Casper Association President and CTO Michael Steuer recently joined X Space with House of Chimera, a leading Web3 research company. The discussion mainly centered around the upcoming Casper 2.0 upgrade, and Michael explored why this upgrade is necessary, the problems it solves, and where the network is headed next. Here’s a full recap of the conversation.
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Casper was built to address a key gap in blockchain adoption: enterprises needed a secure, upgradeable, and developer-friendly blockchain, but existing solutions lacked the flexibility and reliability required for large-scale business use. From the beginning, Casper had its differentiating features: native upgradeable smart contracts, built-in security, and access management, and a WASM-based execution engine that allows on-chain development using familiar programming languages instead of learning Solidity or other obscure programming languages.
This enterprise origin made Casper a strong alternative to traditional blockchains. Organizations could deploy smart contracts without relying on workarounds like proxy contracts.
“Casper’s origin as an enterprise-first blockchain has positioned it perfectly to be the Web3 layer for the implementation of real-world use cases across all industries.”
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
Before discussing the specifics of the upgrade, Michael first addressed the broader challenges that continue to hinder Web3 and blockchain adoption.
Developers' steep learning curve is a major barrier to blockchain adoption. Most blockchains rely on Solidity, which limits the potential talent pool. Casper removes this friction entirely by supporting WebAssembly, which allows developers to write smart contracts in mainstream languages they already know, such as Rust and JavaScript.
“Instead of addressing the 20,000 developers who know Solidity, we’re addressing the 20 million-plus developers. There are around 30,000 active monthly blockchain developers today. That number hasn’t been increasing, in fact, it’s been declining since 2022."
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
Casper aims to reverse this trend by making blockchain development as accessible as possible.
In addition, Casper’s developer infrastructure is built for long-term sustainability. Many blockchains operate with fragmented tooling, requiring developers to integrate solutions from third-party providers. Casper offers a fully integrated environment from contract deployment to execution, unit testing, indexing, and storage.
Casper’s core strengths have made it a trusted enterprise-grade blockchain, but scaling for the broader Web3 landscape requires a fundamental evolution.
The most important upgrade in the network’s history, Casper 2.0, is a fundamental evolution of the protocol that requires changes at the consensus level. The upgrade will roll out in phases, with a main net launch targeted for the end of Q1 2025.Key changes in Casper 2.0 include:
Zug Consensus replaces the existing Highway Protocol. While Highway was designed to maximize resilience, it also introduced efficiency trade-offs. Zug addresses this by making block production more adaptive and flexible, which results in reduced block times and instant finality.
"What we found over the years is that, while Highway is super resilient, there are ways of doing things in a much smarter, more efficient way."
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
Zug’s simplified design reduces computational and networking overhead, enabling faster block times and accommodating a larger validator set.
As part of Casper 2.0, the first major VM upgrade introduces a more developer-friendly syntax for easier smart contract development, improved testability for making it easier to deploy secure applications, and support for additional programming languages, expanding developer access.
Casper 2.0 supports multiple virtual machines running side by side, a first-of-its-kind approach in Layer-1 blockchain architecture. Developers can choose different execution environments based on their specific use cases.
"We are going to have multiple Virtual Machines living side by side on the protocol. Most chains don’t allow this, you usually see separate Layer-2 solutions for different VMs. Casper enables this natively."
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
A high-performance DeFi protocol might choose one VM optimized for security, while a gaming application could use another designed for fast execution and complex logic.
Most blockchains add new VMs as separate Layer-2 chains, causing unnecessary complexity and reducing security. Integrating multiple VMs on Layer-1 keeps execution efficient and secure without requiring external rollups.
With multi-VM support, Casper can integrate different programming languages more easily. Over time, this could attract more Web2 developers to the ecosystem, strengthening Casper’s developer base.
Casper’s overall throughput and stability are improved through deep architectural optimizations. These adjustments make the network more resistant to congestion while enhancing validator efficiency and node operations.
Casper 2.0 also introduces a revamped gas fee model, laying the groundwork for what Michael describes as "essentially free transactions."
"You can now really talk about self-perpetuating applications that are completely decentralized and pay for themselves."
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
Casper 2.0 opens the door for frictionless interactions, which is a massive step toward mass adoption. More information will follow soon about this groundbreaking feature.
