Vitalik Buterin outlined a probable roadmap for Ethereum’s development, according to which the network, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, could boost its scalability while remaining secure and censorship-resistant. Central to the concept is the ZK-Rollups technology.
Endgamehttps://t.co/wm9Pvdjxo0
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 6, 2021
According to Buterin, for a ‘medium-to-large’ blockchain, the characteristics include frequent generation of large blocks and high throughput (‘thousands of transactions per second’) with low decentralization. This is because, due to block size and, consequently, operational costs, only a handful of nodes participate fully in block production.
The Ethereum founder noted that Rollups increase the efficiency of block validation, but do not solve the problem of centralized block production. In his view, there are two possible pathways for wide-scale deployment of the technology: either ‘everyone will switch’ to a single Rollup, or network activity will be distributed among several solutions.
In the first case, Ethereum on Layer 1 would implement sharding, and the blockchain would be able to store all data of the dominant solution, distributing them across its segments.
«We are entering a world where block production is centralized, validation is trustless and decentralised, and censorship is still prevented. Block producers have to process a huge number of transactions, so this market is hard to enter, yet they have no ability to push invalid blocks», — concluded Buterin.
An alternative scenario assumes that none of the Rollups projects manages to capture a large share of Ethereum’s network activity. In that case the ecosystem would have a structure similar to Cosmos, i.e., represented by several independent blockchains. The connection between these segments would be provided by cross-chain bridges.
«It seems that such an approach will allow us to have everything: decentralized validation, robust protection from censorship, and even distributed block production, since all Rollups are small and it is easy to start operations in them. But decentralization of block production may prove short-lived due to the possibility of inter-domain MEV», wrote the Ethereum founder.
Buterin explained that an architecture that allows blocks to be generated simultaneously in several domains creates opportunities for arbitrage. Additionally, he said, there is a risk that block production across all domains could be controlled by the same people.
Основатель Ethereum добавил, что возможными решениями могут быть «механизм аукциона на добычу блоков», имплементация «каналов обхода цензуры» (censorship-resistant bypass channels) в Rollups или их комбинация. Все предложения предполагают реализацию PBS в основной сети.
По словам Бутерина, блокчейн ETH «открыт для всех вариантов», поскольку его дорожная карта ориентирована на Rollups. Поэтому его сторонникам «не нужно выбирать победителей». Он также подчеркнул, что эта технология потребует «годы доработок и аудитов».
Ранее основатель второй по капитализации криптовалюты представил дорожную карту развития решений второго уровня на базе технологии Rollups для Ethereum.
As noted, on December 9 the Arrow Glacier hard fork will take place in the Ethereum network, delaying the activation of the ‘difficulty bomb’ until May 2022.
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