Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has unveiled a new vision to simplify the network’s foundational design, with the goal of making Ethereum nearly as straightforward as Bitcoin within the next five years.
In a blog post titled “Simplifying the L1” published on May 3, Buterin outlined a roadmap focused on reducing complexity across Ethereum’s core layers—consensus, execution, and shared components. He emphasized that greater simplicity would lead to a more secure, efficient, and accessible blockchain.
“My aim is to show how Ethereum can evolve to become almost as simple as Bitcoin in five years,” Buterin wrote, arguing that reducing technical bloat is essential to the protocol’s scalability and resilience.
While recent advances like the transition to proof-of-stake and zk-SNARK integrations have strengthened Ethereum, Buterin admitted that the increasing technical overhead has resulted in extended development timelines, higher costs, and a greater risk of bugs.
He noted, “Ethereum’s history includes many moments where we chose complexity—sometimes because of my own decisions—and that’s led to unnecessary expenses, security concerns, and a more insular research culture chasing benefits that often didn’t materialize.”
Streamlining Consensus With “3-Slot Finality”
One of the core areas targeted for reform is the consensus mechanism. Buterin proposed a “3-slot finality” approach to simplify the current setup by removing elements like epochs, sync committees, and validator shuffling.
By reducing the number of active validators at any given time, this model would make it safer and easier to use simpler versions of the fork choice rule, he explained.
Other potential improvements include simplified fork logic and the use of STARK-based aggregation for better scalability and decentralized coordination.
Overhauling the Execution Layer
On the execution side, Buterin suggested replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with a more streamlined, ZK-friendly architecture such as RISC-V. This shift could enable massive performance boosts—up to 100x—for zero-knowledge proof systems while significantly simplifying the protocol.
RISC-V, a minimalist open-source instruction set used in CPU design, offers efficiency through its simplified set of commands. Buterin proposed using a RISC-V interpreter to maintain compatibility with existing EVM contracts, allowing both systems to operate side by side during the transition.
Pushing for Unified Protocol Standards
Buterin also emphasized the need for standardization across the protocol. He recommended unifying components like erasure coding, serialization (favoring SSZ), and data trees to reduce unnecessary variation and improve the developer experience.
“Simplicity shares many traits with decentralization,” he noted, advocating for a maximum line-of-code limit for consensus-critical parts of the protocol, similar to what the Tinygrad project employs, to make Ethereum easier to audit and maintain.
Legacy features that aren’t essential would still be supported but separated from the core protocol specification.
Ethereum’s Market Position Faces Pressure
Buterin’s push for a more lightweight Ethereum comes at a time when the network is seeing its dominance wane. At the LONGITUDE conference on May 2, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik pointed out that Ethereum’s lead among Layer 1 blockchains has been shrinking.
“Three or four years ago, I would have confidently said Ethereum would dominate,” said Svanevik. “But today, it’s evident that the landscape is shifting.”
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