AMA on Ethereum Addresses Scalability, Privacy and Development

In this event, team members appeared and answered questions from community users. 

The event’s objectives were to delve into future scalability solutions, liquidity fragmentation in Layer 2 (L2), and other important aspects of Ethereum’s roadmap.

The prominent figures, including Vitalik Buterin, led the session and offered detailed insights into the evolution of the Ethereum landscape. The AMA built an idea around future developments and improvements in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The points of discussion at the event included the potential of increasing Ethereum’s transaction capacity beyond the current limit, targeting over 2,000 tps (transactions per second). The limitations of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4,844 were examined in scaling.

It highlighted the need for data publication methods that are more efficient. The PeerDAS protocol offered a desired approach in this context. It is aiming for a blend of scalability and efficiency. 

The event addressed the challenge of liquidity fragmentation on Ethereum L2. Vitalik Buterin cited the example of UniswapX to support his optimism around open, permissionless cross-L2 transfer protocols.

The newly developed approach addressed usability challenges on ETH L2 while simultaneously promoting smoother transfers across different layers.

Potential Improvement Prospects Highlighted around ETH

The team and attendees discussed the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI), exploring potential collaborative avenues for the ETH platform. Another crucial topic for the discussion includes the role of privacy in the future of Ethereum, emphasizing the balance of privacy features with scalability and other pressing concerns.

A significant portion of the Ask Me Anything event was dedicated to discussing the re-stake risk of EigenLayer and its implications for Ethereum’s security model. Beyond this, the discussion went across the scenarios of most L2s choosing alternative data availability (DA) layers over Ethereum. It further supported an assessment of the impact on Ethereum’s ecosystem.

The Ethereum Foundation’s commitment to enhancing the Ethereum network’s scalability, security, and user experience was highlighted in the AMA.

EIP-4844 Scaling Challenges: Achieving VISA- Level Throughput

A community member asked about Ethereum’s scalability in the context of EIP-4844 and its implications for data availability. The representative of the Ethereum Foundation, Dankrad Feist, acknowledged the limited scaling impact of EIP-4844. He highlighted its primary role in data publishing rather than intrinsic stability. 

Fiest further stated that Ethereum Foundation researchers have some exciting research on getting some scaling soon. He also mentioned that PeerDAS is easily implemented and has a basic version that provides some amount of scaling on a very short horizon. It will help Ethereum in upscaling its data capacity, with the potential to achieve a 10x increase.

The founder of Ethereum refers to Plasma as a reliable scaling solution. Moreover, he presented how better data compression can enhance Ethereum’s scalability.

Ethereum’s Approach to L2 Liquidity and Composability

The next question was about Ethereum’s strategy to handle liquidity fragmentation and composability challenges in Layer 2. Justin Drake, a researcher from the Ethereum Foundation, started with the challenges faced during the current transitional phase.

The current state of Ethereum’s Layer 2 (L2) landscape observes challenges, including liquidity fragmentation and composability issues around multiple rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism. Rollups operate as a separate system, lacking universal synchronous composability. 

Ethereum is looking into shared sequencing and real-time proving methods for rollups. Shared sequencing refers to multiple rollups utilizing the same sequencer, allowing transactions to be sequenced simultaneously. SNARKs power real-time proving to ensure quick validation of transactions, speeding up deposit and withdrawal processes across rollups.

The ultimate objective is to make Ethereum L1 the shared sequencer for rollups to bring utility to the ecosystem. 

Conclusion: Vitalik Buterin on the Future of Ethereum

The recent discussions and AMA were focused on Verkle trees and how the execution clients are lighter. The community members wondered if sync committees would be removed from the protocol as it is designed for light clients. 

He said that if sync committees are removed, it means the main consensus is being improved for light clients or particular nodes that use SNARKs to directly verify things on the platform.

Scalability will be achieved with a safe increase in blobs per block. Future adjustments will be allowed before advanced scaling phases like PeerDAS and danksharding.

FAQs

What are the privacy challenges for Vitalik Buterin?

The most prevalent challenge is regarding standardization due to the characteristics of privacy-preserving techniques.

What is the frequency of AMA events?

AMA events are held twice every year, mainly in January and June.

Amanda Shinoy is one of the few women in the space invested knee-deep in crypto. An advocate for increasing the presence of women in crypto, she is known for her accurate technical analysis and price prediction of cryptocurrencies. Readers are often waiting for her opinion about the next rally. She is a finance expert with an MBA in finance. Quitting a corporate job at a leading financial institution, she now engages herself full-time into financial education for the general public.