Vitalik Buterin wants rollups to hit stage 1 decentralization by year-end

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has proposed raising the standards for what qualifies as a rollup in the Ethereum ecosystem. In his latest blog post on March 28, he emphasized the need for developers to focus on decentralization efforts, suggesting that projects should aim to achieve certain milestones by the end of the year.

Buterin highlighted Ethereum’s transition from a period of rapid progress on layer 1 (L1) to an era where layer 1 progress will still be significant but more incremental. He emphasized that further scaling efforts will focus on increasing blob capacity and improving rollup efficiency.

Stricter Standards and Decentralization Progress

By the end of the year, Buterin proposed stricter standards, suggesting that projects should only be considered as rollups if they have reached at least Stage 1 of decentralization progress. Stage 1 signifies advancements in security and scaling, although not yet fully decentralized.

The roadmap includes implementing data availability sampling to increase blob capacity and optimizing layer-2 solutions through techniques like data compression and optimistic execution. Buterin envisions moving towards Stage 2, where rollups are truly backed by code and interventions are limited to instances where the code is inconsistent.

Ethereum’s Upgrade Phases and Future Outlook

Ethereum is currently in the Surge phase of its upgrade roadmap, focusing on scalability through rollups and data sharding. The subsequent Scourge phase will address censorship resistance, decentralization, and protocol risks. Buterin urged developers to adopt a forward-thinking approach, embracing layer-2 scaling, privacy features, and new forms of community participation.

Buterin concluded by stating that Ethereum has evolved beyond being solely a financial ecosystem, transforming into a comprehensive, independent decentralized tech stack. He emphasized the importance of embracing innovation and adapting to the changing landscape of decentralized technologies.