Vitalik Proposes Fundamental Changes to Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin continues to ponder ways to make Ethereum cheaper, faster, and more decentralized.

In an Oct. 14 blog post, Buterin wrote about several potential improvements to Ethereum’s proof-of-stake model – a consensus mechanism implemented in 2022.

“Today, Ethereum has been a stably running proof of stake system for almost exactly two years, and this proof of stake has performed remarkably well in stability, performance and avoiding centralization risks,” he wrote. “However, there still remain some important areas in which proof of stake needs to improve.”

His proposals center around lowering financial requirements for solo stakers, along with reducing the time it takes for Ethereum to finalize blocks. Currently, one needs to lock in 32 ETH ($83,000) to become a network validator. Buterin reckons the threshold could be lowered to 1 ETH ($2,600).

According to Buterin, the goal would be to support solo stakers. He cited “poll after poll,” showing that the main obstacle for people to solo stake is the 32 ETH minimum, and that dropping the deposit amount would help to further democratize the consensus mechanism.

Beaconcha.in shows that there are over 1 million validators, and despite a recent downturn in new validators coming online, the network has maintained a healthy and consistent rate of growth.

Buterin also floated the idea of reducing the amount of time Ethereum takes to finalize blocks.

At the moment, it takes 2-3 epochs (or roughly 15 minutes) to finalize blocks. Ethereum’s creator proposed to drop finalization to single-slot status, which means 12 seconds or less – the time it usually takes to create a new block. This would “ensure that all Ethereum users actually benefit from the higher level of security assurances achieved through the finality mechanism,” he said, along with simplifying the protocol and surrounding infrastructure.

This isn’t the first time Buterin has floated fundamental changes to Ethereum’s proof-of-stake system. In Dec. 2023, he pitched a three-pronged approach to simplify the network’s high validator load.

Buterin’s post comes at a time when Ethereum’s Layer 1 has been losing economic activity to the wide range of Layer 2s that have been popping up. Additionally, the network is preparing for its next major upgrade, Pectra, which will change how Ethereum stakers earn rewards.

Pectra is shaping up to be the most expansive upgrade in Ethereum’s history, with core developers considering splitting the change into two separate forks.