A Deliberate Strategy for Layer 1 Enhancement
At the ETHGlobal Prague conference, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared his vision for scaling Ethereum’s Layer 1 (L1) by tenfold over the next year. Contrary to calls for immediate and aggressive scaling, Buterin advocates for a gradual approach that prioritizes the network’s decentralization and resilience.
“My view is generally I think we should scale L1 by about 10x over the next year and a bit based on delayed execution,” Buterin stated during a panel discussion. He stressed that while some in the community push for scaling as fast as possible, a slower timeline allows lots of testing and keeps the first principles of the network intact.
Technical Underpinnings of the Scaling Plan
Buterin’s scaling plan depends on a few key technical upgrades:
- Mobile Log-Level Access Lists: This will improve transaction efficiencies by improving access and how the data is processed.
- Networking-Level Improvements: The peer-to-peer network is being upgraded so it allows greater data throughput without compromising speed or security.
- Distributed History Storage: Each node can verify blocks without needing the whole history of the blockchain, and keeps relevant block history, which will reduce the storage needs of the node, and promote decentralization.
Collectively, these upgrades will allow ETH’s capacity to grow while still aiming for its decentralized vision.
The Role of EIP-4844 and Proto-Danksharding
A significant milestone in Ethereum’s scaling roadmap is the implementation of Ethereum Improvement Proposal 4844 (EIP-4844), also known as Proto-Danksharding.EIP-4844 was introduced in March 2024 with the Dencun upgrade and aims to improve data availability for Layer 2 solutions through “blobs”—temporary means of storing data that are less expensive and more scalable. EIP-4844 has been shown to improve consensus security on Ethereum, enhance the dynamics of rollup transactions, and increase propagation sizes, according to one report published in May 2024.
Community Perspectives and Other Proposals
Buterin encourages caution, but others in the Ethereum community are keen on pushing scaling sooner rather than later. Dankrad Feist, a researcher who is currently exploring EIP-7938, has proposed it to raise Ethereum’s gas limit, thus increasing the capacity of the blockchain by 100 in four years. Feist believes his proposal could enhance activity on the chain with possibly no imposed privacy or decentralization.
In contrast, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has expressed strong doubts about how Ethereum’s future will unfold, reminding people of the demise of former leaders of their respective industries, like Myspace and Blackberry. This extinction hypothetical is due to the increased Layer 2 activity, which he believes diminishes the core network value.
Future Considerations: Balancing Stability and Innovation
Buterin’s comments about scaling Ethereum serve as a stark reminder of the challenges that new technologies face when seeking to strike the right balance between moving quickly, and protecting the values that are critical to a building an attractive decentralized application on the network. Buterin seems to want a trade-off at a 10x expansion, in Layer 1 capacity, to establish Ethereum is both secure, decentralized and ready for technology change yet unopinionated or configurational in the current tech horizon.
As Ethereum scales over the next ten years, the community’s perspectives and proposals on the future of Ethereum will guide the network. There will be proposed changes ranging from conservative to extreme, but the same vision will remain the same: the strong desire to increase Ethereum’s scaling and utility, while protecting the core values and structures of the network.
