Vitalik Buterin Charts a 5-Year Plan to Simplify Ethereum and Reclaim Dominance

Vitalik Buterin Charts a 5-Year Plan to Simplify Ethereum and Reclaim Dominance

Vitalik Buterin Unveils Bold Plan to Streamline Ethereum’s Complex Architecture

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is pushing to make the blockchain as simple and resilient as Bitcoin within the next five years, introducing a strategic vision to simplify the protocol’s infrastructure and reduce technical overhead.

In a detailed blog post titled “Simplifying the L1,” published on May 3, Buterin outlined sweeping changes across Ethereum’s consensus, execution, and shared components. The goal: to build a leaner, more secure, and developer-friendly Ethereum base layer.

“This post will describe how Ethereum 5 years from now can become close to as simple as Bitcoin,” Buterin wrote.

He acknowledged that Ethereum’s increasing technical complexity—fueled by innovations like proof-of-stake (PoS) and zk-SNARKs—has led to bloated development timelines, higher costs, and greater risk of bugs.

Consensus Layer: ‘3-Slot Finality’ and the End of Overhead

One of Buterin’s top priorities is Ethereum’s consensus mechanism, with a new concept called “3-slot finality.” This approach would eliminate components like epochs, validator shuffling, and sync committees that add unnecessary layers of complexity.

“The reduced number of active validators at a time means that it becomes safer to use simpler implementations,” Buterin explained.

He also called for the use of STARK-based aggregation protocols, which promise simpler and more decentralized validator coordination.

Execution Layer: Moving Toward RISC-V and Zero-Knowledge Efficiency

Ethereum’s execution environment may also get an overhaul. Buterin proposed transitioning from the current Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to a ZK-friendly virtual machine based on RISC-V — an open-source instruction set that supports high efficiency through minimalistic design.

This upgrade could yield up to 100x improvements in zero-knowledge proof performance.

To ease the shift, legacy EVM smart contracts would be run on-chain using a RISC-V interpreter, allowing both environments to function during the transitional period.

Protocol-Wide Standardization: SSZ, Erasure Coding, and Simpler Trees

To clean up Ethereum’s tooling and reduce maintenance costs, Buterin recommended a network-wide standardization approach:

• Adopt a single erasure coding method

• Standardize serialization with SSZ (Simple Serialize)

• Align tree structures across the stack

He emphasized the importance of keeping consensus-critical code small, auditable, and efficient, proposing a “max line-of-code” target similar to that used by minimalist projects like Tinygrad.

“Simplicity is in many ways similar to decentralization,” he wrote.

Ethereum’s Competitive Pressure Is Rising

Buterin’s roadmap emerges at a time when Ethereum is losing ground to faster, more cost-effective Layer 1 blockchains. Speaking at the LONGITUDE by Cointelegraph event on May 2, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik noted:

“If you’d asked me 3–4 years ago whether Ethereum would dominate crypto, I’d have said yes… But now, it’s clear that’s not what’s happening.”

By tackling inefficiencies head-on, Ethereum hopes to retain its place at the heart of decentralized finance and smart contract innovation—without the weight of unnecessary complexity.