Vitalik Buterin Calls for a Unified Design in Ethereum Layer One Protocol

In a recent X page post, Vit­alik But­erin, the Ethereum co­founder, reignited dis­cus­sion on the network’s future. He argued that sim­pli­fy­ing the base layer, known as Ethereum L1, will boost re­silience and scal­a­bil­ity. A less com­plex protocol re­duces sys­temic risks and en­hances clar­ity by mod­el­ing the network after Bit­coin’s straight­for­ward design, broader participation, and lower de­vel­op­ment overhead be­come pos­sible. But­erin be­lieves this ap­proach can make Ethereum more ro­bust. He high­lights that sim­plic­ity fos­ters a more ac­cess­ible and se­cure platform. He also points to clearer governance structures.

We can also simplify the protocol by making sure that sub-protocols are shared as much as possible: there should ideally only be one way we do X, across the consensus, execution and other layers. Potential targets: erasure coding, serialization, trees. pic.twitter.com/HIvYtORBtu

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 3, 2025

Ethereum Vit­alik But­erin notes that pur­su­ing sim­plic­ity re­quires up­front in­vest­ment. He admits short-term costs are nec­es­sary for fu­ture benefits. He com­pares Ethereum to Bit­coin’s min­i­mal­ist design, praising its clarity. That sim­plic­ity lets de­vel­op­ers of all skill lev­els un­der­stand and im­prove the protocol. In con­trast, Ethereum’s grow­ing com­plex­ity nar­rows its de­vel­oper base. Stream­lin­ing key el­e­ments could democ­ra­tize con­tri­bu­tions and re­duce costly mis­takes. Lower com­plex­ity also cuts de­vel­op­ment ex­penses and risk. Sim­pli­fi­ca­tion, he in­sists, en­ables sus­tain­able growth without sac­ri­fic­ing in­no­va­tion. This ap­proach makes main­te­nance and au­dit­ing easier.

Reducing Complexity in Ethereum and Strategic Simplification

Based on Ethereum Vit­alik But­erin iden­ti­fies spe­cific ar­eas in Ethereum that merit sim­pli­fi­ca­tion. He tar­gets er­a­sure cod­ing, se­ri­al­iza­tion tech­niques, and tree data struc­tures. He ar­gues that com­bin­ing sub-pro­to­cols across con­sen­sus and ex­e­cu­tion lay­ers would cut redun­dant code. A uni­fied method for sim­i­lar tasks re­duces com­plex­ity and strengthens se­cu­rity. Sim­pli­fied code­paths im­prove au­dit­abil­ity and clarity for all stake­hold­ers. Ease of re­view is cru­cial for a found­a­tional layer sup­port­ing fi­nance and gov­er­nance. He be­lieves this stream­lined struc­ture will fos­ter trust and ef­fi­ciency. This fo­cus could make Ethereum L1 more re­silient to fu­ture challenges.

A key as­pect of the plan ad­dresses the con­sen­sus layer. His­tor­i­cally called the beam chain, this ef­fort re­thinks Ethereum’s con­sen­sus protocol. One ma­jor pro­posal is a three-slot final­ity me­chan­ism, which re­moves com­mit­tee shuf­fling and sync com­mit­tees. Ethereum Vit­alik But­erin ex­plains that this sim­pler de­sign re­quires under 200 lines of code. The stream­lined model min­i­mizes com­plex in­ter­ac­tions and po­ten­tial vulnerabilities. By cut­ting these mov­ing parts, network op­er­a­tions become more trans­par­ent. It leverages ten years of crypt­o­graphic and staking research. This change could lower the barrier for im­ple­ment­ing and au­dit­ing con­sen­sus rules.

How Streamlining Consensus Improves Validator Operations

Sim­pli­fy­ing con­sen­sus also af­fects validator processes. For ex­am­ple, re­duc­ing ac­tive validator counts can stream­line fork choice rules. In­te­grat­ing STARK-based ag­gre­ga­tion pro­to­cols may re­move re­li­ance on cen­tral­ized ag­gre­gators and cut band­width costs. Cen­tral­iz­ing such com­plex­ity within proofs re­duces sys­temic risk. Sim­pli­fied validator life­cy­cles for join­ing, ex­it­ing, and key tran­si­tions en­hance trans­par­ency. These changes bun­dle com­plex­ity into leaner com­po­nents and spread less risk across the network. A clear­er validator model makes au­dit­ing easier and boosts con­fi­dence in protocol se­cu­rity.

Challenges and Solutions for the Ethereum Virtual Machine

How­ever, the ex­e­cu­tion layer poses the big­gest chal­lenge. The cur­rent Ethereum Vir­tual Ma­chine has grown overly com­plex. Many fea­tures, like the SELFDESTRUCT opcode and cer­tain pre­com­piled con­tracts, saw little use. Ethereum Vit­alik But­erin ad­mits some com­po­nents be­came over-en­gineered and hard to main­tain. He pro­poses a bold al­ter­na­tive: re­place the EVM with a sim­pler, more ef­fi­cient vir­tual ma­chine. Such a shift could re­move legacy code is­sues. A stream­lined VM im­proves per­for­mance and low­ers de­vel­op­ment friction. It would offer a fresh foun­da­tion for smart con­tract execution.

Ethereum co­founder Proposes Interim EVM Tweaks

Look­ing for­ward, Vit­alik But­erin ex­plores new VM al­ter­na­tives like RISC-V and Cairo to re­place the EVM. He rec­om­mends in­terim EVM up­grades such as higher code size limits and ad­vanced opcodes. He states that protocol sim­plic­ity must be­come an Ethereum core value. The co­founder of Ethereum con­cedes that past fea­tures mul­ti­plied com­plex­ity and views this as a chance to stream­line de­sign. Sim­pli­fi­ca­tion re­or­ga­nizes func­tion­al­ity for transparency, rather than re­mov­ing it. If achieved, the network may match Bit­coin’s con­cep­tual clarity while preserving Ethereum’s unique capabilities.

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