Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a new blog post on X outlining his latest vision for blockchain scaling, arguing that the network can increase capacity in the short term while also laying the foundation for a long-term transition to advanced cryptography, and that much of the ecosystem’s scaling strategy is centered around layer 2 rollups. The plan comes on the heels of the Ethereum Foundation’s publication of a “straw map” aimed at making the network more efficient in the long term.
Buterin said Ethereum could safely increase throughput in the short term by making checking blocks easier and faster. Future upgrades will allow the computers running Ethereum to review different parts of a block at the same time, instead of processing everything in stages. At the same time, changes to the way blocks are constructed will allow the network to use more of each 12-second processing window (known as ePBS, and will be implemented in a future Gramsterdam upgrade) rather than alarmingly terminating early.
As a result, Ethereum will be able to fit more transactions into each block without increasing the risk of errors and instability.
Another key part of the plan involves rethinking how trading fees, known as “gas,” are calculated. Buterin argues that not all activity on Ethereum places the same strain on the network. There is a big difference between temporarily using computing power and permanently adding new data that every Ethereum computer or node needs to store forever.
Currently, these costs are roughly lumped together. However, creating new persistent data, such as deploying new contracts, increases the long-term size of the blockchain, making nodes more expensive to run over time. That in turn risks forcing out small businesses. Mr. Buterin’s proposal would increase the cost of long-term storage, but would provide more leeway for day-to-day transaction processing. Effectively, Ethereum will be able to handle more activity without significantly increasing the blockchain’s growth rate.
The goal, he argues, is to avoid a future where Ethereum processes more transactions, allowing layer-2 networks to post transaction data more cheaply, a transition that will eventually allow blobs to carry Ethereum’s own transaction data, allowing validators to see activity without having to re-execute each transaction itself.
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