As the world’s second largest digital currency by market cap, Ethereum has made quite a name for itself over the last several years, but according to founder Vitalik Buterin, the asset is not going to do well in the future unless it makes a few changes.
Vitalik Buterin on the Later Success of ETH
In a blog post called “The Three Transitions,” Buterin said Ethereum is going to need “to evolve around transitions in Layer-2 scaling solutions, a move to smart contract wallets, and greater privacy for fund transfers.” These are common problems in the digital currency industry, and they are usually grouped together to form what has come to be known as the blockchain trilemma.
Usually, a blockchain is considered top of the line if it’s secure, scalable, and decentralized. However, in most cases, a blockchain is usually only able to accomplish two of those three aspects. Buterin says that if Ethereum is to survive, it must learn to do all three.
Adding to his words is CEO of OP Labs and co-founder of Ethereum scaler Optimism Karl Floersch, who stated in an interview:
Layer 2s are critical to the success of Ethereum’s vision of the world computer. Without L2s, Ethereum won’t scale. Without scale, Ethereum will never be able to support the world’s compute demand, and until the world’s compute is fully supported, we can’t fully realize Ethereum’s vision… The solution isn’t simply ‘move users off of [the] main net.’ Rather, the solution lies in extending the capabilities of the Ethereum network. This means that instead of thinking about it as a migration from [the] main net, we can think about it as load balancing the demand for Ethereum main net with other highly secure OP chains.
Eli Ben-Sasson – co-founder of the Israeli firm Stark Wire, which is highly involved in Layer-2 scaling – was quick to agree, stating:
Having the leadership from Vitalik which both appreciates the excitement of this moment and urges the community to get on board is a big part of what will propel Ethereum’s success.
Concluding his blog, Buterin wrote:
Without [privacy], Ethereum fails because having all transactions available publicly for literally anyone to see is far too high a privacy sacrifice for many users.
Many Updates Have Helped
Ethereum is the biggest competitor to bitcoin, and while it may not even be close in terms of its price, its network has come quite far in that it’s attracted developers from all over the world who are seeking to establish new currencies, tokens, and blockchains with ETH’s technology.
In recent years, the network has grown so much and garnered so much traffic that it’s been subjected to high fees and slow speeds, but there have been several upgrades in recent months (i.e., the Merge, Shapella, etc.) that have sought to improve these aspects.
