In a bold move in early 2025, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, proposed a fundamental change in the operational architecture of the Ethereum blockchain: moving the execution layer from EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) to RISC-V, an open-source architecture increasingly popular in hardware and embedded systems.
The goal of this move is nothing less than to increase transaction processing speed by up to 100 times, while thoroughly addressing the scalability issues that have plagued Ethereum since its inception.
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Why is RISC-V important?
RISC-V is an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) designed to be simple, extensible, and optimized for performance for systems ranging from small to large. Unlike proprietary architectures (such as ARM or x86), RISC-V allows the community to customize and optimize according to specific needs, in this case for a global-scale blockchain like Ethereum.
Vitalik believes that RISC-V can help Ethereum:
• Increase the execution speed of smart contracts
• Reduce transaction costs through optimized processing
• Simplify the execution layer, reducing complexity in maintenance and upgrades
• Increase interoperability with hardware (hardware-accelerated crypto)
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From The Merge to RISC-V: A transformative journey
Ethereum has undergone several significant upgrade phases in recent years, the most notable being:
• The Merge (2022): Transition from PoW to PoS, reducing energy consumption and paving the way for Layer 2 scaling solutions.
• EIP-1559: Improve the transaction fee mechanism and create incentives to reduce ETH supply.
• Danksharding, Proto-danksharding: Enhance performance and temporary data storage capabilities.
However, these upgrades largely still operate based on the old architecture (EVM). Replacing EVM with a RISC-V-based execution layer is a completely new shift that could unlock a level of performance that Ethereum has never reached before.
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Impact on the ecosystem and market
If successfully deployed, RISC-V could:
• Significantly increase transaction processing capacity on Layer 1, reducing reliance on Layer 2 scaling solutions.
• Significantly lower gas costs, thereby stimulating the development of decentralized applications (dApps), DeFi, NFTs.
• Bring Ethereum back to the forefront of performance, ahead of competition from high-speed blockchains like Solana, Aptos, or Sui.
Additionally, this could also have a strong impact on the tokenomics and long-term value of ETH – as the network operates more efficiently, ETH could become the default platform for large organizations and Web3 applications in the future.
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Warnings and challenges
Despite the great potential, the risks cannot be overlooked:
• Replacing EVM requires a complete redesign of the entire smart contract system, which could take years and lead to conflicts among developers.
• Such a deep technological transformation could also temporarily disrupt the network, affecting end users.
• In addition, there needs to be consensus from the community, dApp developers, and validators for this proposal to be implemented.
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Conclusion
The RISC-V proposal could be one of the most groundbreaking changes in Ethereum's history, not just a technical improvement, but a long-term strategy for Ethereum to maintain its dominance against the new generation of blockchains. Vitalik is betting big on the future – is the community ready to walk this crossroads with him?
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Disclaimer:
This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice. Investing in cryptocurrency carries high risks. Always do your own research thoroughly before making any decisions.
