Ethereum 8th Anniversary: Achievements and Future Outlook

While the community celebrates its achievements, they are also directing their attention towards the bright prospects that lie ahead for Ethereum.

The Ethereum Foundation Guides the Way

The Ethereum Foundation, although not an official governing body, has played a crucial role in shaping the direction of the Ethereum network since its establishment.

One of its key responsibilities is the development of the Ethereum Roadmap, a comprehensive plan that outlines the shared goals of Ethereum’s global community of researchers and developers. While all proposals are considered, they undergo rigorous examination, discussion, and refinement before being included in the roadmap.

The roadmap focuses on four primary objectives: reducing transaction fees, enhancing security measures, improving user experience, and safeguarding the long-term sustainability of Ethereum.

The Challenge

Since 2015, Ethereum has experienced a remarkable surge in transaction volumes, leading to occasional network congestion and significant spikes in gas fees.

To tackle this issue, Layer 2 solutions, also known as L2s, utilize rollups to optimize the data written to the blockchain, thus alleviating network congestion. This approach has helped reduce transaction fees for users to some extent. However, as transaction numbers continue to rise, even rollups can become expensive.

Interestingly, the roadmap reveals that more than 90% of rollup transaction costs are associated with permanent data storage on Ethereum.

The Solution

To achieve more cost-effective transactions, Ethereum is preparing for an upgrade known as “Proto-Danksharding.” This upgrade will allow rollups to utilize temporary data “blobs” that can be discarded when they are no longer needed.

In the future, full-fledged Danksharding is expected to significantly decrease L2 transaction costs.

Additionally, as Ethereum reaches its eighth year, it is also exploring the possibilities of Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (ZkEVMs) to enhance scalability.

The Future

The Ethereum Foundation is primarily dedicated to improving the codebase of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). By streamlining the EVM, development will become more straightforward, and the risk of encountering bugs will be reduced.

Furthermore, the roadmap recognizes the potential impact of quantum computing. While these immensely powerful machines are still years or even decades away from posing a threat to modern blockchains, their unparalleled processing capabilities could potentially break the cryptography that protects Ethereum.

While this concern lies in the future, proactive research is already in progress to strengthen Ethereum against possible quantum attacks.

(Reference: BeInCrypto)