Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently shared his ambitious plans to revolutionize the blockchain’s proof-of-stake system in order to enhance stability and performance. Despite Ethereum’s existing strengths in decentralization and stability, Buterin highlighted key areas for improvement.
One of Buterin’s main goals is to reduce Ethereum’s transaction times, which currently take up to 15 minutes to finalize. This delay can lead to network congestion and delays. By cutting transaction times down to just a few seconds, Buterin believes this will significantly improve user experience and make defi protocols more efficient. To achieve this, he proposed exploring a “single-slot finality” method to finalize blocks within one slot, making Ethereum more competitive.
In addition to transaction speed improvements, Buterin also addressed the issue of staking accessibility. Currently, users need at least 32 ETH to participate in staking, limiting solo participation. Buterin suggested lowering the threshold to just 1 ETH to encourage more individual users to stake. By reducing the minimum requirement, he believes more users will be able to contribute to the network.
Enhancing Ethereum’s security was another key focus for Buterin. He proposed using “single secret leader election,” a cryptographic technique to make it harder for attackers to disrupt the network. By obfuscating the validator’s identity until the last moment, this method can prevent attackers from targeting specific validators with denial-of-service attacks.
Other improvements suggested by Buterin include raising the quorum threshold from 67% to 80% to strengthen Ethereum’s security. This change would make it more difficult for a quorum-blocking minority of solo stakers to disrupt the network. Additionally, Buterin highlighted the importance of preparing for quantum computing threats and recovering from potential 51% attacks.
Overall, Vitalik Buterin’s ambitious plans aim to enhance Ethereum’s proof-of-stake system by improving transaction speeds, democratizing staking, and strengthening security measures. These proposed upgrades could potentially revolutionize Ethereum’s performance and user experience, making it more competitive in the blockchain space. As Ethereum continues to evolve, Buterin’s vision for the future of the network reflects his commitment to innovation and progress in the cryptocurrency community.