Ethereum to Scale Layer 1 by 10X in a Year, Says Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin has announced that Ethereum’s Layer 1 (L1) will be scaled by 10x in the next year.

This comes amidst calls for an immediate L1 scaling amongst the community.

Buterin’s Implementation Strategy

The Ethereum co-founder confirmed the plans during a panel discussion at ETHGlobal Prague.

“My view is generally I think we should scale L1 by about 10x over the next year and a bit based on delayed execution,” he said.

When asked why he preferred a slower approach, Buterin said a year would be the best implementation timeline. While acknowledging that some people are more aggressive and want to skip the pause and commit to scaling 1,000 times right away, he emphasized that he supports a more cautious and structured strategy.

He further explained that this execution depends on upgrades like mobile log-level access lists, networking-level improvements, and distributed history storage.

Buterin noted that after this is done, it would be a good time to “take a breather” and check if decentralization is still strong. During this pause, he suggested a hard fork to fix remaining issues like account abstraction, censorship resistance, VM improvements, protocol simplification, and switching to SSL.

However, he clarified that when zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines are ready, the network can progress further and faster.

The 31-year-old has also previously supported using partially stateless nodes to help grow Ethereum. This would let the chain validate blocks without storing all historical data, which makes it easier for users to run nodes without needing large amounts of storage.

Calls for Urgent Scaling

After a weak Q1 marked by falling ETH prices and declining on-chain metrics, some key voices in the community have been advocating for immediate L1 scaling.

Top Ethereum researcher Dankrad Feist has proposed EIP-7938, a plan that would raise Ethereum’s gas limit. His goal is to boost the blockchain’s capacity by 100 times over the next four years, which would allow for more activity on the network.

He maintains that Ethereum can still keep its privacy and decentralized features under this plan. According to him, backing the proposal would show a strong commitment at a time when it is facing major challenges.

Meanwhile, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has said Ethereum might not survive the next decade. He compared its future to that of Myspace and Blackberry, once-popular platforms that eventually lost relevance. The developer blamed “parasitic” Layer-2s for weakening the network’s core.