Vitalik Buterin has interesting plans for Ethereum (ETH), one of which is to simplify the Layer-1 blockchain soon. According to the Ethereum co-founder, Bitcoin (BTC) forms the primary yardstick on which to base this scaling trend.
Vitalik Buterin 5-Year Plan
As part of his five-year plan, Buterin is considering major changes to Ethereum so that it can enjoy similar benefits to Bitcoin.
One of the several key modifications he came up with is to have the second-largest blockchain reflect some of Bitcoin’s top qualities. The Ethereum frontman is optimistic that this transition will benefit L1.
Because of its simplicity, blocks on the Bitcoin chain are linked by a hash and verified by a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism.
This is unlike Ethereum, which utilizes a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) following the Merge transition. Markedly, every block contains transactions that spend coins. Buterin said,
“Even a smart high school student is capable of fully wrapping their head around and understanding the Bitcoin protocol…A programmer is capable of writing a client as a hobby project.”
Apart from gleaning from the clear outlook of the Bitcoin protocol, making Ethereum as simple as the former will require slashing the maintenance fee.
It is also expedient that bugs on the blockchain are minimized and participation in protocol development is expanded.
Vitalik Buterin pointed to Ethereum issues like EVM’s 256-bit architecture and precompiles, describing them as over-optimized for outdated use cases.
Ethereum Upgrades: Past and Future
The Vitalik Buterin effort is not to belittle Ethereum developers’ past efforts to upgrade its system.
He is not only aware of the amendments that the blockchain has had to undergo. He remains at the center of most of them.
Alongside The Merge that marked Ethereum’s transition from PoW to PoS, the developers also initiated Dencun upgrade to scale Layer-2 protocols.
Currently, the developers are working on the next upgrade, Pectra..
This particular upgrade holds the potential to rekindle market interest in Ethereum, notwithstanding the current dismal price action.
It could address long-standing user experience challenges and even improve staking.
In the long run, the Pectra upgrade may be what Ethereum requires to narrow the competitive gap with rivals like Solana and BNB.
In March, the Pectra Upgrade finalized the Hoodi testnet after several disruptions on Holesky and Sepolina.
The launch of the Hoodi testnet is a pacesetter for the Pectra mainnet that is expected to debut on May 7.
Beyond Pectra, Ethereum core developers are also working on five key projects to enhance the blockchain.
The introduction of three-slot finality (3SF), accountable liveness, improving how the network handles large amounts of activity, blob gossip, and validation are all updates geared towards stretching Ethereum’s capacity.
Market outlook for ETH
Until now, the ETH price has not accurately reflected the ongoing developments in the broader Ethereum ecosystem.
The broader crypto market dip recorded a few weeks ago also put the second-largest crypto by market cap in a tight position.
There has been some slight price recovery, but this coin is still far from key breakout levels.
At the time of this writing, ETH price traded at $1,832.02 following a 0.27% drawdown within the last 24 hours.
Crypto analyst Dan Gambardello believes that the ETH price shows signs of a trend reversal that could push it toward the $3,450 level.
He highlighted some significant whale accumulations of the coin.
Gambardello went further, comparing current inflow charts to patterns that previously marked the beginning of market bottoms.
The outlook suggests that Ethereum has potential to reclaim the $2,000 level in the coming days.
