Vitalik Buterin discusses ‘endgame’ for ETH 2.0, an Ethereum ‘open to all futures’

With a major Arrow Glacier upgrade expected in about three days, ETH 2.0 is closer than ever. At the time of writing, ETH 2.0 deposit contracts topped the staked value of 8,525,844 Ether.

Meanwhile, co-founder Vitalik Buterin believed that “Ethereum is very well-positioned to adjust to this future world, despite inherent uncertainty.” Buterin shared a “plausible roadmap” of the chain’s future, adding

“Ethereum is open to all of the futures, and does not have to commit to an opinion about which one will necessarily win.”

To solve the centralization issue of a “big blockchain,” Buterin proposed solutions like “a second tier of staking, with low resource requirements,” and adding secondary transaction channels along with fraud proofs. This, the Canadian programmer said, can decentralize validation while the production of blocks remains centralized. 

With that, Buterin looked at a possible future where Ethereum has space for rollups’ on-chain data between its shards. We can understand rollups as solutions where transactions are executed outside Ethereum, but its data ends up on the Layer 1 mainnet. A solution, as per Buterin, that can somewhat bypass censorship. He reiterated,

“No single rollup succeeds at holding anywhere close to the majority of Ethereum activity.”

Therefore, he hinted at a “multi-rollup future for Ethereum,” to tackle some existing censorship concerns.

Nevertheless, Buterin noted that there’s a high chance that block production will end up centralized and so, several “protocol-level techniques” will have to be used to bypass that. Something that can turn block production into a specialized market, as per the co-founder. 

A future where Buterin stated that Ethereum’s structure already incorporates “anti-fraud and anti-censorship armor.”

Buterin also thinks that the “bright future for scalable blockchains is likely to emerge.” 

In response, developer SwagtimusPrime.eth was quick to point out its impact on gas fees in the coming months. Here, it is noteworthy that EIP-4490 and EIP-4488 were recently proposed for scaling rollups and lowering transaction fees.

With that, it is noteworthy that former Goldman Sachs executive Raoul Pal is bullish on Ethereum. In a recent interview, he stated that ETH is likely to finish “this year closer to $15,000 than to $10,000.” In the longer term, he predicted a $20,000 level by March next year with a possibility of $40,000 following that.