A new wind for Ethereum – Launched in 2015, the network Ethereum continues to evolve through frequent updates. Two months after the transition to Proof of Stake, Vitalik Buterin just unveiled a new roadmap for the project.
After The Merge: a new roadmap for Ethereum
On September 15, the Ethereum network experienced a historic update via the deployment of The Merge. In practice, this update marked the final transition from Ethereum from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
A change of consensus will allow the deployment of other major updates in the future. Precisely, we have just learned more about the upcoming events for Ethereum. Indeed, on November 5, Vitalik Buterinthe co-founder of Ethereum posted on Twitter a diagram showing the new roadmap of the project.
This new roadmap is made up of 6 steps entitled: The Merge, The Surge, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge.
Although their names are not self-explanatory, each of these stages has a series of updates aimed at drastically improving network performance.
Step 1: The Merge
The first step in this long series of developments is called The Merge. This stage includes several milestones that have already been achieved, including the move to Proof of Stake.
This has one objective: to obtain a blockchain with Simple, robust, and decentralized Proof of Stake. However, the transition to Proof of Stake does not mark the end of this stage. Indeed, this one still includes several evolutions.
Among them, we find in particular the possibility of withdrawing the funds deposited in staking on the beacon chain. The feature that should be deployed during the Shanghai hard fork. This stage will include other novelties, such as the Single Slot Finality (SSF) or even improvements on signature aggregation.
Step 2: The Surge
The second stage of this series of evolution is called The Surge. Its objective is to improve the performance of the network by reaching 100,000 transactions per second on second-layer solutions (rollups).
This emphasizes the EIP 4844also called Proto Danksharding. This one “introduces a new type of transaction in Ethereum that accepts ‘blobs’ of data to be held in beacon chain nodes for a short period”. This will thus improve the performance of the second-layer solutions.
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Step 3: The Scourge
The third step of this roadmap is titled The Scourge. This emphasizes censorship resistance, particularly at the block validation level.
“The goal is to ensure the inclusion of trustworthy and credibility-neutral transactions and to avoid centralization and other protocol risks associated with SRM. »
Vitalik Buterin
To do this, Vitalik Buterin envisages the creation of other block markets than those currently used by SRM operators. In addition, this step could lead to research regarding protection against front-running.
Step 4: The Verge
The fourth stage of the new roadmap is called The Verge. This emphasizes data accessibility.
Indeed, The Verge aims to improve thin clients and facilitate access to block data.
In addition, this step will focus on Zero-Knowledge proofs, especially the evidence SNARKS. Via this step, Vitalik Buterin aims for a complete transition from Ethereum to SNARKS proofs.
“The Verge is not just about ‘verkle trees’. It’s a matter of ‘verification’. End goal: Ethereum fully SNARKed. »
Vitalik Buterin
Step 5: The Purge
This fifth and penultimate step is called The Purge. This aims to simplify the protocol.
“The goal is to simplify the protocol, eliminate technical debt, and limit the costs of participating in the network by cleaning up the history. »
Vitalik Buterin
This stage will see developments such as the rapid synchronization of nodes. This should be made possible through EIP 4444.
“Clients should stop serving historical headers, bodies, and receipts older than a year on the p2p layer. Customers can locally prune this historical data. »
Vitalik Buterin
Step 6: The Splurge
The sixth and last step of this new roadmap is called The Splurge. This aims to correct “everything else”.
Thus, this step will include a revision of the mechanisms of the EIP 1559. It will also introduce theERC 4337a new standard that focuses on the abstraction of accounts.
In the meantime, the Ethereum network will continue to advance step by step, hard fork after hard fork. For example, the next network update will be via the hard fork Shanghai, planned for the year 2023.
