Ethereum's founder Vitalik has recently made a big move! He actually proposed to completely replace the nearly ten-year-old EVM virtual machine with the open-source RISC-V architecture. This has caused a stir in the tech community, as if it really happens, the entire underlying logic of Ethereum will need to be rewritten, and smart contracts are bound to undergo major changes!
To be honest, the EVM is indeed old. Back when it was first launched in 2015, it was fine for processing simple contracts, but now with complex zero-knowledge proofs, it clearly can't keep up. Vitalik himself has complained that the current EVM is like an old car, struggling to pull the Ethereum sports car, and the engine is about to smoke. Switching to RISC-V would be different; its capabilities have already been validated in the chip industry, not only can it improve running efficiency by hundreds of times, but the key is that it's an open-source architecture that can be modified however needed, and future upgrades will not require major overhauls.
How to switch specifically? Vitalik provided three options: either run both EVM and RISC-V virtual machines simultaneously, or use RISC-V to simulate running the current EVM contracts; the most radical option is to directly embed RISC-V into the Ethereum protocol as a standard configuration. Regardless of which path is chosen, the core idea is to completely shatter and reorganize Ethereum's code architecture, making it modular like LEGO blocks that can be assembled and upgraded at any time. This is essentially tearing down the foundation of a house to rebuild it—it's really bold!
However, the market reaction is quite interesting. This year, the price of ETH has been on a roller coaster, starting the year at around $3300, and then it was directly cut in half to $1474 around March and April. Recently, it just had a slight uptick of 3%, and then Vitalik suddenly dropped this bombshell. I remember last year when U.S. policies loosened up, ETH skyrocketed by 66% in two months. If they really change the virtual machine this time, I estimate that the coin price will surge again. But the technical risks are not small; if things go wrong, it could trigger a mass exodus of developers.
Personally, I think this reform is absolutely milestone-level. After all, Ethereum's biggest pain point right now is performance. If RISC-V can really improve the efficiency of ZK proofs, then those layer 2 scaling solutions could retire. However, with such a big architectural adjustment, it definitely won't be implemented in less than two or three years, and there will certainly be technical teams bickering in the meantime. But regardless, Vitalik's willingness to tackle core components is truly admirable. Now it just depends on whether other core developers are on board, as this is essentially equivalent to making the entire ecosystem relearn a 'programming language'.
(Here's a fun fact: RISC-V once overturned ARM's dominance in the chip industry, and now it's breaking into the blockchain field. This open-source architecture is likely to dominate both software and hardware...)
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