$ETH

The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, called for simplifying the base protocol of Ethereum, with the aim of making the network more efficient, secure, and accessible, inspired by Bitcoin's minimalist design.

In a blog post titled "Simplifying L1," published on May 3, Buterin outlined a vision for restructuring Ethereum's architecture through consensus, execution, and shared components.

"This post will describe how Ethereum in 5 years can become almost as simple as Bitcoin," wrote Buterin, arguing that simplicity is key to Ethereum's resilience and long-term scalability.

While recent updates like proof-of-stake (PoS) and the integration of Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (zk-SNARK) have made Ethereum more robust, he said that technical complexity has led to oversized development cycles, higher costs, and greater risks of errors or bugs:

"Historically, Ethereum has often not done this (sometimes due to my own decisions), and this has contributed to much of our excessive spending on development, all kinds of security risks, and the insularity of the R&D culture, generally in search of benefits that have proven to be elusive."