Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called on the blockchain community to rethink its approach to network design, pushing for a more minimalist and efficient structure.
In a blog post published on May 3, Buterin argued that Ethereum should adopt a simpler protocol model similar to Bitcoin to improve efficiency, scalability, and security.
Buterin emphasizes Bitcoin's simplicity
Buterin has described the current Ethereum system as overly complex, warning that its technical depth increases costs, isolates research efforts, and increases the likelihood of serious errors.
The Ethereum co-founder also stressed that the current design centralizes too much control among a small group of technically advanced participants, arguing that this approach undermines the network’s decentralized ethos.
To address these challenges, Buterin proposes simplifying the protocol at all levels of the network over the next five years. He therefore suggests that Ethereum should take inspiration from Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
“Even a smart high school student can fully understand the Bitcoin protocol. A programmer can write a client as a hobby project,” Buterin wrote.
According to Buterin, simplifying the protocol will make Ethereum more resilient, reduce infrastructure costs, and lower the barrier to entry for developers.
He also concluded that simplicity should be considered a core value, similar to decentralization. He believes that Ethereum should prioritize design choices that promote clarity, reliability, and long-term sustainability.
How can Ethereum reduce its complexity?
To achieve this vision, Buterin identified three key areas where Ethereum can reduce complexity.
First, he recommended changes to the consensus layer, including simplifying the finalization system and reducing the number of validators. These steps, he said, would reduce operational costs and speed up network consensus.
He noted that the consensus layer is loosely coupled to the Ethereum execution system. This separation gives developers more flexibility to implement improvements without breaking core functionality.
“It’s nice that the consensus layer is relatively separate from the EVM execution, which means there’s relatively wide scope to continue implementing such improvements,” Buterin said.
The second area focuses on rebuilding the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
To do this, Buterin recommends implementing RISC-V, a simpler and more efficient computing architecture, as an alternative implementation. He also envisions a future where developers can write contracts using RISC-V in conjunction with EVM. In addition, he proposed replacing precompilations with a canonical on-chain implementation. He also proposed creating an EVM interpreter based on RISC-V to support future updates with better support.
Finally, he called for standardization of protocol components. Instead of using different tools for similar functions, Ethereum could adopt a single erasure code, serialization format, and Merkle tree. Such a unified approach would help reduce redundancy and increase the clarity of the network.
“There is usually little or no benefit to using different protocols to perform the same function in different places, but such patterns still emerge, mainly because different parts of the protocol roadmap do not communicate with each other,” Buterin noted.
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