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Vitalik Buterin Calls for Simpler Ethereum, Inspired by Bitcoin’s Design
- Vitalik Buterin wants to simplify Ethereum’s architecture in order to improve scalability, security, and decentralisation.
- He called for removing complex consensus elements like sync committees and validator shuffling, replacing them with a leaner “3-slot finality” model to reduce bugs and development bloat.
- The push for simplicity follows Buterin’s recent suggestion to replace the EVM with RISC-V, alongside ongoing efforts to reform Ethereum’s fee model to better support small-scale developers.
Vitalik Buterin is calling again for Ethereum to stop reinventing the wheel across every layer of its architecture.
In a May 3 blog post, he laid out a case for drastically simplifying Ethereum’s architecture, calling for a protocol that, five years from now, could resemble the structural clarity of Bitcoin.
The new vision targets every layer of the protocol. On the consensus side, Buterin proposes “3-slot finality”, a model that scraps sync committees, epoch structures, and validator shuffling in favour of a cleaner, faster path to chain finality.
Fewer moving parts mean fewer bugs — and a simpler fork choice rule set that could be implemented with less overhead.
In doing so, Buterin realised that maybe making things more simple could be more efficient and sustainable in the long run:
One of the best things about Bitcoin is how beautifully simple the protocol is.
Vitalik Buterin Related: Ripple’s $5B Bid for Circle Rejected Amid XRP-Metamask Collab
In the blog post, Buterin argues that Ethereum’s complexity —much of it introduced by recent upgrades like zk-SNARKs and zkEVMs, which not many truly understand— has come at a cost: slower development, increased risk, and a very peculiar culture:
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.
Vitalik Buterin He’s basically pointing out that Ethereum’s intense focus on building advanced tech and investing in research hasn’t really paid off in terms of practical results.
No wonder why Ethereum underperformed compared to thriving networks like Sui Network (SUI), Aptos (APT), and its nemesis: Solana (SOL)
Goodbye EVM?
This proposal comes a few days after Buterin suggested replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with RISC-V, an open-source instruction set architecture that Buterin claims is drastically simpler, more efficient, and far easier to reason about.
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Buterin stated that the move could yield up to a 100x boost in zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) performance.
Moreover, Ethereum developers are also working on delivering a new fee system that would allow smaller projects to take part in the network.
Author
José Oramas
José is a journalist and translator with a keen interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
