As Ethereum successfully completes its high-profile merger and upgrade, the community is turning its attention to the future development blueprint of the blockchain. In his latest article, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin provides an in-depth discussion of Ethereum’s future scaling strategy, especially its phase called “The Surge”. This article explores the goals, challenges, and progress made during this phase, and looks forward to future technological innovations.
(Vitalik’s post-merger Ethereum blueprint (1): Consider modifying the consensus to increase the final confirmation speed)
Ethereum Scaling Blueprint: From Sharding to Layer 2 Solutions
Since Ethereum’s inception, its scaling roadmap has included two main strategies. The early focus was on "sharding", which allows each node to verify and store only a small portion of the transactions in the blockchain, rather than all transactions in the entire blockchain. Later, the concept of Layer 2 protocols gradually emerged. These protocols were built on Ethereum and moved most of the data and calculations outside the main chain to improve efficiency. With the advancement of technology, these two paths eventually merged, forming Ethereum's current expansion strategy with "Rollup" technology as the core.
Surge: The expansion phase with Rollup as the core
"Surge" is an important milestone in the current expansion phase of Ethereum. Its core idea is to let the first layer (L1) of Ethereum focus on becoming a stable and decentralized base layer, while letting the second layer (L2) be responsible for expanding the ecosystem. system capabilities. Buterin describes this division of labor as that of a legal system (L1) whose main function is to maintain order, while entrepreneurs (L2) can innovate on this basis.
Surge Blueprint (Vitlaik)
In 2023, significant progress was made during the “surge” phase, including the implementation of EIP-4844 blobs to increase L1 data bandwidth, and multiple rollup protocols entering their first deployment phases. The scaling strategy with Rollup as the core aims to achieve sharding effects through different L2 protocols. Each L2 blockchain (or shard) has its own internal rules and logic.
Ethereum is challenging the scalability trilemma
Vitalik mentioned the “scalability trilemma” first proposed in 2017, that is, the contradiction between decentralization, scalability and security. In this case, a system can usually only optimize two of the properties. To overcome this dilemma, Buterin emphasized the critical role of technologies such as Data Availability Sampling and SNARKs, which allow nodes to verify large-scale data availability and computational steps while only downloading small amounts of data.
Blockchain Triangle Impossible Core Goal: Achieve 100,000+ TPS and remain decentralized
During the "surge" phase, Ethereum's main goal is to increase to processing more than 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) and ensure that Ethereum remains decentralized and stable. At the same time, some L2 solutions will fully inherit Ethereum’s core properties, such as trustlessness, openness, and censorship resistance. Additionally, Vitalik emphasized the need to maximize interoperability between L2s, making the entire Ethereum ecosystem look like a unified whole rather than many different blockchains.
Advances in Data Availability Sampling: The Launch of PeerDAS
In 2024, Ethereum launched a technology called PeerDAS, which is one of the important developments in the "surge" phase. PeerDAS aims to increase Ethereum’s data bandwidth and remain decentralized. This technology improves overall data availability by allowing each node to download and verify only a small portion of the data. As this technology is gradually implemented, Ethereum’s transaction processing capacity will reach approximately 58,000 TPS.
Data compression: further improving efficiency
In addition to increasing data bandwidth, Ethereum is also exploring data compression technology, which will reduce the data space occupied by each transaction. For example, Vitalik mentioned that Ethereum addresses can be replaced with shorter pointers and signature aggregation techniques can be used to reduce the amount of transaction data. The combination of these technologies is expected to further enhance Ethereum’s scalability.
Universal Plasma technology: driving off-chain expansion
Vitalik has also revisited Plasma technology, a blockchain off-chain scaling solution. Unlike Rollup, Plasma stores data off-chain and uses Merkle proofs to verify transactions. While early Plasma solutions were limited to simple payment applications, with the integration of SNARK technology, Plasma is now more versatile and can handle a wider range of assets and applications.
Maturity of L2 Proof Systems: Towards Fully Trustless Solutions
Currently, most Rollup protocols are not truly trustless systems and often rely on security committees to prevent malicious transactions. Vitalik pointed out that the future goal is to rely entirely on cryptographic proof systems such as ZK-SNARKs, thereby eliminating reliance on third-party intervention and achieving a truly trustless state.
Interoperability between L2: Creating a unified Ethereum ecosystem
Vitalik emphasized that interoperability between L2 protocols is a major challenge that needs to be solved in the future. Currently, transferring assets from L1 to L2 or L2 often requires a trust-centralized bridge, which undermines the idea of Ethereum being decentralized. In the future, Vitalik has proposed various solutions to improve interoperability, such as chain-specific addresses and light clients, which will simplify cross-chain operations and improve the overall user experience.
Expansion of L1 Execution Capabilities: Preserving Resilience for the Future
While L2’s success is key to Ethereum’s future, scaling L1’s execution capabilities remains critical. Vitalik pointed out that if L2 fails, users still need to withdraw assets through L1. Therefore, L1 needs to maintain sufficient capabilities to cope with these potential emergencies. In addition, improving the performance of L1 will enhance the security and stability of the entire Ethereum ecosystem.
As Ethereum’s “surge” phase progresses, the ecosystem is steadily moving toward massive expansion. Vitalik elaborated on the path of future technology development and emphasized that it will achieve the goal of processing hundreds of thousands of transactions per second while ensuring decentralization and security. Although challenges still exist, it also shows that the Ethereum community is constantly moving towards this ambitious goal.
This article Vitalik’s post-merger Ethereum blueprint (2): aims to achieve 100,000 TPS, regain Plasma off-chain expansion, and integrate the L2 ecosystem first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.
