Vitalik wants a new soul for Ethereum — RISC-V could replace the EVM.🔁

🦋 Vitalik Buterin proposes replacing the bytecode of the Ethereum Virtual Machine with RISC-V. A radical, ambitious idea and, according to him, “the only viable path” to truly scale Ethereum's execution layer.

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💙💎🩵 A proposal that could rewrite Ethereum from scratch

In a new post published on the Ethereum Magicians forum, Vitalik Buterin broke the technical silence with a proposal that sounds almost like heresy to network purists: swapping Ethereum's engine, the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), for a new architecture based on RISC-V.

🦋“The beam chain effort is very promising to greatly simplify Ethereum's consensus layer,” wrote Buterin.

🦋“But for the execution layer to see similar gains, this kind of radical change may be the only viable path.”

In practice, Vitalik is saying that incremental updates are not enough. To truly scale the execution layer, the foundations must be changed.

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⚙️🔹 What is RISC-V — and why does it matter?

RISC-V (pronounced “risc five”) is an open-source, modular, and free instruction set architecture. It is an alternative to giants like ARM and x86, used in physical chips and embedded systems. But now, Vitalik proposes something bigger: using RISC-V as a virtual machine language for smart contracts.

According to him, this change can:

🔹• Make execution much more efficient

🔹• Reduce on-chain costs by up to 100x in certain cases

🔹• Facilitate the development of faster interpreters that are compatible with industry standards

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💙🔁🩵RISC-V and EVM side by side: disruption without destruction

Vitalik is not proposing a violent hard fork. He makes it clear:

🦋“Old-style EVM contracts will continue to function and will be fully interoperable in both directions with the new style RISC-V contracts.”

The idea is that both formats coexist, and a dedicated interpreter allows converting EVM contracts into RISC-V equivalents. In other words: total backward compatibility, but with a new path for developers who want to adopt the next generation of performance.

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💠 Other networks are already testing the same path

Ethereum's proposal is not a shot in the dark.

Vitalik directly cites Polkadot's PolkaVM initiative, which since August 2023 has already been using RISC-V as a basis for multiple VMs.

The difference?

🔹Polkadot applies the approach in parallel, without touching the core.

Vitalik is proposing something deeper, potentially creating a new reference virtual machine for Ethereum in the future.

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🔷⏳🔷 Pectra, Rollups, and the urgency of scalability

Meanwhile, in the short term, Ethereum continues with immediate plans:

The Pectra upgrade is scheduled to go live on the mainnet on May 7, bringing:

🔹• UX improvements

🔹• Rollup optimizations

🔹• Increase in staking limits for validators

But Vitalik is looking beyond:

🦋“Pectra is a necessary but not sufficient step. If we want to scale 10x, 100x, or beyond… RISC-V may be the only realistic path for execution to keep up with consensus.”

The message is clear: current solutions (like rollups and blobs) solve today — but not tomorrow.

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💎 Vitalik is not just proposing a technical improvement.

He is reopening the debate about Ethereum's future as a global infrastructure.

Swapping the network engine, the EVM, for an architecture like RISC-V, is more than an update — it is a philosophical rewrite of how Ethereum operates.

And he does this with courage, clarity, and without asking for permission.

Ethereum can continue with its rollups and blobs.

Or it can, once again, lead the revolution of technical decentralization.

The choice, as always, will come in blocks.

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