Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared a post-Merge roadmap, focusing on technical improvements to Ethereum’s protocol after its successful transition to Proof of Stake (PoS). In his blog post titled “Possible Futures of the Ethereum Protocol, Part 1: The Merge,” Buterin emphasized Ethereum’s stability since the Merge but highlighted areas for further development.
The transition to PoS marked a significant milestone, but Buterin believes there are still critical challenges to address. One of the key improvements involves reducing the time it takes Ethereum to finalize transactions. Currently, the PoS network requires approximately 15 minutes to complete a block, but reducing this to as low as 12 seconds is possible to achieve single-slot finality. This could significantly increase the transaction speed, making Ethereum compete better with centralized Layer 1 chains focusing on speed.
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Vitalik’s Vision for More Inclusive Ethereum Participation
Apart from increasing the speed of transaction clearance, Buterin has plans to decentralize Ethereum’s staking. He asks for the minimum staking amount to be changed from 32 ETH to as little as 1 ETH so that many solo stakeholders can be active on the network. One of the impacts of such a change could be an increase in decentralization since it would become more accessible to stakeholders.
However, implementing these upgrades poses challenges, as shorter finality times and lower staking limits may increase the workload for node operators who validate transactions. These issues are currently being investigated in research studies, and potential solutions involving signature aggregation and improved and faster committee-based validation methods can be envisaged.
Buterin mentioned other possible improvements in his post, such as a single-secret leader election and better transaction confirmation approaches. Such releases could add to Ethereum’s security and usability, which is part of the platform’s persistent decentralization and efficiency boosts.
In conclusion, Buterin’s proposed upgrades represent a significant step forward for Ethereum, improving security, accessibility, and overall performance as the network evolves.
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