Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, during his recent appearance at Devconnect in Turkey, unveiled plans for a significant redesign of Ethereum’s staking mechanism, aiming to address performance issues and integrate several advanced features. This announcement has garnered considerable attention in the cryptocurrency community, highlighting Buterin’s ongoing efforts to evolve and improve Ethereum.
The core of Buterin’s presentation revolved around the future roadmap of Ethereum, particularly the challenges and solutions related to staking centralization. He acknowledged the need for a comprehensive redesign of Ethereum staking to enhance decentralization and performance. This redesign is expected to address the issues of data availability and the demands on off-chain systems, which have been slowing down the network.
Buterin’s proposed upgrades for Ethereum are multifaceted, including the integration of private mempools, ERC-4337, code pre-compilation, ZK-EVMs (Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines), and liquid staking. These features aim to improve the efficiency, security, and scalability of the Ethereum network. The introduction of ZK-EVMs, in particular, is seen as a groundbreaking step towards enhancing Ethereum’s computational capabilities and privacy features.
The Ethereum founder also expressed concerns about the increasing concentration of Ethereum liquid staking in the proof-of-stake model. This issue is critical as it touches upon the fundamental principles of decentralization that underpin the Ethereum network.
In addition to these technical advancements, Buterin discussed the upcoming Ethereum upgrade, EIP 4844, known as Danksharding. This upgrade is set to expand the data map space to 16 Megabytes per slot, which is a significant development in Ethereum’s scalability. However, it was his mention of the UTxO (Unspent Transaction Output) model that particularly caught the attention of the Cardano community.
Following Buterin’s acknowledgment of the UTxO model used by Bitcoin and Cardano and his intention to integrate similar features into Ethereum, Cardano advocates reacted. They took to the microblogging site X, engaging in humorous mockery of Buterin’s announcement. Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, responded with a satirical remark, saying Ethereum’s next iteration will “solve it all.” This comment was a pointed dig at Buterin’s plans, reflecting the ongoing rivalry between Ethereum and Cardano.
However, Hoskinson’s sarcasm didn’t stop there. In response to a comment, he stated that Cardano would never be recognized by Vitalik or the Ethereum team as one of the greatest scientific achievements. He further suggested that Buterin is only now rediscovering what Cardano has been working on for a decade, implying that Ethereum is playing catch-up to Cardano’s innovations.
