Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin envisions a simplified Ethereum network, aiming to enhance efficiency, security, and accessibility by drawing inspiration from Bitcoin’s minimalist design. In a blog post titled “Simplifying the L1”, Buterin outlines his vision for restructuring Ethereum’s architecture across consensus, execution, and shared components. This aims to create a more resilient and scalable network similar in simplicity to Bitcoin within five years. Buterin believes that this simplification will address technical complexity that has led to bloated development cycles, higher costs, and increased risk of bugs. 0
While recent upgrades like proof-of-stake (PoS) and zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge (zk-SNARK) integration have enhanced Ethereum’s robustness, Buterin argues that technical complexity has hindered progress.
“Historically, Ethereum has often not done this (sometimes because of my own decisions), and this has contributed to much of our excessive development expenditure, all kinds of security risk, and insularity of R&D culture, often in pursuit of benefits that have proven illusory,” he wrote. He highlights Bitcoin’s simplicity as an example for Ethereum’s future.
The “3-slot finality” model is a key area of focus, aiming to simplify consensus. This will reduce the complex components like epochs, sync committees, and validator shuffling. Other proposed improvements include implementing simpler fork choice rules and adopting STARK-based aggregation protocols to decentralize network coordination.
Ethereum’s execution layer also faces simplification. Buterin proposes switching from the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to a simpler, ZK-friendly virtual machine like RISC-V for improved performance. RISC-V is an open-source instruction set architecture that uses a minimal set of instructions for high efficiency and ease of implementation.
Buterin suggests running legacy EVM contracts onchain via a RISC-V interpreter alongside the existing EVM during a transitional phase to preserve backward compatibility.
Overall, Buterin calls for protocol-wide standardization. He suggests adopting a single erasure coding method, serialization format (favoring SSZ), and tree structure to reduce redundancy and streamline Ethereum’s tools and infrastructure.”
Buterin’s proposal comes as Ethereum faces competition from other blockchains that are gaining market share, according to Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik. “If you’d asked me 3–4 years ago whether Ethereum would dominate crypto, I’d have said yes,” Svanevik stated at a panel discussion during LONGITUDE by Cointelegraph. “But now, it’s clear that’s not what’s happening.”