the future of Ethereum after the Merge

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, shared his thoughts on the future of the protocol after the Merge. His post describes some key areas of evolution for the Proof-of-Stake blockchain. 

Vitalik Buterin: the possible future scenarios of Ethereum after the Merge

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has spoken out with a new post on the possible future scenarios of the protocol, after the Merge event.

“Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 1: The Merge”

This first part called “Merge” of Buterin’s speech aims to describe the improvement of technical characteristics, such as stability, performance, and accessibility for smaller validators. Subsequently (and not yet published), Buterin will talk about Part 2 “the Scourge,” referring to economic changes to address the risks of centralization. 

According to Buterin, one of the main goals for the future of Ethereum is to reduce the time required to complete a transaction.  Currently, it can take about 15 minutes, a delay that can be frustrating given that Ethereum is the busiest blockchain network. The delay time can lead to congestion.

Here, the co-founder of Ethereum suggested exploring solutions like single-slot finality, which could drastically reduce transaction times. 

Another goal of Buterin is to maximize the number of validators participating in staking. In this way, the minimum requirement of 32 ETH required for staking should decrease. In fact, here Buterin suggests making it 1 ETH to involve more and more people in the security and governance of Ethereum. 

Vitalik Buterin: the future of Ethereum after the Merge

It has been two years since the Merge occurred, which transformed the Ethereum protocol from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). This event was a monumental change for Ethereum, which also reduced the energy consumption for its operation by over 99%.

Today, Buterin writes in his post about being satisfied with the results achieved over these years in terms of stability, performance, and prevention of centralization risks. 

“Today, Ethereum is a proof of stake system that has been operating stably for almost exactly two years and has achieved extraordinary results in terms of stability, performance, and prevention of centralization risks. However, there are still some important areas where proof of stake needs to be improved.”

Buterin also reflects on other goals to pursue in the future, such as the security of the protocol.

In any case, after the Merge, last March 2024 the Dencun update occurred which introduced further adjustments to the Ethereum fee market. And indeed, the result was a drastic reduction in the number of burned transaction fees. 

Already in forecast for the upcoming 2025, then, there will be the Pectra update. 

The price of ETH

Just in these last hours since Buterin’s announcement, the price of ETH has recorded a pump of 2.7%. 

In fact, at the time of writing, ETH is worth $2,533 while, 24 hours ago, it was $2,466. Even the trading volumes of ETH have risen by 57.7% in the last 24 hours. 

Such a price increase, however, could also be due to a bullish trend in the crypto market overall, with BTC experiencing a pump of +3% in the last 24 hours.