A new phase is dawning for Ethereum as the blockchain’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently provided a roadmap for scaling optimizations and application development now that major core protocol upgrades are largely in the rearview mirror. In a comprehensive blog post, Buterin declared Ethereum has surmounted its “zero-to-one” scaling obstacle and can concentrate on refining its “one-to-N” solution of leveraging rollup networks atop Ethereum’s base layer.
The Dencun hard fork on March 13th activated proto-danksharding, which introduced “blobs” of inexpensive data storage that immediately slashed rollup fees over 100-fold. While blob usage has rapidly expanded, triggering a minor fee market, costs remain a fraction of conventional transaction fees. Buterin hailed proto-danksharding as a transformative milestone liberating Ethereum from its original scaling bottlenecks.
Two key technical workstreams will continue scaling efforts going forward. The first is progressively expanding blob capacity through data availability sampling techniques like PeerDAS, which could theoretically boost scaling by 4-8x by having nodes split the storage of blob data. Ultimately, Buterin envisions blobs reaching 16 megabytes per slot to support significant rollup transaction volume.
In parallel, rollup protocols themselves must improve efficiency in utilizing that blob space through bytecode compression, ZK-proof optimizations, parallelization, and other innovations to pack more transactions into each blob. Buterin also advocated establishing higher security standards, encouraging rollups to implement robust multi-signature guardianship schemes and provably correct code within the next year.
Leveraging Ethereum’s Modern Capabilities
While these incremental scaling enhancements will continue, Buterin proclaimed the core architectural challenges, like transitioning to Proof-of-Stake, have largely been resolved. The emphasis is shifting from disruptive protocol overhauls to optimizing Ethereum’s new rollup-centric model and building user-friendly applications atop that foundation. He urged developers to redesign legacy projects around Ethereum’s modern capabilities like inherent privacy preservation, decentralized Sybil resistance, sponsor transactions, and account abstraction recovery systems.
Buterin asserted the training wheels are finally coming off after Ethereum’s formative decade of working out the fundamental protocols. Now, he contended, is the time for developers to raise their ambitions and create compelling applications marrying decentralization with mass usability. As core scaling obstacles dissolve, Buterin declared the ecosystem has run out of excuses for not delivering cypherpunk-aligned innovations that can be adopted by mainstream users worldwide.
However, with key infrastructure like sharding and Proof-of-Stake in place, Buterin aimed to turn developers’ energy toward scalable, decentralized products serving society’s digital needs while honoring cryptocurrency’s radical principles.
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