Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says the network has effectively “solved” one of the crypto industry’s most persistent challenges—the blockchain trilemma.
In a post on X on Saturday, Buterin highlighted the impact of peer data availability sampling (PeerDAS) and zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (ZK-EVMs), saying the upgrades are transforming Ethereum into “a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network.”
“With Ethereum gaining PeerDAS in 2025 and ZK-EVMs—expected to be used by small parts of the network in 2026—we achieve decentralization, consensus, and high bandwidth,” Buterin said, adding:
“The trilemma has been solved — not on paper, but with live running code, of which one half (data availability sampling) is *on mainnet today*, and the other half (ZK-EVMs) is *production-quality on performance today* — safety is what remains.”
PeerDAS is a scalability upgrade introduced with Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade in December, designed to significantly increase the amount of data the network can handle.
ZK-EVMs, meanwhile, are virtual machines that support zero-knowledge proofs while remaining compatible with the existing Ethereum Virtual Machine. Although the concept has existed for some time, Buterin noted that ZK-EVMs are still in their “alpha stage”—performance-ready but in need of further security hardening.
Buterin has outlined a roughly four-year roadmap for ZK-EVMs to be fully integrated across Ethereum. Once that process is complete, he believes the blockchain trilemma will be effectively resolved.
“Over the next ~4 years, expect to see the full extent of this vision roll out,” Buterin said. “In 2026, we’ll see large non-ZK-EVM-dependent gas limit increases due to BALs and ePBS, along with the first opportunities to run a ZK-EVM node.”
He added that between 2026 and 2028, Ethereum will undergo gas repricings, changes to state structure, and shifts such as moving execution payloads into blobs—adjustments aimed at safely supporting higher gas limits. From 2027 to 2030, he expects further substantial gas limit increases as ZK-EVMs become the primary method for block validation on the network.
Ethereum’s decade-long path to the trilemma
Buterin emphasized that reaching this stage has taken nearly a decade of sustained development. He pointed to his first writings on solving data availability challenges in April 2017 as an early milestone in that journey.
“This was a 10-year journey,” he said, “but it’s finally here.”
The blockchain trilemma refers to the difficulty of simultaneously achieving decentralization, security, and scalability without compromising any one of those pillars. Most blockchains tend to prioritize one or two—such as speed and security—in their early phases, gradually working toward balance over time.
In his post, Buterin cited Bitcoin as a clear example, noting that while the network is highly decentralized and secure by design, it continues to face significant scalability constraints.
