Vitalik’s Big Plan: Verify Ethereum with Just a Smartwatch!

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Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin published the 4th part of his vision for the possible futures of the blockchain. Recently, he outlined an ambitious goal of achieving 100,000 transactions per second for Ethereum, alongside L2 networks.

In his latest article, Buterin focused on the Ethereum roadmap phase called The Verge, which is centered on blockchain verification updates and related challenges.
Ethereum Roadmap Stage, The Verge. Source: vitalik.eth.limo

Ethereum Roadmap Stage, The Verge. Source: vitalik.eth.limo

Buterin pointed out that while almost anyone can run a node on their computer today to verify the blockchain’s state, the process remains complex. Currently, Ethereum clients need to store hundreds of gigabytes of data, and this figure increases by around 30 GB each year.

The key goal of The Verge is to reduce the storage requirements for full verification and staking nodes to just a few gigabytes. In the long term, Vitalik envisions full blockchain verification becoming possible with a smartwatch.

In his blog, Buterin focused on technologies like Verkle trees and SNARKs. You can learn more about both on our website. Verkle trees could make Ethereum block verification without state data possible, creating more compact proofs, while SNARKs could enable the verification of Ethereum’s entire execution.

However, Buterin expressed concern that Verkle trees might eventually need to be replaced with something new, as they could be vulnerable to quantum computing.