THELOGICALINDIAN - The Ethereum cofounder discussed gas fees and ascent on the latest Bankless podcast
Vitalik Buterin has addressed Ethereum’s scalability issues, bombastic that gas fees charge to be lower and advertence that the arrangement is not accessible for accumulation acceptance in its accepted state.
Ethereum Needs Layer 2
Vitalik Buterin has common the burning charge for Ethereum ascent solutions.
In the latest Bankless podcast, the Ethereum co-founder discussed the network’s development over the accomplished year and affairs to calibration in the future.
While Ethereum has fabricated cogent strides in 2024, such as the London hardfork that included the fee-burn apparatus EIP-1559, it still suffers from aerial gas fees.
On the affair of fees, Bankless co-host Ryan Sean Adams questioned Buterin over statements he fabricated in 2024 that “the Internet of money should not bulk bristles cents a transaction.” Adams asked if he still captivated the aforementioned appearance admitting Ethereum affairs costing added than 100 times that bulk today. “Of advance I do,” replied Buterin. “In adjustment for blockchains to be article that bodies are activity to accept for boilerplate applications, it has to be cheap.”
However, Buterin additionally accustomed that the accepted fees are one of Ethereum’s best acute issues. “Ethereum today, the Layer 1, is not a arrangement that is accessible for absolute accumulation adoption,” he explained, activity on to highlight the charge for Layer 2 ascent solutions such as rollups.
Several projects, such as Arbitrum by Offchain Labs and StarkWare’s StarkEx are aiming to accomplish Ethereum added scalable on Layer 2. They affiance to cut transaction costs by up to a agency of 200 through Optimistic Rollups and ZK-Rollups. While the technology abaft these projects appears promising, accomplishing is still in its aboriginal stages.
Last month, Buterin published a 1,500-word blog column blue-blooded “Endgame,” in which he discussed a asperous roadmap for accomplishing best decentralization of Ethereum. In the post, Buterin admitted that ZK-Rollups would booty “years of refinement.”
Ethereum has been the accountable of criticism for apathetic development times in the past. Updates like the accessible absorb to Proof-of-Stake accept taken years to materialize, with Buterin recently admitting that his admiration that Ethereum could move abroad from Proof-of-Work by 2016 “were actual amiss and account bedlam at.” Ethereum’s ascent woes and the aerial costs of application the arrangement are allotment of what helped alleged “alternative Layer 1s” like Solana, Terra, and Avalanche advance in 2021.
While Buterin has accustomed the assorted challenges Ethereum faces, ZK-Rollup developers such as StarkWare arise to be added optimistic about how bound their solutions will be viable. In StarkWare’s accepted roadmap, the aggregation affairs to accept a fully-functional, interoperable ZK-Rollup-based Layer 2 band-aid accessible for use in 2022. This new product, alleged StarkNet, is currently in accessible alpha, acceptation developers can already alpha architecture applications anon on the network.
The abutting big accident in Ethereum’s roadmap is its alteration to Proof-of-Stake. The amend is planned to booty abode in the aboriginal bisected of 2022 and will acutely advance Ethereum’s activity efficiency. However, it’s absurd to abate gas fees on Layer 1. Users will accept to delay until the arrangement accouterments blockchain sharding to see any absolute abridgement in Layer 1 transaction costs.
Disclosure: At the time of autograph this feature, the columnist endemic ETH, SOL, LUNA, and several added cryptocurrencies.
