Buterin Advocates Shift from Scaling to Optimising Ethereum

Buterin suggests shifting focus from scaling to optimising Ethereum.

The gas limit and the cost of complex operations, such as storage in the network of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, could increase fivefold, according to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. 

Expect continued growth but more targeted / less uniform growth for next year.

eg. one possible future is: 5x gas limit increase together with 5x gas cost increase for operations that are relatively inefficient to process

Potential targets for such increases (my current view):… https://t.co/FkiTxJnEAq

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 26, 2025

He was responding to a publication by Ethereum Foundation member Tony Warshtatter, who reported a doubling of throughput thanks to the efforts of client teams and researchers. 

Buterin noted that in 2026, the trend will continue, but growth will be “more targeted and less uniform.” According to his assessment, changes may affect: 

• operations for creating new storage slots (SSTORE);
• precompiled contracts;
• calls to large contracts (CALL);
• some complex arithmetic opcodes like MODMUL;
• call data (calldata). 

Currently, the average gas limit per block is about 60 million—an increase by five times would bring it to 300 million. Back in April, Ethereum researcher Dankrad Feist proposed raising it to 3.6 billion. 

New Donations  

The Ethereum co-founder also donated 256 ETH (~$760,000) to two decentralised messengers—Session and SimpleX Chat. According to him, these applications push the boundaries of digital privacy.

Encrypted messaging, like @signalapp, is critical for preserving our digital privacy. Two important next steps for the space are (i) permissionless account creation and (ii) metadata privacy.@session_app and @SimpleXChat are two messaging apps pushing these directions forward.…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 26, 2025

“However, both applications are far from ideal—they have significant work ahead on usability and security. The main challenge lies in the very nature of decentralisation required for true metadata protection,” he noted.  

Among the key challenges developers face, Buterin highlighted: 

• support for multiple devices;
• resilience to Sybil and DoS attacks;
• the need to build a reliable identification system without relying on conventional mobile numbers. 

The programmer also emphasised that the next steps in the field of decentralised messengers should be the ability to create accounts without permission and metadata protection.

Privacy in messaging applications has become a pressing issue amid controversial initiatives such as the EU’s “Chat Control” bill. It could require messengers like Telegram, WhatsApp, and Signal to provide authorities with access to user communications.

Buterin criticised the idea, stating that it threatens citizens’ right to privacy in digital communications.

He also previously opposed the geolocation feature in X, calling it “risky.”