Key Points
Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, has put forward a proposal to elevate the standard for what is considered a rollup within the Ethereum ecosystem.
He also advises developers to have their decentralization plans ready by the end of the year.
These remarks were made in his recent blog post on March 28, where he contemplated the forthcoming year after Ethereum’s latest Dencun upgrade.
This upgrade substantially lowered transaction fees for rollups on layer 2.
Transition in Ethereum’s Scaling Efforts
Buterin pointed out that Ethereum is undergoing a crucial transition from a period of rapid L1 progress to a phase where L1 progress remains significant, but not as fast-paced.
According to him, Ethereum’s scaling efforts have evolved from a “zero-to-one” problem to a more gradual issue.
Future scaling work will concentrate on increasing blob capacity and enhancing rollup efficiency.
Buterin emphasized the need for stricter standards within the ecosystem, stating that by the end of the year, a project should only be considered a rollup if it has reached at least stage 1.
Stage 1, according to Buterin, is a measure of layer-2’s decentralization progress, indicating that a network has sufficiently advanced in terms of security and scaling, but is not yet fully decentralized.
He noted that only five layer-2 projects listed on L2beat have reached either stage 1 or 2, and only Arbitrum is fully EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible.
The next steps on the roadmap include implementing data availability sampling to increase blob capacity to 16MB per slot, optimizing layer 2 solutions through techniques like data compression, optimistic execution, and improved security.
Buterin suggested that after these steps, the ecosystem can cautiously move toward stage 2, where rollups are truly supported by code and a security council can only intervene if the code “provably disagrees with itself.”
Buterin mentioned that additional modifications such as Verkle trees, single-slot finality, and account abstraction are still important, but they are not as drastic as proof of stake and sharding.
“In 2022, Ethereum was like a plane replacing its engines mid-flight. In 2023, it was replacing its wings,” Buterin said.
Ethereum is currently in “The Surge” phase of its upgrade roadmap, with improvements related to scalability by rollups and data sharding.
The next phase, “The Scourge,” will feature upgrades related to censorship resistance, decentralization, and protocol risks from MEV.
Buterin encouraged developers to design applications with a “2020s Ethereum” mindset, embracing layer-2 scaling, privacy, account abstraction, and new forms of community membership proofs.
He concluded by saying that Ethereum has evolved from being ‘just’ a financial ecosystem into a much more comprehensive independent decentralized tech stack.