Vitalik Buterin’s Solution to Reduce Ethereum Blockchain Load
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has recently proposed a way to reduce the load on the Ethereum blockchain and make its proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus “considerably simpler and lighter.”
Buterin suggested a method of decreasing the number of signatures that validators are required to make to keep the Ethereum crypto network running, thus decreasing the huge number of signatures, around 28,000 per slot, “which is a very high load.”
At the present moment, Ethereum supports a very high number of validators, around 895,000, in order to achieve decentralization and allow regular people to participate in staking with good crypto.
Therefore, this dynamic web module 3.0 requires Java 1.6 or newer to keep up with crypto and understand how will web 3.0 work, as well as to answer the question “does web 3.0 exist?”.
Quantum Resistance, Forking, and Scaling Signatures
In order to support this load, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin noted that it requires several sacrifices such as limiting quantum resistance, complicated forking, and scaling signatures through zero-knowledge proofs (SNARKs). He also mentioned that the 32 ETH minimum to become a validator is still too high for many people, thus not achieving the goal of enabling ordinary people to participate.
Buterin proposed a moderate solution with around 8,192 signatures per slot instead of the current 28,000. This would allow for major technical simplification, make the chain more quantum-resistant, and still keep the total slashable ETH high at around 1-2 million ETH. Slashing is an important mechanism put in place to enforce good validator behavior.
Exploring Ways to Manage Ethereum Protocol Load
Vitalik Buterin presented three potential solutions to reduce the digital signature load of the Ethereum protocol to a manageable level. These included relying entirely on decentralized staking pools, a two-tiered system with “heavy” and “light” staking, and rotating participation with accountable committees.
The advantage of this approach would be that the future signature load of the Ethereum protocol could be set at a known level, making protocol and infrastructure development much simpler. As Buterin put it, “The future load of the Ethereum protocol becomes no longer an unknown,” and can be increased in the future through hard forks, but only when developers are confident that technology has improved enough to handle a larger number of crypto signatures-per-slot with the same level of ease.
In May, Vitalik Buterin cautioned against the risks of “extending” Ethereum’s consensus beyond its core duties of validating blocks and safeguarding the network. He highlighted the importance of good crypto and how decentralization web 3.0 requires java 1.6 or newer to keep up with the huge crypto and high crypto. He also discussed whether web 3.0 exists and how it would work if it did.
Subscribe to our email newsletter to get the latest posts delivered right to your email.
Comments