ETHPrague 2026

Ethereum's guarantees are only meaningful if they hold where people actually interact with the system. Today, CROPS properties are often stronger at the protocol layer than at the user boundary, where wallets, RPC providers, web interfaces, proving systems, and delegation flows introduce trust, fragility, and dependence on intermediaries.

This presentation argues that the Access Layer is therefore a core strategic surface for Ethereum. It frames the problem around five fundamental actions every sovereign actor needs: read, write, prove, delegate, and exit. If users cannot perform these actions privately, independently, legibly, and with credible escape hatches, then self-sovereignty remains theoretical rather than practical.

The talk outlines a framework for improving the Access Layer through open specifications, audited libraries, composable tools, conformance testing, benchmarking, threat models, and ecosystem coordination. It also explains why this work must extend beyond wallets and gateways to include identity, portability, trust UX, institutional access patterns, and collaboration with the broader privacy-preserving and open-source ecosystem.

The goal is progressive self-sovereignty: making stronger access paths available by default, while preserving optionality, redundancy, and survivability as users, institutions, and agents adopt Ethereum in the real world.