scalability

According to Cointelegraph, after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin commented that "the original vision of Layer 2 as the primary scaling engine is no longer applicable," several L2 builders responded, generally agreeing that Rollup needs to move beyond the positioning of "a cheaper Ethereum," but there are disagreements on whether scaling should still be its core role.Optimism co-founder Karl Floersch welcomed the challenge of building a modular L2 stack that supports "full-spectrum decentralization," while acknowledging that there are still major obstacles such as long withdrawal periods, second-stage proofs not being production-ready, and insufficient cross-chain application tools. He supports the native Rollup precompiled solutions emphasized by Buterin.Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Arbitrum developer Offchain Labs, took a firmer stance, arguing that although the Rollup model has evolved, scaling remains the core value of L2. He pointed out that Arbitrum was not built as "a service of Ethereum," but because Ethereum provides a highly secure and low-cost settlement layer, making large-scale Rollups possible. He warned that if Ethereum is seen as hostile to Rollups, institutions might choose to launch independent Layer 1 chains instead of deploying on Ethereum.Base head Jesse Pollak stated that scaling Ethereum L1 is "a victory for the entire ecosystem," agreeing that L2 cannot just be "a cheaper Ethereum." He mentioned that Base is differentiating itself through applications, account abstraction, and privacy features, and is working towards decentralization in the second stage.StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson hinted that some ZK-native L2s (like Starknet) believe they already fit the specialized role described by Buterin. The entire Ethereum ecosystem is facing a roadmap adjustment: the base layer aims to enhance its capabilities, while L2 is repositioning itself as a dedicated environment serving different technical needs.

Vitalik Buterin published an article explaining his layered understanding of blockchain scalability, pointing out that the difficulty of scaling blockchains increases from low to high in terms of computation, data, and state.Vitalik stated that computation is the easiest to scale, which can be achieved through parallelization, introducing "hints" provided by block builders, or replacing extensive computation with proofs such as zero-knowledge proofs. Data scalability is of medium difficulty; if the system requires data availability guarantees, this requirement cannot be avoided, but it can be optimized through data sharding, erasure coding (like PeerDAS), and supporting "graceful degradation," meaning that blocks of a corresponding size can still be generated even when node data capabilities are lower.In contrast, state is the most challenging part to scale. Vitalik pointed out that to validate even a single transaction, nodes require the complete state; even if the state is abstracted as a tree and only the root node is saved, updating that root still relies on the complete state. Although there are methods for state sharding, they typically require significant architectural changes and are not universal solutions.Based on this, Vitalik concluded that if data can replace state without introducing new centralization assumptions, it should be prioritized; similarly, if computation can replace data without introducing new centralization assumptions, it should also be taken seriously.

The a16z Crypto article "How AI 'Judges' Expand the Scale of Prediction Markets" points out that the biggest challenge facing prediction markets is not "pricing the future," but rather determining what actually happened. Similar issues frequently arise in some small-scale events, where erroneous or opaque settlement mechanisms can undermine market trust, liquidity, and the accuracy of price signals.Industry experts suggest introducing large language models (LLMs) as arbiters in prediction markets, including on-chain rule commitments, resistance to manipulation, enhanced transparency, and increased neutrality. For example, specific LLM models, timestamps, and judgment prompts could be encrypted and recorded on the blockchain at the time of contract creation, allowing traders to understand the complete decision-making mechanism in advance. The model weights would be fixed and not easily tampered with to reduce the risk of cheating, and the settlement mechanism would be publicly auditable with no arbitrary human rulings. The AI judgment mechanism could significantly improve the efficiency and scalability of prediction market settlements while ensuring transparency and fairness.

Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform that enhancing bandwidth is safer and more reliable than reducing latency. With the help of PeerDAS and ZKP, Ethereum's scalability can increase by thousands of times, and this does not conflict with decentralization. However, latency is constrained by physical laws and real-world environments, especially when supporting global home nodes, censorship resistance, and anonymity.He pointed out that reducing latency to a range of 2-4 seconds is a reasonable goal, while applications requiring higher real-time performance (such as AI-driven ones) will rely on L2 and "city chains" for localized scaling.

According to Cointelegraph, the second BPO hard fork of Ethereum has increased the blob limit to 21, thereby enhancing network scalability and reducing costs.

