Vitalik Shares Five Regrets About the Early Design of Ethereum

At the recent ETHBerlin event, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin unexpectedly shared some of his regrets about the early design of Ethereum. This candid speech not only reminded the audience of the glorious days of Ethereum’s birth but also pointed the way for the future development of this cryptocurrency project, which currently has a market value of $448 billion.

Currently, Ethereum has become synonymous with decentralized finance, with its ecosystem valued at over $63 billion. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has just partially approved the spot Ethereum ETF, and one of the largest asset management companies in the world has also launched a tokenized fund on the Ethereum network.

When asked how he would build Ethereum differently if he could start over, Vitalik listed the following points:

1. Virtual Machine Bit Selection

Vitalik first mentioned the design of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). He stated that the initially chosen 256-bit processing was too complex and inefficient, which could generate a lot of redundant data on the blockchain even when performing simple tasks. He believes that 64-bit or 32-bit processing might be a better choice.

2. Optimization of Smart Contracts

Regarding smart contracts, Vitalik believes that early development teams should focus more on simplifying the contract writing process and reducing the number of code lines to improve transparency. Doing so would make it easier for people to check and understand the internal workings of the contract.

3. Transition to PoS consensus mechanism in advance

Vitalik stated that Ethereum’s transition from Proof of Work ( PoW ) to Proof of Stake ( PoS ) should have occurred earlier. He believes that even an imperfect version of PoS implemented in 2018 could have saved a significant amount of resources.

4. Automatic logging feature

Vitalik pointed out that the automatic logging feature for Ethereum transfers could have been easily implemented in the early stages of the project, but ultimately became an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP). With the development of smart wallets, certain important logging functionalities have been lost.

5. Selection of Cryptographic Algorithm

Vitalik stated that if he could choose again, he would use SHA-2 instead of Keccak as the encryption algorithm for Ethereum. Due to the adoption of a non-standard version of Keccak, Ethereum developers need to customize libraries to adapt, which has led to compatibility issues with other systems that use SHA-3.

Despite these design shortcomings, Vitalik remains optimistic about the future of Ethereum. He stated: “I am really pleased to see the execution capabilities of the Ethereum core development team improving year by year. The current team is capable of effectively and safely correcting these early mistakes.”

This candid sharing not only showcases Vitalik’s ability for self-reflection but also provides valuable directions for the future development of Ethereum. With continuous technological advancements and improvements in team capabilities, it is believed that these initial design regrets will eventually be overcome, and Ethereum will continue to lead the development of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance.