How do you view Vitalik's proposal to transition EVM to RISC-V?

A friend asked me how I view @VitalikButerin's radical proposal to replace the Ethereum virtual machine EVM bytecode with the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture? Essentially, Ethereum is brewing a deep technological transformation led by ZK technology. Let me outline the strategic logic behind it:

1) First of all, Vitalik's proposal to replace the EVM with RISC-V is not actually new. As early as when he proposed the Rollup-Centric expansion strategy, he hinted at similar ideas: allowing eligible layer2s to become the execution layer of the mainnet, while EVM would downgrade from protocol layer to 'in-house' Rollup execution client function layer, becoming one of many AltVMs.

The key to this transformation lies in RISC-V as a lower-level and more general instruction set architecture, which can provide a unified 'hardware' foundation for zkVM, allowing various execution environments to operate efficiently under the same framework. This architectural revolution must be built on the completion of the underlying SNARK deployment by Ethereum, as only when ZK technology can be widely applied to state validation can this modular execution layer architecture achieve efficiency improvements while ensuring security.

2) Frankly speaking, Ethereum's strategic adjustment at first glance seems to have the boldness of 'burning bridges and starting over', but a deeper analysis reveals that the substitutability of the execution layer is actually an inevitable path for established strong consensus public chains like Ethereum. Faced with the technical shock of new public chains like Solana and Sui, which have extreme TPS, as well as the market diversion from many EVM-compatible chains, Ethereum chose to proactively strike back rather than passively take hits.

Because, in pure technical metrics comparison, Ethereum's TPS indeed struggles to compete with new public chains like Solana and Sui. However, in the face of the trilemma, Ethereum has always adhered to its two core values: security and decentralization, while maintaining an unparalleled ecological prosperity and developer community.

If Ethereum attempts to use the RISC-V open instruction set architecture to improve the efficiency of the execution layer, especially in ZK proof aspects, it is expected to bring a performance leap of 50-100 times. This strategy of iterating the execution layer without sacrificing its foundation preserves Ethereum's core advantages while directly addressing its main shortcomings. Why not?

3) However, while celebrating the excitement of the new proposal, it should be understood that the transition from EVM to RISC-V is by no means an overnight project. From the perspective of technical implementation, this transformation is likely to wait until the ZK-SNARKs technology achieves large-scale deployment before it can be fully advanced.

Compared to the significant upgrades at the core layer of Ethereum over the past few years (such as the consensus layer upgrade from PoW to PoS), ideally, the entire process requires rigorous design, extensive testing, and robust community support, and is estimated to take at least 2-3 years.

However, Vitalik emphasized backward compatibility in the proposal, suggesting that existing EVM contracts may continue to exist through RISC-V interpreters or parallel support mechanisms. This is crucial for alleviating the transition costs for developers and users. This gradual transformation strategy is also a robust strategic iterative style that Ethereum, as a secure and decentralized public chain, must possess.

That's all.

In my opinion, Vitalik's proposal to replace EVM with RISC-V is not just a simple adjustment of the technical architecture but a proactive innovation strategy in response to competition from high-performance public chains. This proposal is closely related to upgrades like Verge, Purge, etc., in Ethereum's roadmap, all revolving around the underlying SNARKs, aiming to establish a more efficient and flexible execution environment to support diverse application scenarios in the future.

Previously, @drakefjustin revealed that the Ethereum Foundation would invest tens of millions of dollars in zkVMs projects. Undoubtedly, zkVM is indeed one of the core narratives of Ethereum's future. Ethereum is attempting to build not just a more efficient execution layer, but a modular architecture that can accommodate various virtual machines. This discussion about replacing EVM with RISC-V may just be a beginning.