Lucía Peña
Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin has outlined a long-term goal of achieving over 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) across both Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks as part of Ethereum’s next phase of scalability. In a recent blog post, Buterin discussed Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap, which combines sharding and Layer 2 solutions, while acknowledging the challenges that still lie ahead.
Buterin emphasized the importance of completing the rollup-centric roadmap while preserving Ethereum’s Layer 1 (L1) security and decentralization. He referred to this next stage of the roadmap as “The Surge,” with the 100,000 TPS target being one of the key objectives.
Additionally, Buterin’s goals include maintaining the decentralization and security of the L1 mainnet and enhancing interoperability between various Layer 2s.
Enhancing Data Availability and Transaction Speed
Even with the upcoming Dencun upgrade, which introduces “blobs” for data storage, transaction speed remains a concern. Buterin discussed improving data availability sampling as a strategy to verify data availability without requiring every node to download and store all the data. He set a medium-term goal of achieving 16 MB per slot for data availability bandwidth, potentially boosting TPS to 58,000 from the current maximum of 375 kB per slot for rollups.
However, Buterin noted that this target may not be enough for high-bandwidth applications like consumer payments or decentralized social platforms. For these “high-volume, low-value” use cases, he suggested exploring Plasma, a scaling solution that enables off-chain block publishing with on-chain data verification via Merkle roots.
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Mainnet Scaling Strategies
Buterin also explored potential solutions to scale Ethereum’s base layer, specifically by adjusting the gas limit. He cautioned that increasing the gas limit could centralize the Layer 1 network, weakening its robustness. Instead, Buterin suggested exploring strategies that make certain types of operations on Ethereum cheaper without compromising decentralization. One approach could involve charging different fees for different types of computations or using a more efficient bytecode format called EOF.
This blog post follows Buterin’s earlier discussion of technical challenges, including the 15-minute block finalization time and the requirement of 32 ETH to become a validator. Through these discussions, Buterin aims to address scalability concerns while maintaining Ethereum’s core principles of decentralization and security.
