Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has published a comprehensive technical roadmap outlining the network's scaling strategy, combining near-term software upgrades with a long-term economic redesign. The plan aims to significantly increase transaction capacity while preserving decentralization, addressing current bottlenecks in block verification and data storage.
The immediate focus is on the upcoming "Glamsterdam" upgrade, which introduces three key changes. First, block-level access lists will enable nodes to verify different parts of a block in parallel for the first time, rather than sequentially. Second, the ePBS (enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation) protocol will allow a larger fraction of each 12-second block slot to be dedicated to verification. Together, these optimizations free up time within each slot, allowing the network to process more transactions without increasing block size or demanding more powerful hardware from validators.
The third and most structurally significant change is the introduction of multidimensional gas. Buterin's proposal seeks to separate the cost of "state creation"—permanent data storage from actions like deploying smart contracts or minting tokens—from standard execution and calldata costs. Currently, a single gas dimension governs everything. Under the new model, writing new state to the chain would have its own gas type with its own cap. Crucially, state creation gas would not count toward the existing ~16 million transaction gas limit, preventing state bloat from crowding out regular transactions and making larger contracts viable.
To maintain Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility, Buterin proposes a "reservoir" mechanism. This would allow opcodes like GAS and CALL, which currently assume one gas dimension, to function while specialized gas dimensions are consumed first when available.
For the long term, the roadmap rests on two pillars: data availability and advanced verification. PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling) is iterating toward a target of roughly 8 MB/sec of blob throughput, intended to serve the Layer-2 ecosystem. Furthermore, the gradual adoption of ZK-EVMs (Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines) aims to eventually enable full block validation via zero-knowledge proofs, eliminating the need for validators to personally re-execute transactions. The ultimate vision includes multi-proof validation, combining ZK proofs with formal verification, contingent on future security maturity.
Buterin's overarching goal is to scale Ethereum's capacity without letting the total size of the blockchain grow at an unsustainable pace, which would raise the barrier for new validators and risk centralization among well-funded entities. The roadmap is a multi-faceted approach combining immediate software optimizations with a fundamental economic shift to reward efficient use of blockchain space.
