Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Co-Founder, feels the platform needs to be more agile and more lightweight in terms of blockchain data. He said more people will be able to use and manage it.
Vitalik, on the latest Bankless podcast, has enlightened ether enthusiasts about a five-year roadmap. He described these as important steps for the survival of ethereum. The co-founder says the first step, called the merger, will take place in the first half of 2022. It is the full transition away from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. The second part is called the surge. It will empower ethereum with increased scalability, massive bandwidth and throughput. Both these parts are the important upgrades that the blockchain is going through.
In regards to ethereum’s progress over the past six years, Vitalik said they are 50% of the way there. This is attributed to the Beacon chain, the London hard fork and the emergence of NFTs. However, Vitalik says they still have a long way to go. It will be 80% complete with the merge and surge done. He said the road map, which will take about six years for completion, will result in 100% optimization.
Then comes the next part which will enable users to run nodes and democratize access to the broadest number of participants. Vitalik said the next part is also known as the verge, which will be followed by purge and splurge. It refers to the elimination of historical data and the addition of miscellaneous upgrades.
Vitalik wants ethereum to become simpler and simpler over time. He admitted that it is not yet the layer-one system that is ready for direct mass adoption. The co-founder reaffirmed the need for layer-two scaling solutions and reduced transaction fees. He also highlighted the amazing progress that ethereum has achieved in layer-two scaling over the past year. Vitalik applauded the enthusiasts and community that continue to fight for it.
Ethereum is also working for better security and safety measures around the upgrades. Vitalik explained that like the police and military protecting a city, blockchain users act as security guards. They keep a lookout for attackers, and as more blocks get added to the chain, more security is needed.
Vitalik says the blockchain currently runs on 2.6 megabytes per second of blockchain data. And it has the ability to take on more bandwidth and increase the user base.
