Vitalik Buterin says that money, blockchain identities, decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and hybrid applications are the top developments he is excited about in the Ethereum ecosystem. In a Dec. 5 blog post, the Ethereum co-founder describes his experience of using Ether (ETH) as a means of payment in a cafe in Argentina:
That cafe visit occurred last December, when Ethereum was still proof-of-work, so the transaction didn’t really make “pragmatic sense,” Buterin conceded. Network fees accounted for one-third of the transaction, and the funds took several minutes to arrive. But due to Ethereum’s merge to proof-of-stake in September, "transactions get included significantly more quickly, and the chain has become more stable, making it safer to accept transactions after fewer confirmations."