A "Radical" Proposal from Vitalik Buterin Before the Ethereum Upgrade! - Coin Bulletin

Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin proposed to modify the existing Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) bytecode with an open-source RISC-V architecture to enhance the scalability of Ethereum’s transaction layer.

One of the founders of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, in a post on the Ethereum Magicians forum, proposed the idea of using the open-source RISC-V architecture instead of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to significantly scale up Ethereum’s transaction layer. He indicated that this “radical” proposal could be the only viable way to significantly improve Ethereum’s transaction layer.

Buterin emphasized the need to improve the performance of Ethereum’s transaction layer by increasing the efficiency of the EVM transaction process. He argued that as an open-source processing architecture that can be compared to proprietary competitors like RISC-V, ARM, and x86, it could reduce on-chain transaction costs by 100 times in some cases.

He also stated that the old EVM contracts will be fully compatible with the new RISC-V contracts and that contracts of both styles can work together. Buterin also suggested that a special interpreter should be developed to convert EVM contracts to their RISC-V equivalents.

Such a change could greatly simplify the transaction layer of Ethereum and has the potential to increase efficiency. Other blockchain projects like PolkaDot have also experimented with RISC-V, but Buterin’s proposal suggests converting existing contracts without a major network hard fork.

Ethereum plans to initiate an upgrade called Pectra on May 7 to improve user experience, enhance rollup scalability, and increase validator stake limits in the upcoming period.