In a new blog post titled “Possible Futures for the Ethereum Protocol, Part 2: The Surge,” Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined an ambitious roadmap aimed at increasing the transaction processing capacity of Ethereum. ‘Ethereum at over 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) on layer 1. Layer 2 (L1) and 2 (L2) solutions. This initiative, known as “The Surge,” aims to improve scalability while maintaining decentralization and security.
Buterin started by thinking about Ethereum’s initial scaling strategies, which involved sharding and Layer 2 protocols such as State Channels and Plasma. Early on, Ethereum had two scaling strategies in its roadmap, he wrote, pointing to a 2015 paper that discussed sharding, a method in which each node only needs to verify and store a fraction of the transactions. This approach mirrors how peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent work.
Simultaneously, layer 2 protocols were developed to offload calculations and data from the main chain while leveraging the security of Ethereum. Rollups emerged in 2019 as a powerful layer 2 solution, requiring significant on-chain data bandwidth. “Fortunately, by 2019, sharding research had solved the problem of verifying “data availability” at scale. As a result, the two paths converged and we got the stack-centric roadmap that continues to be Ethereum’s scaling strategy today,” Buterin explained.
Ethereum Roadmap: The Rise to Power
The Surge aims to achieve several key goals: achieving over 100,000 TPS on L1 and L2, preserving the decentralization and robustness of L1, ensuring that at least some L2s fully inherit Ethereum’s fundamental properties of lack of trust , openness and censorship resistance, and maximizing interoperability between L2s to make Ethereum feel like a unified ecosystem.
One of the main techniques for achieving these goals is data availability sampling (DAS). Currently, Ethereum’s L1 data bandwidth is limited, capping cumulative TPS at around 174. To break this barrier, Ethereum plans to implement PeerDAS, a form of one-dimensional sampling that allows nodes to efficiently check availability data.
“Our mid-term goal is 16 MB per location, which, combined with cumulative data compression improvements, would give us approximately 58,000 TPS,” Buterin noted. In the future, two-dimensional sampling could be adopted to improve efficiency, but with increased complexity. “We need much more work to find the ideal version of 2D DAS and prove its security properties,” he added.
Data compression techniques are also crucial to reducing the data footprint of transactions. These include signature aggregation using BLS signatures, replacing addresses with pointers to historical data, and custom serialization of transaction values. “We can thus represent most monetary values in a very compact way with a custom floating-point decimal format, or even a dictionary of particularly common values,” suggested Buterin.
Widespread plasma is another important element of The Surge. Plasma enables off-chain transactions with on-chain security guarantees. By incorporating SNARKs (Succinct Non-interactive Arguments of Knowledge), plasma becomes more powerful and generalizable. “Even if you can only protect a subset of assets… you have already greatly improved the status quo of ultra-scalable EVM, which is a validium,” he said.
Buterin also highlighted the need to evolve L2 proof systems. Today, most rollups are not completely reliable and rely on security tips that can bypass proof systems. He emphasized the importance of achieving “Stage 2” rollups, which are completely secure and trustless. This involves formal verification, using mathematical techniques to prove that proof systems conform to the EVM specification.
“We can create a formally verified SNARK prover of a minimal VM,” he explained. Additionally, deploying multiple proof systems, or “multi-provers,” guarantees redundancy and security. “If the systems of evidence agree, the Security Council has no power,” Buterin stressed.
Improving interoperability between Tier 2s is also a key objective. One of the major challenges is to make the L2 ecosystem transparent to users. Buterin proposed several improvements, such as chain-specific addresses that include the chain ID to simplify cross-L2 transactions, standardized payment requests for easy and secure payment requests across different chains, and the development of protocols like ERC-7683 and RIP-7755 for effective treatment. asset exchanges and gas payments.
Buterin also advocated for thin clients and keystore wallets to allow users to verify chains without relying on RPC providers and to simplify key management between chains. “Our ability to successfully manage this issue is a test of our ability to stay together as a community,” Buterin said.
While scaling L2 is vital, improving L1 remains crucial to the security and economic viability of Ethereum. Buterin discussed strategies such as increasing the gas limit, reducing costs of specific operations through proposals such as EOF (EVM Object Format), and exploring native rollups. “A big question that any L1 scaling roadmap must answer is: what is the ultimate vision of what belongs in L1 and what belongs in L2? » he asked, emphasizing the need for balance to maintain Ethereum’s core strengths.
Buterin concluded: “Our task now is to complete the rollup-centric roadmap and resolve these issues, while preserving the robustness and decentralization that make Ethereum L1 special. »
At press time, ETH was trading at $2,625.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
