Vitalik Buterin on The Economic Zone (EEZ) Ep. 642

In this special episode, we revisit a fireside conversation between Vitalik Buterin and Friederike Ernst at DappCon 2026 in Berlin. They explore the Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ), a new vision for Ethereum built around synchronous composability, app chains, and real-time proving.Following the fireside, Sebastien and Friederike break down the ideas behind the EEZ and discuss what this new paradigm could mean for Ethereum's future.Topics covered include:• The Ethereum Economic Zone and synchronous composability• App chains, privacy networks, and prediction markets• Ethereum as an economic operating system for the internet• Sequencing, MEV, and shared liquidity across chains• Enterprise, government, and institutional use cases• Why this approach differs from Cosmos, Polkadot, and other ecosystem visions• The future of Ethereum beyond rollup fragmentationLinks:Lido: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenterSponsors: Lido V3 introduces stVaults: a modular staking infrastructure that lets builders and institutions deploy custom staking vaults, while staying anchored to stETH as a shared liquidity layer.Get started building with Lido V3 today: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenterBlock Space Forum: https://blockspace.forum/NEAR AI Cloud now lets developers deploy OpenClaw—the rapidly growing open-source AI agent platform—inside Trusted Execution Environments, providing hardware-level encryption with cryptographic attestations. With OpenClaw on NEAR AI Cloud, you can run agents with cloud convenience, but without traditional cloud data exposure. No hardware to manage. No trust assumptions required. Learn more at near.ai.