The Possible Future of Ethereum: A Path Towards a More Efficient and Decentralized Ecosystem
Ethereum, one of the world’s leading blockchain platforms, is on a continuous journey of transformation to improve its scalability, security, and accessibility. Vitalik Buterin, its co-founder, outlined a potential roadmap for Ethereum’s future in a series of articles divided into six stages: The Merge, The Surge, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge. At DragonStake, we want to bring you closer to these ideas, explaining each stage with practical examples and highlighting the benefits and risks to help you understand how they impact everyone involved in this network, especially Ethereum stakers.
1. The Merge
This first stage marked Ethereum’s shift from a Proof of Work (PoW) system to a Proof of Stake (PoS) system, drastically reducing the network’s energy consumption and making Ethereum a more environmentally friendly platform. However, Vitalik emphasizes that there is still much to do to improve the accessibility and decentralization of this system.
Benefits
- Lower Barriers for Validators: Currently, 32 ETH is required to validate transactions. Imagine if this amount were reduced to 1 ETH; anyone with a smaller deposit could join the network without needing intermediaries or large pools. This would democratize access and allow more people to participate.
- Faster Transaction Finality: Ethereum plans to reduce the time needed to confirm a transaction to a single 12-second step instead of the current 15 minutes. This would result in a much faster network with minimal waiting times.
Risks
- Technical Complexity for Fast Finality: Reducing finality time requires a highly complex synchronization system among thousands of validators. If not managed correctly, it could lead to security vulnerabilities.
- Centralization of Large Validators: While reducing the staking requirement facilitates participation, it could also concentrate power among those with enough resources to cover all operational costs. Ethereum is seeking solutions to ensure this does not impact decentralization.
2. The Surge
To make Ethereum a platform that supports millions of transactions per second, Vitalik proposes a combination of rollups (which process transactions off the main chain) and sharding. These rollups would act like “fast lanes” on a highway: transactions are processed off-chain and later recorded on Ethereum, freeing up space on the main network.
Benefits
- High Scalability without Compromising Security: With rollups and sharding, Ethereum could process over 100,000 transactions per second while maintaining security. Imagine that on a highway, only the most important vehicles use the main lanes while the rest use side lanes without affecting speed.
- Interoperability Between Rollups: Ethereum aims for all rollups to be compatible, creating a unified ecosystem. This would allow, for example, a user on a payment app to transfer funds without worrying about the specific network where their funds are held.
Risks
- Centralization in Rollups: By using technologies that rely on external providers, some rollups could be controlled by a few actors, reducing decentralization. The Ethereum community is working to ensure these rollups are truly trustless, meaning they operate in a decentralized way.
- Maintenance and Update Complexity: Creating and maintaining an interoperable rollup system requires all rollups to maintain the same standard. This can be challenging, as the system is new and requires constant adjustments.
3. The Scourge
As the network grows, actors with more capital tend to dominate, which can drive smaller validators out of the system or push them to join large pools. This phenomenon, known as economic centralization, can lead to risks like transaction censorship and control attacks.
Benefits
- Improved Transaction Privacy: With the creation of encrypted mempools, transaction details would remain secret until processed, preventing large actors from analyzing and censoring transactions.
- Decentralized Block Production: Breaking down block production into simpler tasks that are accessible to smaller validators would help reduce the dominance of large actors.
Risks
- Limited Options for Stakers: If the amount of ETH a validator can stake is capped, large validators could diversify and continue dominating the system through multiple accounts.
- Management Complexity: Dividing block production and encrypting mempools adds complexity, which could lead to errors or system failures if not implemented correctly.
4. The Verge
The goal of this stage is stateless verification, allowing low-power devices (like smartphones) to verify transactions without needing to store all of Ethereum’s data. Technologies like Verkle trees and STARK proofs are proposed to enable anyone to run a node with minimal resources.
Benefits
- Access from Basic Devices: Imagine being able to verify Ethereum from a smartphone or even a smartwatch. This enhances decentralization by allowing more people to verify the network.
- Lower Storage Usage: With stateless verification, a node no longer needs hundreds of gigabytes to operate. Any device with a few gigabytes of storage could contribute to the network.
Risks
- Dependence on New Technologies: Verkle trees and STARK proofs are emerging technologies that need further development to ensure their efficiency and security.
- Potential Vulnerability on Mobile Devices: While it facilitates access from basic devices, it also exposes the network to potential vulnerabilities of these devices if not implemented securely.
5. The Purge
Over time, Ethereum accumulates large amounts of historical data, which increases the storage needs of nodes. The Purge proposes that nodes only store the most recent data, while older data is distributed across a peer-to-peer network. This way, Ethereum maintains transparency without requiring each node to carry the entire history.
Benefits
- Reduced Storage Load for Nodes: By not needing to store the entire Ethereum history, anyone can run a node with much less space, making decentralization easier.
- Secure Access to Old Data: Older data will be available when needed through Merkle proofs, which allow users to verify the information’s authenticity without having to store it at all times.
Risks
- Dependence on External Networks for Storage: By relying on external networks to store old data, recovering historical data could be complicated if these networks don’t function correctly.
- Compatibility with Old Versions: Over time, Ethereum needs to ensure that new nodes are compatible with old data in case it’s needed, which requires continuous planning and updates.
6. The Splurge
Finally, The Splurge aims to enhance the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and make the system more powerful and stable. Vitalik proposes integrating account abstraction, which would allow users to have secure and flexible accounts, for example, those that can sign with multiple keys or pay with tokens instead of ETH. He also suggests improving transaction fees and exploring advanced cryptography to strengthen long-term security.
Benefits
- More Secure and Flexible Accounts: With account abstraction, you could have an account with multiple levels of security, such as different permissions depending on the type of transaction. This makes usage easier for those looking for more security options.
- Improved Transaction Fees: Ethereum could implement a more efficient fee system, allowing different operations to pay fees according to the resources they actually consume, reducing costs for certain processes.
Risks
- Technical Complexity and Maintenance: Improving the EVM and adding new functionalities could make the system more complex to maintain and understand for developers, increasing the risk of errors.
- Risks in Advanced Cryptography Integration: Advanced cryptography is still experimental and could bring unexpected challenges in terms of security and efficiency.
