Vitalik Buterin Proposes Simplification of Ethereum Protocol to Reduce Complexity
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, advocates for simplifying the Ethereum protocol to enhance its maintainability while retaining its unique capabilities. He highlights the increasing complexity of Ethereum's technical architecture, which complicates maintenance and onboarding for new developers.
- Buterin suggests a multi-year strategy to reduce the "consensus-critical" codebase.
- He emphasizes that Bitcoin’s simplicity allows easier understanding and development compared to Ethereum.
- Ethereum’s growing complexity arises from feature additions and legacy code, leading to higher risks of bugs and difficulties in protocol upgrades.
- Proposed simplifications include overhauling the consensus layer (beacon chain) and transitioning to a simpler virtual machine like RISC-V.
- Challenges include maintaining backwards compatibility with existing applications.
- Buterin proposes a phased approach, allowing the current EVM and the new VM to operate concurrently.