Researchers and developers expect that 2026 will be a key year for Ethereum to achieve exponential scalability through zero-knowledge proofs (ZK). By then, some Ethereum validators will no longer re-execute transactions but will directly verify ZK proofs, fundamentally changing the way the blockchain operates, with scalability comparable to Ethereum's transition from PoW to PoS in "The Merge" in 2022.Ethereum researcher Justin Drake stated that the first validators will begin to verify ZK proofs for each block instead of re-executing all transactions, which will bring immediate scalability benefits to Layer 1 and lay the groundwork for 10,000 TPS in the future. Currently, the Ethereum mainnet has a throughput of about 30 TPS. During Devconnect, Drake demonstrated that ZK proof verification could be completed using an old laptop, and it is expected that by the end of 2026, about 10% of validators will switch to ZK verification mode (Lean Execution Phase 1). This transition will significantly reduce the hardware requirements for validating nodes while maintaining network decentralization.Ethereum Besu client engineer Gary Schulte pointed out that future compute-intensive tasks will mainly be handled by block builders and ZK provers, while regular validators will only need to perform lightweight checks, creating conditions for increasing gas limits and overall throughput. On the roadmap, Ethereum is currently still in Phase 0 (voluntary validation), expected to enter Phase 1 (partial validator switch) in 2026, and move into Phase 2 in 2027, which will require block producers to generate ZK proofs, achieving fully ZK execution.

Rob stated in an interview that, as large institutions or traders, they do not want their operations to be known by the market, especially in perpetual contract trading, where their trading strategies are private. As fund managers, on-chain information can expose the secrets of their excess returns (Alpha), and the key to financial scaling is precisely the protection of privacy in trading products.

According to PR Newswire, BitMine announced today that the total value of its held cryptocurrencies, cash, and "potential assets" has reached $13.2 billion. As of 4 PM Eastern Time on December 7, the company's asset composition includes: 3,864,951 ETH (Ethereum), 193 BTC (Bitcoin), equity in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS) valued at $36 million, and a total cash amount of $1 billion.Thomas "Tom" Lee, Chairman of Fundstrat and BitMine, stated: "Over the past week, BitMine has increased its holdings by 138,452 ETH tokens. This represents a 156% increase compared to the average weekly accumulation rate four weeks ago, which is significant. Our accelerated buying reflects our confidence: under multiple catalysts, the price of ETH is expected to strengthen in the coming months. The Fusaka upgrade (also known as Fulu-Osaka) was activated on December 3, bringing a series of improvements in scalability, security, and usability.The Federal Reserve is taking several key actions in December, including ending quantitative tightening and is expected to cut interest rates again on December 10. It has been over eight weeks since the clearing shock event on October 10, a period sufficient for crypto assets to trade again based on future fundamentals.

According to official news, Merlin Chain will undergo an infrastructure upgrade to enhance scalability and fix some issues related to ZK performance.The upgrade will start on November 26, 2025, at 13:00 (UTC+8). A downtime of 12 hours is expected. During the upgrade, all transaction submissions on the Merlin Chain mainnet will be suspended. Users can still check historical transaction records and account balances through the block explorer. After the upgrade is completed, the network will automatically resume normal operation.

Solayer Labs has officially launched its first ambassador program, aimed primarily at hardware enthusiasts, TPS optimization advocates, and supporters of crypto scalability.Solayer Labs welcomes all interested individuals to submit applications via an online form, which should include their experiences in content creation, meme production, or community engagement.Selected ambassadors will enjoy the following benefits: direct access to the core team and partners, opportunities for feedback on new products, and official support for innovative initiatives.

ChainCatcher news reports that at the TOKEN2049 conference, Consensys founder and CEO Joseph Lubin outlined three core development focuses for the future of Ethereum: scalability, optimizing user experience (UX), and foundational research and development.Lubin explained that scalability aims to achieve "millions of TPS" by optimizing the mainnet and utilizing Layer 2; optimizing user experience focuses on addressing pain points such as private key management and gas fee fluctuations; and foundational research and development emphasizes investing in zero-knowledge proof technology to ensure privacy and upgrading the PoS consensus mechanism. Additionally, Lubin highlighted the potential for the integration of AI and blockchain, believing that smart contracts can address the "unverifiable" nature of AI results. He also urged developers to pay more attention to the needs of the real economy, such as cross-border remittances and traditional asset tokenization, rather than short-term speculation.

ChainCatcher news, according to crypto KOL AB Kuai.Dong (@_FORAB), Vitalik attended the Japanese Developer Conference. At the conference, Vitalik stated that Ethereum's short-term goal is scalability, which involves increasing the Gas limit of Ethereum L1 while maintaining decentralization.Ethereum's medium-term goal is cross-L2 interoperability, with faster response times. The long-term vision is a secure, simple, quantum-resistant, and formally verified streamlined version of Ethereum.