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Ethereum (ETH) will eventually be able to process 100,000 transactions per second, according to the project’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
In a newly released Ethereum roadmap, Buterin explained what users should expect from the next phase of the blockchain’s Dencun upgrade. The promise that may stand out the most is that he expects Ethereum to be able to process over 100,000 transactions per second with the help of layer two protocols and other optimizations.
Buterin explained that such extreme scalability will be allowed by combining rollup-based layer two’s, advanced data availability sampling, and data compression techniques. He wrote:
“The rollup-centric roadmap proposes a simple division of labor: the Ethereum L1 focuses on being a robust and decentralized base layer, while L2s take on the task of helping the ecosystem scale.”
Possible futures for the Ethereum protocol, part 2: The Surgehttps://t.co/DdEUpV4zQN
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 17, 2024
Increasing Ethereum’s gas limit
The Ethereum co-founder further explained that he believes the blockchain would be simply imitating what society at large has already implemented. He explained:
“This is a pattern that recurs everywhere in society: the court system (L1) is not there to be ultra-fast and efficient, it’s there to protect contracts and property rights, and it’s up to entrepreneurs (L2) to build on top of that sturdy base layer.”
Buterin further explained that increasing Ethereum’s gas limit — which measures the computational effort required to execute transactions and smart contracts on Ethereum — would be an easy way to improve scalability.
This change would allow for more complex transactions to be processed. Still, it would come at the cost of further centralization since hardware requirements to run nodes would increase, pushing to a lower number of larger validators.
For this reason, Buterin advocates for optimizing gas consumption and introducing a more efficient bytecode format called Ethereum Object Format. This improvement would optimize smart contract execution, reducing gas costs and allowing for a higher network throughput.
Lastly, the Ethereum co-founder is looking to decrease the friction between layer two protocols to make them more interoperable. He explained that he wants Ethereum to feel less fractured:
“Ethereum should feel like one ecosystem, not 34 different blockchains. […] If we are serious about the idea that L2s are part of Ethereum, we need to make using the L2 ecosystem feel like using a unified Ethereum ecosystem.”
