Vitalik Buterin & EF Team Discuss the ‘Endgame’

• The much-anticipated main net launch of Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025, as the latest “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit reveals details. 
• The Ethereum network is expected to process 10 million transactions per second at a lower cost in ten years. 

At the recent semi-annual Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, the Top-level Ethereum Foundation researchers delved into the Pectra upgrade, which is expected to be fully completed in the first quarter of 2025. According to reports, this upgrade would significantly impact the network from the base layer to the end-user experience.

As featured in our recent blog post, the EIP-7702 is one of the most user-focused features of the Pectra Upgrade. This proposal is also reported to temporarily convert all externally owned accounts (EOAs) to smart contract accounts. At the AMA sessions, the first step of the two-phase Pectra update was said to start in the coming months.

The EF researchers and the Ethereum co-founder seized the opportunity and showed their willingness to improve the network’s economic position by reclaiming revenue from the L2s and pushing for “native rollups.”

Often, the two align, but sometimes they misalign, and when that happens we should go for the former. The big risks that I see right now are at the L2 and wallet layer, as well as staking and custody providers. The EF has recently started to step into the former two areas by pushing for the adoption of interoperability standards.

Shedding more light on the upgrade, it was highlighted that Pectra would significantly adjust the blob count per block from 3 to 6 and the maximum of 6 to 9. Most importantly, as detailed in our last news piece, it is expected to slash transaction fees.

More About the Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade

According to the top EF researcher Justin Drake, Blob would store transaction data temporarily to ensure that the cost for Layer 2s rolling down data to the mainchain is significantly reduced.

Recently, the Ethereum community has increasingly urged the team to raise the blob’s “base fee.” Commenting on this, EF researcher Barnabé Monnot pointed out that this idea is “short-sighted.” According to him, the Ethereum base layer should rather focus on scaling its native data availability.

I find these arguments very short-sighted, first because they require the network to have an opinion regarding what is the right level of this tax (i.e., something like a fiscal policy), and second, because I believe more value will accrue the more we grow the Ethereum economy.

In another response, Drake highlighted that Ethereum could settle 10 million transactions per second at $0.001 per transaction in ten years. On the Ethereum scaling, it was explained that the idea of native rollup is one aspect which is relatively new to the “endgame” of Ethereum scaling.

As indicated in our earlier discussion, Buterin confirmed that Ethereum’s rollup ecosystem remaining adaptable is one of their objectives this year. Meanwhile, Drake argues that the discussion around the Ethereum native rollup is quite new.

It is remarkably easy to sell the concept of native rollups to EVM-equivalent rollups. If a rollup has the option to become native, then why not? It’s a strict improvement that is provided essentially free by the L1.

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