Listen, imagine, Vitalik Buterin, the co—founder of Ethereum, has come up with an interesting idea again, and this time it can really change a lot. He proposed replacing the current Ethereum virtual machine (EVM), which is used to execute smart contracts, with the RISC-V architecture. This is such an instruction set for open source processors — in other words, a more flexible and powerful framework for executing programs. And yes, it has caused heated debate in the crypto community.
Vitalik believes that such a transition will “significantly increase the efficiency” of Ethereum at the execution level. In other words, blocks will be assembled faster, smart contracts will be easier to execute, and the system as a whole will become easier to scale. This is especially important for improving the so-called zk—EVM, which is when smart contracts can be verified super efficiently without disclosing all data (useful for privacy and scaling).
If RISC-V is actually implemented, developers will be able to write smart contracts not only in a specific language for EVM, but also, for example, in Rust, a language that is actively used in other blockchains, for example, in Solana. In other words, the Ethereum ecosystem can become more accessible and diverse for developers.
But, as always, it's not that simple. Some community members (including investors and developers) expressed skepticism. Some believe that this will complicate the ecosystem too much, especially for second-level (L2) solutions, which are already difficult to break through. Others say that it is not clear whether this will give a real increase in performance, because even now many “heavy” operations in Ethereum are already optimized in advance.
Vitalik offers several options on how to implement RISC-V:
A smooth approach: just add RISC-V support in parallel with EVM, and give you a choice on what to write contracts on.
Interpreter: create a special interpreter for EVM contracts on RISC-V so that old contracts continue to work without migration.
Deep integration: making this interpreter a part of the Ethereum protocol itself is a more radical step, but also more stable for a long time.
In fact, Vitalik just opened the discussion — he doesn't insist, but says, "Guys, it's time to think about the future." As one of the participants of the Ethereum Foundation said, the goal is not to change everything right away, but to launch a study and see what this can lead to.
So I'm sitting here thinking: if Ethereum does switch to RISC-V, it will be a giant step — almost like a merger (The Merge), only at the execution level. The only question is, is it worth the candle?
What do you think — is Ethereum worth risking stability for the sake of hypothetical efficiency?
