Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has published a new blog post on
The post reflects Buterin’s renewed focus on scaling Ethereum’s base layer, following several years in which much of the ecosystem’s scaling strategy was focused on layer 2 rollups. This plan follows the Ethereum Foundation’s release of a “straw map” aimed at making the network more efficient in the long term.
In the short term, Buterin says Ethereum can safely increase throughput by making blocks easier and faster to verify. Upcoming upgrades will allow computers running Ethereum to examine different parts of a block simultaneously, rather than processing everything step by step. At the same time, changes to how blocks are constructed will allow the network to use more of each 12-second processing window, rather than finishing early out of caution (known as ePBS, and will be implemented in the next Glamsterdam upgrade).
Bottom line: Ethereum should be able to fit more transactions into each block without increasing the risk of errors or instability.
Another major part of the plan involves rethinking how transaction fees – called “gas” – are calculated. Buterin argues that not all activity on Ethereum puts the same pressure on the network. There is a big difference between temporarily using computing power and permanently adding new data that each computer or Ethereum node must store forever.
Currently, these costs are largely consolidated. But creating new permanent data, like deploying a new contract, increases the long-term size of the blockchain, making it more expensive to operate a node over time. This, in turn, risks crowding out smaller operators. Buterin’s proposal would make long-term storage more expensive while leaving more room for processing daily transactions. This is because Ethereum could handle more activity without significantly increasing the speed of blockchain growth.
The goal, he says, is to avoid a future in which Ethereum processes more transactions but becomes so data-intensive that only large, well-funded players could afford to participate.
Longer term, Buterin sees Ethereum relying more on zero-knowledge proofs (a private verification method) and expanded data capacity via so-called blobs. Originally introduced to help Layer 2 networks publish transaction data more cheaply, blobs could eventually carry Ethereum’s own transaction data – a change that would allow validators to confirm activity without re-executing each transaction themselves.
Read more: Ethereum ‘Glamsterdam’ Upgrade Aims to Improve MEV Equity
