Ethereum's story has always been complex—some say it's a haven for criminals, while others see it as the future of global financial settlement. By 2025, this contradiction seems to have found a new answer.

The latest Pectra and Fusaka upgrades have been implemented, bringing substantial breakthroughs in scalability, privacy protection, and compliance for Ethereum. But the real challenge isn't just technological progress—it's the deeper issues of regulatory adaptability and widespread adoption.

Let's start with regulatory changes. The old approach of relying solely on statistical analysis to track on-chain anomalies is outdated. Modern regulatory technology now employs graph theory—using subgraph matching algorithms to translate Ponzi scheme tactics into specific network topology features. For example, in tree-like scams, the total degree of contract addresses often exceeds 60, and inflow amounts are significantly higher than outflows. The new detection system constructs multi-layered suspicious indicators (covering topology, timing, and fund flows), combined with iterative pruning strategies, to gradually filter out normal accounts and precisely identify suspicious subgraphs. This approach has elevated anomaly detection accuracy from simple behavioral analysis to network-level correlation mining.

Turning to financial practice, traditional giants like BlackRock have issued over $2 billion in assets on Ethereum through the BUIDL fund, marking Ethereum's official recognition as a compliant settlement layer for finance. This shift has reached this point mainly due to two factors: first, the legal enforceability of Ethereum smart contracts has been secured; second, the cross-chain ecosystem has been improved.

Overall, Ethereum is gradually evolving from a controversial technological experiment into a competitor in financial infrastructure—provided it can withstand regulatory scrutiny and truly bring technology into the hands of ordinary people.