What will Ethereum be in the next 10 years? Justin Drake responds

Ethereum turned a decade. With that milestone, Justin Drake, researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, presented an optimistic and inspiring vision for the next ten years: Lean Ethereum.

It is not a technical road map, but an integral proposal that redefines the principles of scalability, safety and decentralization of the network. According to Drake, Ethereum, a network that turned on a torch recently for its tenth anniversary, must be able to process millions of transactions per second, resist quantum attacks and stay operational even in global disruption scenarios.

FOrt Mode and Beast Mode

Ethereum will have two tactical positions against the future.

The first points to the absolute resilience of Ethereum. The network will be designed to survive any threat, says Drake, From state attacks to quantum computers. He states that Ethereum should be kept in line with the Internet, while it exists. If the world is connected, the world will live on-chain: in Ethereum.

In parallel, Ethereum will deploy a tactical offensive. In the coming months, immediate improvements are expected in performance. Justin Drake refers to the advances that Fusaka comes, the next fork of Ethereum, which will bring improvements in scalability, as cryptootic reports.

In the long term, Ethereum would reach 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) in layer 1 (L1) and up to 10 million in layer 2 (L2). Today, the network only processes about 20 TPS in real time and has 120 transactions theoretical, According to Chainspect data.

To achieve scalability and decentralization at a time, ZKVMS will be implemented in real time – virtual machines that allow cryptographic zero knowledge tests – and data availability sampling techniques (DAS), which optimize distributed storage without compromising decentralization, according to Justin Drake. Peerdas, an implementation that improves databases in Ethereum, could contribute in this regard.

The main network is priority

Ethereum will improve the three fundamental layers of its main network: consensus, data and execution. The consensus layer will be reinforced with a 2.0 version of the Beacon Chain, its participation test layer (Staking), which will offer “maximum security, decentralization and completion (FINALITY) of blocks in seconds ».

The data layer will incorporate Blobs 2.0 with post-chanting capacityand adjustable sizes to facilitate the experience of developers. Blobs are a temporary memory type that increases the data rate included in the Ethereum file blocks. In a nutshell, they are data containers outside the state (off-chain) used to climb Ethereum. These Blobs 2.0 would be protected with cryptography resistant to quantum attacks, according to Drake.

The execution layer will adopt a minimum set of instructions compatible with SNARKs-cryptographic tests that allow to verify calculations without revealing data-possibly based on RISC-V, a modular architecture with which Vitalik Buterin intends to replace the virtual machine of Ethereum (EVM) without violating compatibility with pre -existing intelligent contracts.

Ethereum would adopt a hash -based cryptography for its three operating layers: consensus layer (CL), data layer (DL) and execution layer (the). Drake proposes to replace vulnerable structures with alternatives HASH FUNCTION BASEDin each layer of the protocol.

This decision responds to the technical adaptation to current trends: the growth of Snarks and quantum threat, since hash functions and zero knowledge are better prepared. The second because ZK technology does not force to reveal the direction or public key (whose knowledge, by default, is considered a quantum vulnerability, according to Antony Milton). The first because they are considered safer by not depending on the resolution of mathematical problems such as factorization or discreet logarithms, vulnerable to the Shor algorithm.

Ethereum: an engineering work of art

Ethereum would also be an aesthetic engineering work. Drake describes Lean Ethereum as a form of technical craftswhere modularity, formal verification and demonstrable security are non -negotiable principles. The objective is to achieve abundance of performance without sacrificing continuity or simplicity, according to the developer.

Minimalism Modularity. Encapsulated complexity. Formal verification. Demonstrable security Demonstrable optimality. These are subtle but important technical considerations. Are attentive to the publication on post -surveying cryptography that will make them explicit.

Justin Drake, Ethereum developer.

«After 10 fantastic years, Lean Ethereum is a generational oath. To keep Ethereum online, whatever happens. To climb it without obligation. To be worthy of those who come later. This is a legacy. We are builders, we are missionaries. We are Ethereum, ”Drake concluded.