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A major twist in Ethereum’s story occurred recently, when its co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, challenged the network’s core development. Having helped to create Ethereum in 2013, Buterin has long been a central figure in its evolution.
But now, he is pushing for a rethinking of Ethereum’s foundational goals and the way forward for its future growth, criticising the prioritises of the core developers. The criticism in question is primarily focused on the direction Ethereum has taken in recent years. While its rivals have flourished, with the current Bitcoin price sitting just underneath 100,000, Ethereum has been having trouble balancing its scalability, security, and decentralisation.
These three pillars have always been a central part of Ethereum’s design philosophy, but Buterin has expressed concerns that the emphasis on security and decentralisation has hindered Ethereum’s scalability – an essential factor for meeting the demands of mainstream adoption. So what does this mean for the coin and will Ethereum’s development change in 2025?
Buterin Challenges Ethereum’s Core Development
One of the most significant critiques that Buterin has made involves Ethereum’s somewhat rigid approach to scalability. Ethereum’s original vision, of course, required careful attention to the security and trustlessness of its base layer, with its shift from Pow to PoS also representing its dedication to efficiency and sustainability. But in Buterin’s opinion, these choices have lacked foresight from a scalability perspective.
With the rise of high-performance alternatives like Solana and Avalanche – platforms that promise faster transaction speeds and lower fees – Ethereum’s core developers are facing increasing pressure to improve on these traits, retaining the trustless nature while embracing more flexibility.
What’s more, Buterin has also warned against the after-effects of PoS, stating that the concept actually risks centralising Ethereum’s core premise. Of course, PoS is a sustainable alternative to PoW, and for the most part, the transition into Ethereum 2.0 has been a success. But while PoS eliminates the need for energy-intensive mining, it has introduced the possibility of staking centralisation.
Over the last year, for instance, large entities and staking pools have been amassing significant portions of staked ETH, giving them disproportionate influence over network decisions. Akin to this, the requirement to lock up a minimum amount of ETH to participate in staking – 32 ETH in total – has excluded smaller participants, consolidating power among wealthier stakeholders.
The Way Forward for Ethereum
Being a forward-thinker, Buterin hasn’t just taken a platform to criticise, but to advise what’s best for Ethereum down the road. To address the challenges, the co-founder has envisioned a future where Ethereum’s base layer remains minimal and highly secure, serving as a foundation for a robust ecosystem of Layer 2 solutions. These secondary layers – such as Optimism and Arbitrum – can handle the bulk of the transactional load, leaving the Ethereum network as a settlement and coordination layer.
Innovative approaches like sharding should also become more significant, working to split the Ethereum blockchain into smaller parts to process transactions in parallel, improving scalability without compromising decentralisation.
When it comes to the centralisation problem, Buterin has also proposed several strategies. The first is lowering the barriers to entry, and reducing the minimum staking requirement to allow smaller holders to stake without joining a pool. The second is improving the staking infrastructure, simplifying the technical requirements for running a validator node, while also designing reward mechanisms that favour individual validators over larger pools, working to encourage a more distributed network.
The Future of Ethereum
These comments could not have come at a better time for Ethereum. While 2024 saw Bitcoin reach its highest price of $106,000, the second most popular coin has been relatively stagnant, with many investors put off by the prolonged transaction times mentioned earlier.
Alternatives like Solana, on the other hand, have taken the spotlight, which has led those invested in ETH to question its longevity and incite a lukewarm market. To get back control and to take advantage of the sector’s surging popularity – which will only surge higher if governments decide to rally behind crypto in 2025, which has been heavily rumoured – it’s important for the network to reconsider its approach and plow ahead with scalability in mind.
Investing in Ethereum
Some critics may feel that Buterin’s comments have only put more pressure on the coin, and risked an even greater lack of confidence in investors, but on the contrary, a definitive, challenging approach could be just what Ethereum needs. As mentioned previously, the PoS change has been a success, in that Ethereum remains the second most valuable crypto token in the world. There are only some inconsistencies to iron out. If they are indeed ironed out, then there’s no telling how far Ethereum could go, especially considering its more efficient, sustainable mindset compared to Bitcoin.
If you’re a crypto investor looking to expand your portfolio, Ethereum is still a strong choice. Due to the intricacies in scalability, the price is still relatively low, but providing the core developers choose the right path, that could change very quickly. Some experts are predicting that ETH could increase by 14.41% by the end of 2025, potentially even reaching a high price of over $5,000. Whether this will happen remains to be seen, but there’s no question that, as a cryptocurrency concept, Ethereum still has a bagful of potential.