Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum‘s influential co-founder, has strongly advocated for enhanced standards within the Ethereum ecosystem, specifically targeting improvements in decentralization. This push follows the DenCun upgrade, which has substantially decreased the cost of transactions using rollups on Ethereum’s Layer-2 networks. Buterin’s recent blog post, dated March 28, reflects on the platform’s development trajectory for the coming year.
Decentralization as a Priority
Buterin observes Ethereum’s shift from rapid innovation at Layer-1 to a focus on the still-crucial Layer-2 advancements. He points to the move from foundational scaling solutions to ongoing incremental enhancements, emphasizing the need to increase blob capacity and refine aggregation efficiency. He proposes that by year’s end, the community should adhere to a stricter definition of a rollup, requiring projects to achieve at least phase 1 of decentralization to earn that distinction.
Phase 1 constitutes a milestone where a network demonstrates significant security and scaling advancements but has not yet fully decentralized, a status reserved for phase 2. Presently, only a handful of Layer-2 projects have reached or surpassed phase 1, with Arbitrum notably fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
Forthcoming Enhancements on Ethereum’s Horizon
Buterin highlights future objectives on Ethereum’s roadmap, which include implementing data availability sampling to expand blob capacity and optimizing Layer-2 solutions through innovative methods like data compression and optimistic execution. He envisions a gradual transition to phase 2, where rollups gain true code support, and interventions by a security council are limited to code inconsistencies.
Ethereum is currently in The Surge phase, focusing on scalability through rollups and data sharding. Upcoming upgrades in The Scourge phase will address censorship resistance, further decentralization, and protocol risks linked to MEV. Developers are encouraged to align with the contemporary Ethereum vision, integrating new Layer-2 scaling techniques, privacy measures, account abstraction, and community membership proofs to shape a more robust, independent, and decentralized platform.