Ethereum enters a new phase as ZK-EVMs and PeerDAS reshape scalability, decentralization, and consensus, according to Vitalik Buterin.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the network is entering a historic transformation phase. He opened by describing how ZK-EVMs and PeerDAS re-architecture blockchain. Consequently, Ethereum has currently integrated high bandwidth, high consensus, and decentralization. Therefore, he claimed that the trilemma of blockchain, which has long been the subject of discussion, is successfully addressed with live code.
Buterin says that PeerDAS is running on Ethereum mainnet. In the meantime, ZK-EVMs are in production level at the alpha level. Therefore, Ethereum today is a sort of a new breed of decentralized network. He linked this change to BitTorrent and Bitcoin to emphasize its significance.
BitTorrent, which was initiated in 2000, provided massive bandwidth, decentralization and no consensus. Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009, was successful in obtaining consensus and decentralization, but with limited bandwidth. Nonetheless, now Ethereum, along with PeerDAS and ZK-EVMs, can implement all three properties at the same time. This transformation, as he pointed out, was not hypothetical.
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Buterin underlined that today, data availability sampling is already being used on mainnet. Simultaneously, ZK-EVMs are production quality in terms of performance and safety is to be improved. He termed this success as the culmination of ten years, beginning with the initial ZK-EVM experiments in the year 2020.
Moreover, he presented a multi-year roadmap of the implementation layer of Ethereum. Ethereum may experience significant non-ZK-EVM gas limit increases in 2026. These improvements would depend on Blob-carrying blocks, BALs, and ePBS. Notably, the nodes of early ZK-EVM might also appear at this time.
Further adjustments will be made between 2026 and 2028. These are gas repricing, changes of state structure, and execution payloads into blobs. All these changes are focused on ensuring that higher gas limits are safe. This means that Ethereum throughput might increase considerably without compromising security.
Going even deeper in the future, Buterin believes that ZK-EVMs will take over block validation. He estimated that ZK-EVMs would be the main method of validation of Ethereum between 2027 and 2030. This will be followed by further large increases in gas limits. This would bring a radical change to the Ethereum block validation.
However, he emphasized that block building is a different long-term challenge. Ideally, a whole block should not be put together by one entity. Though it is not needed nowadays, he claimed that Ethereum should have this ability in the future. This improvement would further mitigate the risks of centralization.
There were two possible directions of distributed block building proposed by Butterin. One entails in-protocol solutions, e.g., enlarging FOCIL as a main transaction channel. The second one is based on out-of-protocol distributed builder markets. The two strategies seek to decentralize the control of the inclusion of transactions.
Increasing decentralization, he said, secures Ethereum against real-time interference with order of transactions. Also, it enhances geographic fairness within the network. These are the targets that are in line with the wider concept of decentralization of Ethereum.
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