The end of July marked a pivotal moment for Ethereum, the second blockchain to exist, and that’s partly due to its 10-year celebration. Yet, that’s not all! Ethereum registered a monthly growth of almost 53% between June and July, and the fact that the figure almost doubled isn’t the most wow-worthy achievement – Ethereum’s last all-time high in monthly growth was only last recorded in 2021.
Bitcoin, the first and largest crypto so far, is being outpaced by Ethereum, the competitor that has often been breathing down its neck. Bitcoin’s price has only gained 10%, and while this is a great sign for the market, it’s safe to say that Ethereum’s momentum is only accelerating. To evaluate the trend’s strength and speculate on its future trajectory, it’s worth monitoring the ETH price prediction. As generally recommended, it’s best to watch prediction changes with a critical eye and remain grounded – this indicator should only assist you in making decisions but not be the main point of reference. Crypto is, after all, a very volatile industry that can surprise you when you least expect a bolt from the blue.
In light of Ethereum’s exploding appeal and potential, you might wonder what other tips can help you better learn how to approach your investments. To upskill, it’s worth looking at what the main Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, has to say about his project’s future goals and overall vision of the network’s role in society. Spoiler: he wants the network to never go down and continuously push forward humankind through Ethereum’s decentralized, programmable infrastructure. So, what lies ahead for Ethereum?
A Permissionless Space For Devs To Build
Starting with the earliest days of Ethereum helps better understand where the network is headed. While Ethereum’s white paper was launched in 2013, a two-year gap followed until the network was released. Since its launch in July 2015, the network has attracted a sea of devs globally who were given the tools to build smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) directly to the blockchain – permission-free.
The Ethereum team’s earliest experiments, even before the network went out for grabs, include tryouts like the following:
- The “Olympic” testnet, aka the most recent public pre-launch that preceded Ethereum
- A bug bounty of 25K Ether that users who pressure-tested the network the best become eligible to receive
- The network’s official release on July 30, 2015, and the genesis block’s birth – the first block in the chain.
Fast forward to today, the Ethereum Foundation team looks forward to continuing to enhance the network, with the biggest goal in sight being to make the space available for anyone to use, much like a widespread internet browser. It has already secured some successes in this regard. For instance, protocols like Uniswap and platforms like OpenSea, which grab a lot of headlines, wouldn’t exist without Ethereum’s permissionless philosophy – an ethos that empowers retail devs and creators with tools that only institutions used to have access to not long ago.
Lean Ethereum—An unrealistically bold ambition or a plan that’s already materializing?
The concept that will shape Ethereum’s next decade is known as “Lean Ethereum” and serves as a “generational promise” that will guide the community’s efforts. This roadmap intends to drive the network into a new era in both security and performance. Technically speaking, it intends to improve layer-1’s security measures while reducing its complexity. Three main targets define the roadmap: optimality, simplicity, and security.
- The team looks to dodge future cryptographic perils by modifying data availability and employing post-quantum cryptography (PQC), or post-quantum-ready signatures – cryptographic algorithms that resist attacks from both current and future quantum computers;
- The blockchain’s layer-1 is about to become easier to navigate after the upgrades intended to simplify data layers, execution, and consensus, making it easier for newcomers to audit the code more easily, without big difficulties in acquiring new concepts;
- Optimality is intended to cut down on overhead and latency and ensure that the network is as competitive and decentralized as possible.
The three layers that make up Ethereum
The Lean Ethereum roadmap rewrites Ethereum’s pillars:
- Lean consensus (CL) – The current PoS system’s upgrade Beacon Chain 2.0 makes transactions much faster and safer to confirm while ensuring their decentralized nature: irreversibility;
- Lean data (DL) – Post-quantum data blocks known as blobs 2.0, or upgrades that empower the network to handle large amounts of rollup-related or off-chain data, will make it easier to process data;
- Lean execution (EL) – Ethereum might create a new, EVM-based virtual machine that enhances scaling, efficiency, and cryptographic proof generation, potentially via RISC-V tech, a modern and open hardware set of instructions for blockchain VMs.
Looking at the Ethereum Foundation’s concluding statements, Lean Ethereum boils down to creating a fail-proof network that’ll be online and working no matter the challenges ahead. It will scale continuously and allow for a space that upcoming generations will benefit from.
The operational goal? 10K TPS, 1MN TPS
The roadmap outlines a plan for Ethereum to process 10K transactions per second (TPS) in the future. Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake, the one who announced the “Lean Ethereum”, emphasized the urgency of preserving a solid central protocol that can handle these transactions without compromising the network’s decentralization or security. According to him, proactive measures against the materializing quantum technologies aren’t optional – they’re core.
At the same time, up to 1MN TPS should be processed on layer-2 networks. These networks are built atop layer-1 to enhance affordability, efficiency, and rapidity, being scaling solutions that process transactions and run on both the main chain and the mainnet.
10 years of continuous functionality, and counting.
The ETH network’s staked tokens stand at around 35.7MN ETH. The Ethereum Foundation looks forward to having $1TN in future security.
The “Fort mode” philosophy echoes the community’s aspiration for Ethereum. The network exists as long as the world itself is connected to the internet. Thus, this ethos is about making Ethereum resilient to any type of attack possible, from quantum computers to government coercion.
Ethereum’s core ethos is to thrive and find new ways to serve future generations’ online needs.
