Ethereum Co-Founder Buterin Advocates for Simplified Protocol to Enhance Decentralization

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has recently advocated for a significant overhaul of the Ethereum network's design, urging the community to adopt a more simplified approach inspired by Bitcoin's protocol model. Buterin believes that the current complexity of Ethereum's design raises costs, centralizes control, and creates barriers for developers, which ultimately undermines the network's decentralization ethos.

Buterin's proposal involves reducing protocol complexity across the consensus layer, execution environment, and standardization processes. He argues that Ethereum's technical depth increases costs, isolates research efforts, and raises the likelihood of serious bugs. By simplifying the protocol, Buterin believes Ethereum can become more resilient, reduce infrastructure costs, and lower the entry barrier for developers.

To achieve this vision, Buterin highlighted three key areas where Ethereum can reduce complexity. First, he recommended changes to the consensus layer, particularly by streamlining the finality system and reducing the number of validators. These steps would lower operational costs and speed up network consensus. Buterin pointed out that the consensus layer is loosely coupled with Ethereum’s execution system, giving developers more flexibility to implement improvements without breaking core functionality.

Ask Aime: Invest in Ethereum's future with Buterin's proposal to simplify the network design.

The second area of focus is overhauling the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Buterin recommends introducing RISC-V, a simpler and more efficient computing architecture, as an alternative execution option. He envisions a future where developers can write contracts using RISC-V alongside the EVM. Additionally, he suggested replacing precompiles with a canonical on-chain implementation and building a RISC-V-based EVM interpreter to support future upgrades with better maintainability.

Lastly, Buterin called for standardization across protocol components. Instead of using different tools for similar functions, Ethereum could adopt one erasure code, serialization format, and Merkle tree. This unified approach would help reduce redundancy and enhance the network’s clarity. Buterin noted that there is typically very little or no benefit to using different protocols to do the same thing in different places, but such patterns appear anyway due to a lack of communication between different parts of protocol roadmapping.

Buterin’s call for simplifying Ethereum’s structure represents a significant shift towards enhancing scalability and inclusivity in the blockchain ecosystem. By adopting a more straightforward protocol, Ethereum can ensure its growth while preserving the central tenets of decentralization. Buterin believes that simplicity should be treated as a core value, much like decentralization, and that Ethereum must prioritize design choices that promote clarity, robustness, and long-term sustainability.