Ripple and Coinbase recently emerged in rumors of bidding for Circle, the issuer of USDC, sparking community concerns. If Ripple succeeds in acquiring Circle, it would simultaneously control two major stablecoins and potentially trigger a "doomsday" scenario for Ethereum, DeFi ecosystem, and even the entire crypto domain.
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ToggleBackground: Ripple and Coinbase Intend to Acquire Circle
ABMedia previously reported that Ripple is currently leading the bidding to acquire Circle with a bid ranging from $9 to $11 billion.
Circle is the issuer of USDC, a stablecoin crucial in Ethereum and Solana's DeFi ecosystems, with a total market value of $60 billion and a 24.6% market share. In comparison, Ripple's own stablecoin RLUSD has a market value of only about $300 million, ranking 18th.
In fact, Ripple had already proposed a $5 billion acquisition in early May, which Circle rejected. The significantly raised bid highlights Ripple's ambition to control the stablecoin market.
[The rest of the translation follows the same approach, maintaining the structure and translating all text while preserving <> tags]Today, Circle, as a pivotal role at the intersection of crypto and traditional finance, is facing a critical moment of dilemma. At this juncture, redefining its direction, expanding diverse businesses, and strengthening market leadership have become urgent priorities.
Risk Warning
Cryptocurrency investment carries high risks, with potentially significant price volatility, and you may lose all of your principal. Please carefully assess the risks.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik published a latest scaling proposal, attempting to enhance Layer-1 scalability through "partially stateless nodes" and a series of short-term measures while maintaining node operation's decentralization and trustworthiness.
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ToggleL1 Scaling Challenges: Improving Gas Limit Without Compromising Node Operation
The Ethereum mainnet (Layer-1) has limited transaction processing capacity per second, becoming a major bottleneck for application expansion. To improve processing capabilities, a common method is to increase the L1 Gas Limit (maximum computational capacity within a block). However, Vitalik points out that the community has concerns, with the most common criticism being that it would make running full nodes more difficult, thereby reducing the overall network's decentralization and security.
Vitalik states: "Running full nodes is important because it provides users with a 'trustless, censorship-resistant, and privacy-focused' way to access the blockchain."
Short-Term Strategy: Three Major Proposals to Make Nodes Lighter
To increase the Gas Limit without compromising node operation capabilities, Vitalik proposed three short-term priority solutions:
Implement EIP-4444: This proposal stipulates that nodes only need to retain historical data for up to 36 days, which can significantly reduce storage requirements. Currently, full nodes need to store about 1TB of state data and 500GB of historical data, and EIP-4444 will substantially reduce this burden.
Establish a decentralized historical data storage system: Preserve old data through external distributed data networks, so nodes don't have to store it themselves.
Adjust the gas price structure: Increase the cost of "storage" while lowering the cost of "execution", encouraging developers to optimize smart contract design and reduce storage pressure.
Mid-Term Strategy: Further Simplifying Node Data Requirements with "Stateless Verification"
Vitalik lists "stateless verification" as the mid-term technical route. This technology allows nodes to verify blocks without preserving complete Merkle branches (structures used for data verification), estimated to reduce storage requirements by about 50% and further lower node barriers.
This verification method also lays the foundation for future zkEVM (zero-knowledge virtual machine) and modular blockchain combinations.
Innovative Concept Emerges: "Partially Stateless Nodes" Could Potentially Increase Gas Limit by 100 Times
In this roadmap, Vitalik first introduced the concept of "Partially Stateless Nodes". He states that these nodes combine stateless verification and zkEVM technologies, not requiring complete on-chain state data storage, but instead storing only selected partial data and providing verification and query functions based on this.
This means that even if nodes do not store all data, they can still process transactions and query block data. If these nodes are widely deployed, they have the potential to increase L1's Gas Limit by 10 to 100 times.
Paving the Way for Future Ethereum Upgrades
Vitalik's new technical roadmap aims to balance the contradiction between blockchain scaling and node operability. He emphasizes that if technological innovations can lower full node barriers, this will further consolidate the balance between Ethereum's decentralization, security, and scalability, paving the way for future large-scale applications.
Risk Warning
Cryptocurrency investment carries high risks, with potentially significant price volatility, and you may lose all of your principal. Please carefully assess the risks.
