Researcher Dankrad Feist at the Ethereum Foundation warns that the basic layer of ETH could fall unrelated within a decade, unless the community embraces a much more aggressive roadmap for on-chain scaling and protocol overhauls. Writing in a post for the Ethereum Magicians Forum, Feist introduces a draft EIP that precommits the network to a multi-year schedule of sharper gas restrictions and complementary architectural changes.
“I think it’s an unconventional time, because the current way of doing things is likely to make Ethereum irrelevant for the next five to ten years,” Feist argues at the beginning of his proposal.
Feist’s main concern is strategic. He argues that the main chain must remain “the economic center of Ethereum,” and that splitting liquidity across the growing constellations of the Layer 2 network threatens the platform’s competitiveness. “If L1 is not important and loses its liquidity and defi appeal, there will also be less reason for L2 to remain attached to Ethereum,” he writes, adding that the rival ecosystem “want to gain market share.”
What should I change for Ethereum?
On the technical side, researchers point to rapid advances in proofing the effectiveness of zero knowledge. “It was first possible to prove the Ethereum L1 block, and now it’s cheaper,” he points out, citing the current proof cost per block of a few cents via a public dashboard. According to Feist, the ecosystem is on track to achieve single-slot proof latency later this year, but Data Availability Sampling (DAS) through the Peerdas initiative “will become reality.” Together, these breakthroughs “open doors 100 to 1000 times the current scale, maintaining verifiability and censorship resistance while maintaining the most important characteristics.”
Feist emphasizes that Ethereum’s node architecture reflects Bitcoin’s 2009 design, claiming that it must evolve into a differentiated role. Lighter than today’s full node, other “beef” builders or Prover works under n’s sincere assumptions. “The key to an unstoppable (IS) key to maintaining security and allowing all node types to run from home in some locations,” he writes, referring to a research call led by colleague Barnabé Monnot at the Ethereum Foundation.
Historically, Ethereum governance has preferred incrementalism, but Feist claims that ti-sickness is now obsolete. “Working backwards from the goal tends to produce better results than making progressive changes as it becomes possible,” he says, seeking hard-coded targets rather than free deliberation. Under his outline, the upcoming Gramaster Dam upgrade will prioritize delayed runs, shorter slot times and “active history expiration dates.” Subsequent forks over the next two years add focal mechanisms to enhance parallel transactions execution, erased coded blocks, ZKEVM with jelly, execution payload within blobs, and censorship resistance.
Feist emphasizes the need for performance engineering to accompany consensus layer work. “With specific goals in mind, you can prioritize specific upgrades when needed.” The database optimized for a 5x increase in throughput and Mempools states that it could look “very different” from those designed for 100x jumps.
When predicting criticism that the high-throughput roadmap would turn Ethereum into a “data center chain,” Feist dismisses the label as superficial. “Ethereum’s core value proposition is not homestakers, but verifiability and censorship resistance,” he argues. While acknowledging that most users already rely on stored RPC endpoints rather than self-executing nodes, they argue that validation of zero-knowledge proofs is easy and not difficult to trust modern use. Furthermore, mechanisms such as focus or minimal censorship proposals (MCPs) can provide “better censorship resistance today.”
Feist has been closed by highlighting Ethereum’s “huge moat in Defi Luyitivity,” claiming that the croquette application still derives network effects from layer 1 proximity. “At 100 times the current scale, the Ethereum L1 can support a very wide range of value transactions. So simply competing in scaling terms is no longer an interesting game,” he writes. “Endgame” in his vision is a fundamental layer that can handle more activities by orders of magnitude without sacrificing the critical guarantees of the protocol.
“We need to commit as soon as possible because builders and applications need predictability and because they need to prioritize appropriately so that they can actually run it.”
At the time of pressing, ETH traded for $1,812.
Featured images created with dall.e, charts on tradingview.com
Editing process Bitconists focus on delivering thorough research, accurate and unbiased content. We support strict sourcing standards, and each page receives a hard-working review by a team of top technology experts and veteran editors. This process ensures the integrity, relevance and value of your readers’ content.
