Vitalik Buterin on Ethereum’s Future: Improving Decentralization and Permissionlessness

In
his
blog
post
titled “The
Near
and
Mid-Term
Future
of
Improving
the
Ethereum
Network’s
Permissionlessness
and
Decentralization,”





Vitalik
Buterin
outlines
significant
advancements
for
Ethereum’s
network.
The
primary
focus
is
on
developing
strategies
and
implementing
key
protocol
enhancements
to
enhance
the
experience
for
node
operators
and
users
on
both
Layer
1
and
Layer
2.

Ethereum’s
Development
Goals

The
Ethereum
community
and
developers
are
continually
questioning
whether
the
network’s
development
is
aligned
with
the
right
goals.
Concerns
about
the
network’s
decentralization,
along
with
the
technical
capacity
to
ship
large
and
significant
features,
are
being
addressed,
with
many
of
these
improvements
already
in
progress.
The
focus
now
is
to
address
the
concerns
raised
by
the
community
and
provide
viable
solutions.

Miner
Extractable
Value
(MEV)
and
Builder
Dependence

Miner
Extractable
Value
(MEV),
a
revenue
form
that
only
can
be
gained
by
executing
complex
strategies
within
various
DeFi
protocols,
has
caused
concern
within
the
Ethereum
community.
This
form
of
revenue
has
led
to
large
actors
gaining
a
higher
return
per
block
due
to
their
ability
to
optimize
extraction
algorithms.
Ethereum
researchers
are
working
to
minimize
this
issue
by
limiting
the
power
of
builders
while
still
allowing
them
to
optimize
arbitrage
and
other
forms
of
MEV
collecting.
The
goal
is
to
reduce
the
builder’s
power
to
exclude
or
delay
transactions,
thereby
preventing
certain
types
of
attacks.

Liquid
Staking

Most
Ethereum
staking
is
currently
done
by
various
providers,
including
centralized
operators
and
DAOs
like
Lido
and
RocketPool.
However,
solo
stakers
still
make
up
a
relatively
small
percentage
of
all
Ethereum
staking.
The
Ethereum
community
is
researching
ways
to
increase
solo
staking
by
reducing
the
minimum
deposit
size
and
simplifying
the
setup
process.
The
goal
is
to
make
solo
staking
more
accessible
and
economically
viable
for
a
wider
range
of
participants.

Hardware
Requirements
of
Nodes

The
accessibility
of
running
a
node
has
been
a
contentious
issue
within
the
blockchain
community
for
a
decade.
While
running
a
node
is
currently
challenging
and
requires
significant
resources,
Ethereum
is
working
on
solutions
to
reduce
the
hardware
requirements.
Implementations
of
Verkle
trees
and
EIP-4444
could
potentially
decrease
node
hardware
requirements
to
less
than
a
hundred
gigabytes.
Future
developments
could
possibly
reduce
these
requirements
even
further.

Conclusions

Ethereum
is
taking
steps
to
move
away
from
reliance
on
a
small
number
of
large-scale
actors
for
network
operations.
Current
protocol
proposals
are
emphasizing
the
need
for
a
truly
decentralized
network,
with
developments
such
as
stateless
nodes,
MEV
mitigations,
and
single-slot
finality
already
underway.
However,
there
is
still
much
work
to
be
done
to
further
enhance
Ethereum’s
decentralization
and
permissionlessness.

Image
source:
Shutterstock

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