Vitalik: The combination of ZK-EVM and PeerDAS will push Ethereum towards a completely new decentralized network form.

Vitalik Buterin stated that ZK-EVM is currently in its alpha phase, possessing production-grade performance, with the remaining work primarily focused on security. Meanwhile, PeerDAS has officially launched on the Ethereum mainnet. Vitalik pointed out that this is not an incremental optimization, but rather a transformation of Ethereum into a new type of P2P network that simultaneously possesses decentralization, a consensus mechanism, and high bandwidth. He recalled that BitTorrent has high bandwidth but lacks consensus, while Bitcoin has consensus but its bandwidth is limited due to full replication; however, with the introduction of PeerDAS (Data Availability Sampling) and ZK-EVM, Ethereum is expected to simultaneously achieve decentralization, consensus, and high throughput—a three-way dilemma that has been resolved through "real code running on the mainnet." Specifically, PeerDAS is already running on the mainnet, and ZK-EVM has reached production-grade performance. Vitalik predicts that starting in 2026, with the advancement of mechanisms such as BAL and ePBS, the gas cap will gradually increase, creating practical opportunities to run ZK-EVM nodes. From 2026 to 2028, gas repricing, state structure adjustments, and the inclusion of execution loads into blobs will occur. By 2027–2030, ZK-EVM is expected to become the primary method for network block verification, further driving up the gas cap. He also emphasized the importance of distributed block building, with the long-term goal of preventing blocks from being fully built in any single location and distributing block building power through in-protocol or out-of-protocol methods to reduce the risk of centralized intervention and improve regional fairness.