Vitalik Buterin Proposes RISC-V Improve to Increase Ethereum’s Execution Pace

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has recommended a daring change to the community’s execution layer by proposing a change from the Ethereum Digital Machine (EVM) contract language to the RISC-V instruction set structure.

In a proposal shared on April 20, Buterin outlined key bottlenecks that Ethereum should deal with to stay scalable and aggressive.

These embody enhancing information availability sampling, guaranteeing wholesome competitors in block manufacturing, and optimizing zero-knowledge proof era.

Buterin Sees RISC-V as Key to Advancing Ethereum’s Zero-Information Capabilities

Buterin mentioned integrating RISC-V may unlock main features in these areas, significantly for zero-knowledge functionalities, that are more and more important to Ethereum’s future.

“The beam chain effort holds nice promise for simplifying Ethereum’s consensus layer,” Buterin wrote.

“However for the execution layer to realize related advantages, a radical shift like this can be the one viable path.”

The proposal comes at a time when Ethereum is underneath rising stress to maintain tempo with newer, high-throughput blockchains comparable to Solana and Sui.

These networks supply quicker and cheaper transactions, making them more and more enticing to builders and customers.

In the meantime, Ethereum’s income from “blob charges”—a type of transaction payment collected from layer-2 networks—has plummeted.

Information from Etherscan exhibits blob charges dropped to only 3.18 ETH (roughly $5,000) through the week of March 30, whereas common community charges in April 2025 hit a five-year low of $0.16 per transaction.

Santiment’s advertising and marketing director Brian Quinlivan attributes the payment drop to decreased exercise on the Ethereum base layer, as customers migrate to layer-2 options.

Whereas these networks have helped scale back transaction prices, they’ve additionally diverted important payment income away from Ethereum’s core infrastructure.

This shift has raised issues in regards to the long-term sustainability of the bottom layer.

With ETH costs already underneath stress, analysts warn that continued erosion of base-layer exercise may drive Ether down additional, doubtlessly to ranges round $1,100 if investor sentiment doesn’t get better.

VC Blames Layer-2s for Ether’s Waning Funding Enchantment

Final month, crypto enterprise capitalist Nic Carter of Citadel Island Ventures pointed to 2 key points undermining Ether’s worth: the rise of layer-2 (L2) scaling networks and unchecked token issuance.

He argued that “grasping Eth L2s” are siphoning off worth from Ethereum’s base layer whereas giving little again.

He additionally criticized the Ethereum group’s acceptance of extreme token creation, claiming that “ETH was buried in an avalanche of its personal tokens. Died by its personal hand.”

Carter’s feedback adopted a equally stark evaluation from Quinn Thompson, founding father of Lekker Capital, who declared that Ethereum is “fully lifeless” as an funding.

Thompson cited declining transaction exercise, decreased consumer progress, and falling community revenues as indicators that ETH now not presents a powerful funding case, regardless of its utility as a blockchain platform.

Again in September 2024, Carter warned that Ethereum’s payment income had plummeted by 99% over six months as L2s captured consumer exercise and income with out contributing to Ethereum’s base layer.

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