Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that new technologies in privacy and data processing have effectively addressed the scalability challenges that the blockchain has long faced.
However, he also cautioned that a full security rollout for these developments would take several more years.
Buterin presented a roadmap to 2030 aimed at ensuring absolute safety.
In a January 3, 2024, X blog post , Buterin stated that the integration of zero-knowledge virtual machines into Ethereum has completely transformed the network's capabilities.
He added that this change is due to the combination of ZK-EVMs and the PeerDAS data distribution method.
"These are not minor improvements, but fundamental changes that are transforming Ethereum into a completely new and more powerful type of decentralized network," he emphasized.
He argued that this combination had solved the “Blockchain Trilemma”—a long-standing technical problem of how to simultaneously achieve high levels of decentralization, security, and bandwidth in blockchain technology.
Buterin compared this new structure to "BitTorrent with added consensus," contrasting it with Bitcoin's model , which prioritizes decentralization but is limited by its data processing speed.
With these new improvements, he believes Ethereum can now handle massive amounts of data, like large file Chia networks, while still maintaining the security of a decentralized ledger.
“The three-pillar problem has been solved – not just in theory, but with actual source code, where half (data availability sampling) has appeared on the mainnet and the other half (ZK-EVMs) are ready for practical operation – only security remains,” he analyzed.
However, the process of turning this vision into practice still has a long way to go.
While Buterin asserted that the technology had achieved "practical performance," he also acknowledged that much work remained to be done to ensure the system was truly secure.
According to the timeline he provided, ZK-EVMs will not become the primary Block verification method until 2027–2030. This technology will enable faster and more cost-effective transaction verification without exposing the original data.
In the meantime, the network will continue to be upgraded in small increments .
This year, Buterin predicts that the gas limit will be raised. Changes in the new protocol will support this by separating the roles of transaction proposer and Block builder, and allowing for more transactions to be processed per Block.
In the later stages, Buterin aims to promote the concept of "distributed Block building." This is a system where no single entity builds an entire Block; instead, parts are Chia and processed by multiple participating parties.
He argued that this distribution of authority would reduce the risk of centralized censorship and help ensure that transactions are processed more evenly across regions.
“The ideal long-term goal is to move toward a future where a complete Block is never built in a single location. This may not be necessary right now, but I believe we should strive to achieve it when the time comes,” Buterin wrote.
This technological shift comes at a time when Ethereum is still facing intense competition from faster, lower-cost blockchains, forcing developers to accelerate the deployment of next-generation scalability solutions.