DeFi is the backbone of any thriving blockchain ecosystem. Without liquidity, even the most advanced blockchain infrastructure struggles to attract meaningful adoption. Casper 2.0 takes a deliberate approach to strengthening its DeFi foundation, offering both enterprise users and retail participants seamless financial interactions on the network.
Michael made it clear that DeFi is not just a retail speculation tool, but a necessary component of any serious blockchain:
“DeFi really is the rails of the future decentralized economy. If you build an enterprise application but you don’t have good DeFi rails, then you’re never going to be able to get value in and out of the project easily.”
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
Without such financial primitives, enterprise adoption remains limited. Companies need stablecoins, lending, and liquidity solutions to operate effectively. DeFi provides the mechanisms for tokenized assets, financial automation, and global settlement layers, which perfectly align with Casper’s real-world use cases focus.
Newer or evolving Layer-1 networks often struggle when it comes to establishing deep liquidity. Most blockchains attempt to attract capital by incentivizing TVL, but often, these incentives don’t result in long-term adoption but lead to short-term liquidity spikes instead.
“We are not necessarily chasing a huge influx, a tsunami that comes and hits and then subsides. We are looking to build a solid foundation and grow on top of it.”
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
Casper is methodically developing core financial infrastructure that will make the ecosystem inherently attractive to liquidity providers and institutional participants.
The integration was announced just before this X Space session. Wise is the number 1 lending pool on Uniswap and has built a track record of sustained TVL.
"Wise is not looking to just have TVL for a day, a week, or a month and then disappear. These are the types of partnerships we’re focusing on, ones that build durable financial infrastructure.”
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
This integration ensures that Casper has access to a robust lending platform, allowing anyone to borrow and lend assets within the ecosystem. Lending pools are critical for liquidity stability, as they encourage capital to remain in the network rather than constantly rotating out, emphasized Micheal.
A blockchain’s DeFi ecosystem cannot function properly without stablecoins. Many Layer-1 networks rely on bridged stablecoins, but Michael pointed out that this can create “an illusion of deep liquidity”, since much of the value remains locked in other chains:
“What a lot of chains do is ask a stablecoin provider to bridge liquidity over. This is a game. They lock funds on one chain and mirror it on another, creating artificial TVL that could disappear overnight.”
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
Instead, Casper is working toward a native stablecoin solution.
“Can we expect a well-known stablecoin implementation on Casper? My current expectation is yes.”
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
Casper is also in discussions with major players in interoperability and cross-chain finance, laying the foundation for a stronger liquidity ecosystem. But liquidity is only one part of the equation, as true blockchain adoption requires other defining capabilities, like instant finality.
Finality determines when a transaction is permanently recorded on the blockchain and cannot be reversed or altered.
In most blockchain systems, transactions undergo a confirmation period before they are considered final. For example, Ethereum requires multiple block confirmations before a transaction is considered secure, which can take several minutes to an hour, depending on network congestion. Such uncertainty is unacceptable for real-world applications, especially in finance and commerce.
“On Ethereum, there is a period where something is owned by the seller, then a period where it’s owned by the buyer, and an intermediate period where it’s essentially Schrodinger’s cat, it could be owned by either.”
- Michael Steuer, President & CTO Casper Association
There are no Schrodinger’s cats on Casper. Once a transaction is processed, it is final instantly, because Zug Consensus is designed to achieve deterministic finality, meaning that as soon as a block is produced, it is irreversible, which makes Casper one of the few blockchain networks that can guarantee absolute finality without additional waiting periods.
Michael broke down instant finality with real-world examples, explaining how it improves tokenized assets, payments, and DeFi.
In real estate and commodities, for example, there is no room for uncertainty, which is why Casper is a perfect fit for real-world asset tokenization.
For payments and settlements, traditional banking and even most blockchains have delays, but Casper removes that friction, making it ideal for cross-border transactions and financial infrastructure.
In DeFi and smart contracts, instant finality prevents reversals and exploits, ensuring every transaction is secure and reliable.
Michael outlined several ways to get involved and access the necessary development tools for developers looking to build on Casper
Casper’s official developer hub provides all the necessary tools and guides. Visit docs.casper.network to access all documentation.
Projects seeking real-time data, analytics, and smart contract integration, cspr.cloud makes it easy to build applications.
Casper has a strong developer ecosystem, with active discussions and support across:
Telegram: Casper Dev Community
GitHub: Casper Network GitHub
Twitter/X: Casper Network
Casper Forum: Casper Governance Forum
