing you to perform further verification before completing a transfer.Clearer Risk AlertsAutomatic address checks help surface security-related information that may require additional attention before you proceed with a transfer.First-Time Interaction AddressIf you have never transferred to or interacted with the address on-chain before, imToken will display a First-Time Interaction reminder. For first-time interactions, we recommend verifying both the source of the address and the intended recipient before proceeding.Risk AddressIf the destination address has been flagged with a risk label, imToken will display a warning. When you see a risk-related alert, consider verifying the address source and transfer purpose before continuing to help reduce the risk of sending assets to the wrong address.Clearer Key InformationIn addition to security alerts, imToken also displays key information that can help you identify and verify recipient addresses more easily.Address BookIf the recipient address has been saved in your Address Book, imToken will display the corresponding label. Address Book names make it easier to recognize frequently used addresses and confirm that the address matches your intended recipient.Domain InformationIf an address is associated with an on-chain domain such as ENS, imToken will display the relevant domain information. Compared with verifying a long string of characters, domain names provide a more intuitive way to identify recipient addresses.A single address may have multiple characteristics. For example, it may be a first-time interaction address, be associated with an ENS domain, and also carry a risk label. When multiple conditions apply, imToken displays information based on priority, helping you quickly review both risk alerts and key address information in one place.An Additional Reference Before You TransferAutomatic address checks are designed to provide additional context before you transfer assets. By combining risk alerts with address information, they help you determine whether the recipient address matches your expectations.Please note that these prompts are provided as reference information only and do not guarantee safety. Before completing a transfer, you should always verify the source of the address and carefully check the full address.Update to imToken 2.21.0 to experience enhanced automatic transfer address checks.