Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, is marking its 10-year anniversary. Co-founders Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin recently discussed the ongoing evolution of the platform at an event in Brussels. Therein, they highlighted progress made and hurdles to overcome in the second decade of the network’s life.
Ethereum has notably transitioned to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and adopted a layer-2 centric approach for network scalability. Cryptographic proof submissions to Ethereum’s base layer have enabled transactions to occur off-chain, significantly enhancing performance and reducing costs for users.
Joseph Lubin, the CEO of ConsenSys, commended the performance improvements made on Ethereum: “We have achieved scalability, we’ve achieved affordability, and we’re really close to achieving usability.” He identified the use of zero-knowledge (ZK) proof-powered layer 2s as being central to Ethereum’s future development.
However, Lubin indicated that optimistic rollups, a technology used to scale Ethereum, were not the foremost solution. He cited the fraud proofs that require up to two weeks for resolution as a challenge. Despite these concerns, Lubin advocates for ZK technology as a more effective and efficient solution.
Buterin also highlighted some challenges for Ethereum, including the barriers hindering Ether holders from solo staking and pooled staking. He also expressed concerns on transaction censorship by nodes and potential manipulation by malicious entities. As a solution, he proposed increasing the quorum threshold to 75% or more to prevent a censored chain from achieving finality.
Closing his address, Buterin emphasized Ethereum’s unique strengths as a robust base layer and pushed for ongoing simplification of the protocol. He sees a future where most Ethereum users can verify the base layer and Layer-2s using light clients on their mobile devices.