How do you evaluate Vitalik Buterin's latest proposal for simplifying L1?

Question

Written by: Haotian

A friend asked me how to evaluate Vitalik Buterin's latest proposal for simplifying L1? To be honest, it can be viewed in any way; the current narrative in Crypto technology has truly reached a point where it’s a competition of Holder "faith". If you don't believe me, I can provide both "black" and "red" versions of the evaluation at the same time:

Black powder version - Making Ethereum as simple as Bitcoin, proclaiming the failure of Ethereum's universal world computer strategy:

This article highlights that Vitalik is finally willing to acknowledge that Ethereum's past obsession with "complexity" needs to be adjusted. The essence of this "slimming" movement directly declares that the boast Vitalik made back then — "world computer" — has become an unattainable crypto holy grail.

Replacing EVM with RISC-V may superficially seem like a systematic overhaul and technological upgrade, but in reality, it amounts to a complete failure of the past layer2 Rollup-Centric grand strategy. While Solana attracts a large number of users with its streamlined architecture and purely commercialized MEME tactics, Ethereum is still entangled in how to manage the interoperability of hundreds of L2s. Rather than being an active optimization strategy, it is more accurate to say that it is a forced self-amputation for survival.

As an old chain that ranks second in the cryptocurrency world consensus, when it cannot compete with new chains in terms of performance, one day it suddenly tries to boost its presence by comparing itself to Bitcoin, it looks like a strategic retreat. It's hard to imagine that after 10 years of technological evolution, the final answer is "learn from Bitcoin to simplify." It's worth noting that the conclusion of simplifying the chain was already written in the code by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

And that year, the intention to revolutionize the "Internet", attempting to move the entire internet onto the next generation universal computing platform of blockchain, thus vanished without a trace.

Pink Version - Ethereum has finally simplified complexity, securely carrying everything with a brand new "modular" mindset:

As I have written in several previous articles, Vitalik's proposal essentially signifies that the current blockchain industry has transformed from a "monopoly" broad competition into a "strategic alliance" deep optimization strategy, meaning that Ethereum has finally let go of the ivory tower image where technology represents everything and is starting to truly embrace the community and move towards the "market."

Replacing EVM with RISC-V will sound the horn of infrastructure innovation for "ZK technology narrative + modularization," allowing Ethereum to rejuvenate with a new paradigm of technological narrative.

A 100-fold potential performance improvement means that Ethereum will provide a stronger support foundation for the Layer 2 ecosystem while maintaining security. In the past, Ethereum was constrained by the large Layer 2 ecosystem, but a self-reliant L1 will adopt a new positioning as a "security consensus layer," allowing it to confront other Layer 1s head-on while avoiding being exploited or dragged down by the upstarts of Layer 2.

"Learning from Bitcoin" is not a surrender to complexity, but a tribute to the first principles of the "security-first approach." At the very least, Bitcoin has validated the feasibility of this path. With the support of a brand new modular concept, Ethereum allows L1 to focus on secure settlement while providing ample space for L2 to unleash innovative applications.

This seemingly hands-off yet spiritually guiding ecological architecture will prove to be the most efficient over time.

From a macro perspective, while high-performance layer 1 competitors like Solana are still pursuing single metrics for show, Ethereum has already begun laying out its strategy for the next decade: not to compute everything, but to safely carry everything. Because, over the past several cycles, the real winners in the public chain space haven't triumphed through performance, but rather through "stability"—and the prerequisite for stability is simplicity.

Look, the biggest problem with Ethereum right now is "consensus split". Indeed, there is a large group of faith holders who are stubbornly sticking to the technical narrative, but the army of black fans who have long turned against it and are cursing it is also growing stronger.

But in fact, whether Ethereum is good or bad is just a matter of perspective. The truth of the matter is that we see because we "believe" and we perish because we "do not believe."