What do you think of Vitalik Buterin’s latest proposal to simplify L1?

Author: Haotian

A friend asked me how to evaluate Vitalik Buterin's latest proposal to simplify L1? In fact, it doesn't matter how you look at it. Now the Crypto technology narrative has really reached the time to compete with Holder's "belief". If you don't believe it, I can give both "black" and "red" versions of the evaluation:

Black and pink version - making Ethereum as simple as Bitcoin, announcing the failure of Ethereum's universal world computer strategy:

This article shows that Vitalik is finally willing to admit that Ethereum's past obsession with "complexity" needs to be adjusted. The essence of this "slimming" movement directly declares that Vitalik's boast back then - "world computer" has become an unrealizable crypto holy grail.

Replacing EVM with RISC-V may seem like a systematic overhaul and technological upgrade, but in fact it is equivalent to the complete failure of the previous layer2 Rollup-Centric strategy. While Solana has attracted a large number of users with its simple architecture and purely commercialized MEME tactics, Ethereum is still struggling with how to manage the interoperability of hundreds of L2s. Rather than saying that this is an active optimization strategy, it is better to say that it is forced to cut off its own arms to survive.

As an old chain with the second highest consensus in the crypto world, when it cannot compete with new chains in performance, and suddenly one day it puts itself together with Bitcoin to make its presence known, it is a strategic contraction no matter how you look at it. It is hard for us to imagine that after 10 years of iterations in technological development, the final answer is "learn from Bitcoin to simplify". It should be noted that the conclusion that the chain should be "simplified" was written into the code by Satoshi Nakamoto as early as 2009.

The next-generation general-purpose computer platform that wanted to revolutionize the "Internet" and move the entire Internet to the blockchain just died without leaving a trace.

Pink version - Ethereum finally simplified the complexity and used a new "modular" thinking to safely carry everything:

As I wrote in many of my previous articles, Vitalik's proposal essentially indicates that the current blockchain industry has transformed from a "monopoly" breadth competition to a "vertical and horizontal alliance" deep optimization strategy, which means that Ethereum has finally put down the ivory tower image of technology representing everything and began to truly embrace the community and move closer to the "market".

Replacing EVM with RISC-V will blow the infra innovation horn of "ZK technology narrative + modularity", allowing Ethereum to rejuvenate with a new paradigm of technology narrative.

The potential for 100-fold performance improvement means that Ethereum will provide a stronger support base for the Layer2 ecosystem while maintaining security. In the past, Ethereum was limited by the large layer2 ecosystem, but the self-reliant L1 will be positioned as a "security consensus layer", allowing it to confront other layer1s head-on while avoiding being sucked blood by the young boys in layer2.

And "learning from Bitcoin" is not "admitting defeat" by giving up complexity, but a tribute to the first principle of "security first path". At least Bitcoin has verified the feasibility of this path. Ethereum, with the support of the new modular concept, allows L1 to focus on secure settlement, while giving L2 full space for innovative applications.

This seemingly laissez-faire ecological architecture, which is actually spiritually driven, will prove to be the most efficient over time.

From a macro perspective, while high-performance layer1 competitors such as Solana are still pursuing a single indicator to show off their skills, Ethereum has already started its layout for the next decade: not to calculate everything, but to safely carry everything. Because, over the past few cycles, the real public chain winners did not win in performance, but in "stability" - and the premise of stability is simplicity.

Look, Ethereum's biggest problem at the moment is "consensus split". It is true that there are a large number of believers who are determined to fight the technical narrative, but the army of black fans who have already turned against and abused is also growing.

But in fact, whether Ethereum is good or bad is just a change of perspective. The truth is that because of "belief", we see, and because of "disbelief", we destroy.