Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a major shift in Ethereum’s long-term development goals: simplifying the protocol to mirror the elegance and minimalism of Bitcoin’s design, while retaining Ethereum’s advanced capabilities.
In a blog post published on May 3, Buterin emphasized that Bitcoin’s simplicity offers critical benefits—from ease of understanding to improved network resilience—that Ethereum can and should learn from.
“One of the best things about Bitcoin is how beautifully simple the protocol is,” Buterin wrote. “These benefits of simplicity should be brought to Ethereum as well.”
Why Simplifying Ethereum Matters
According to Buterin, a simpler Ethereum protocol could:
- Make it easier for developers to understand and contribute to the network.
- Reduce infrastructure costs and lower barriers to entry.
- Minimize long-term maintenance needs and risks of major bugs.
- Help protect against social attacks and influence from special interest groups.
Three Key Areas for Simplification
1. Consensus Layer:
Ethereum’s current consensus mechanism is complex, but Buterin sees opportunities for simplification. Proposals include a three-slot finality system to replace current slot-and-epoch structures, and reducing active validator counts to streamline fork choice rules. STARK-based aggregation could also remove the need for trust assumptions.
2. Execution Layer:
Buterin criticized the growing complexity of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), calling much of it unnecessary. He proposed replacing the EVM with a simpler and more efficient alternative, such as RISC-V, which could deliver up to 100x performance improvements and cleaner specifications.
3. Unified Protocol Standards:
A major contributor to Ethereum’s complexity is the lack of consistency across layers. Buterin advocates for standardizing components and processes across consensus, execution, and other protocol layers to reduce redundancy and confusion.
“There should ideally only be one way we do [something], across the consensus, execution, and other layers,” he stated.
Simplicity as a Long-Term Value
Buterin acknowledges that simplicity may involve short-term trade-offs, but he insists it is a necessary investment for Ethereum’s future.
“Caring about simplicity is, like decentralization, a short-term cost for the sake of benefits that do not appear immediately,” he concluded.
ETH Price Outlook
Despite Buterin’s ambitious roadmap, Ethereum continues to face headwinds in the market. In April, ETH’s market share dropped to an all-time low of just 7%, and prices have recently hovered around $1,800—dipping below that mark in early Asian trading on Monday.
Currently, Ethereum remains down 63% from its 2021 peak, while Bitcoin is only 13% off its all-time high reached earlier this year. Still, analysts are cautiously optimistic that Ethereum could stage a comeback, driven by renewed interest in its evolving architecture and upcoming upgrades.
