Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
Simplifying the L1 https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/05/03/simplel1.html
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
One of the best things about Bitcoin is how simple it is. This simplicity has lots of benefits. Let's bring those benefits to Ethereum.
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
The effort to revamp Ethereum's consensus, historically called the beam chain, includes many opportunities to simplify consensus, while also increasing efficiency and security.
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
Now we get to the execution layer. This is one of my motivations for proposing the RISC-V (or other ZK-friendly) VM shift.
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
A backwards-compatibility strategy: move the old EVM from consensus-critical client code, to a RISC-V implementation. Existing contracts would continue working as-is.
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
We can also simplify the protocol by making sure that sub-protocols are shared as much as possible: there should ideally only be one way we do X, across the consensus, execution and other layers. Potential targets: erasure coding, serialization, trees.
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
Caring about simplicity is, like decentralization, a short-term cost for the sake of benefits that do not appear immediately. But in the long term, it will be worth it. Let's make each part of the ethereum spec a place where things like this can happen: https://x.com/leonardoalt/status/1917583664755671408
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Andrej Muzevic
@andrejm
I’m for decoupling consensus and execution layers 🫡
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Andrej Muzevic
@andrejm
That being said, mature projects are harder to steer and that’s as much a social as a tech debt issue. Lindy has two sides.
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