Vitalik Buterin, the 29-year-old co-founder of Ethereum, has recently proposed a new initiative for the Ethereum network. His past suggestions have had significant impacts, as seen when his warnings about the risks of crypto bridges were followed by billion-dollar bridge hacks. The latest proposal aims to address the high costs and efficiency issues of the Ethereum network.
Buterin’s proposal seeks to simplify the consensus mechanism by reducing the signature limit to 8192, making the process lighter and more straightforward. This change is critical as Ethereum currently has a high number of validators, around 895,000, which supports decentralization by allowing even individuals to participate in staking without centralizing control to a few pools.
However, the large number of validators leads to a significant burden on the network, requiring the processing of many signatures per slot. The minimum staking requirement remains at 32 ETH, which is unattainable for many. Buterin notes that a system where everyone signs every slot is not sustainable for average users in the long run.
Other networks use committees of validators to speed up transactions and reduce costs, but Ethereum prioritizes decentralization, accountability, and security. A 51% attack is much more feasible on these networks, whereas on the Ethereum network, it would require an impractical amount of ETH, around 9 million or approximately $20 billion, along with deterrent measures such as the slashing of stake.
Buterin suggests three main approaches to address this: decentralized staking pools, a two-tier staking model, and rotational network participation. By sticking to 8192 signatures post-SSF, the protocol becomes more manageable for technical implementers and infrastructure builders like light clients. This makes it easier for everyone to run a consensus client and immediately engage with the network, removing uncertainties about Ethereum’s future protocol load.
The remaining task is to decide which of the three approaches to implement or whether to consider an entirely different solution to enhance Ethereum’s scalability and efficiency.