Vitalik Buterin Suggests Streamlining Ethereum to Match Bitcoin's Simplicity

Key Points:

Vitalik Buterin emphasizes the need for simplifying Ethereum’s protocol to reduce complexity while retaining its strengths.
The increasing technical complexity of Ethereum hinders maintenance and makes onboarding new developers challenging.
Proposed revisions focus on overhauling the consensus layer and transitioning to a simpler virtual machine.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argues for a significant simplification of the platform, aiming to align its complexity closer to that of Bitcoin while keeping its advantages in programmability and scalability. In a blog post published on Saturday, Buterin stated that Ethereum’s expanding technical complexities — including its consensus mechanisms and virtual machine — complicate maintenance, auditing, and developer onboarding.

He proposes a multi-year plan to condense Ethereum’s “consensus-critical” codebase, minimizing the risk of the protocol becoming overly technical and fragile. He stated, “Even a smart high school student is capable of fully wrapping their head around and understanding the Bitcoin protocol. A programmer can write a client as a hobby project.”

High Complexity

The complexities of Ethereum’s base layer have surged due to added features and new consensus designs, which, while enabling advanced functionalities like smart contracts, have increased the likelihood of bugs. This rise in complexity also complicates upgrades and raises the entry barrier for new developers compared to Bitcoin’s minimalist core design of blocks, transactions, proof-of-work, and coin outputs.

Buterin suggests simplifying the current consensus layer (the “beacon chain”), which currently involves intricate mechanics. He also speaks of gradually patching the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), with plans to eventually switch it out for a streamlined machine like RISC-V, which could enhance performance for zero-knowledge provers and drastically lower code complexity. However, ensuring backward compatibility with existing Ethereum apps remains a primary challenge, and he recommends a phased approach where both the existing EVM and the new VM function together.