By: Eliza Bennet
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined a bold roadmap for the network's future, setting ambitious goals as user engagement reaches unprecedented levels. On April 30, Buterin shared his top priorities on improving the Ethereum network by 2025, addressing crucial areas such as transaction finality, stateless architecture, enhanced privacy features, and decentralization.
A key milestone was recently achieved as the number of unique addresses interacting with Ethereum applications surpassed 15.4 million, with a significant portion, approximately 13.45 million, operating on Layer-2 solutions. This impressive rise in user engagement coincides with Buterin's visionary aspirations for Ethereum's development.
Among the pivotal improvements, Buterin emphasizes the necessity of single-slot finality, a protocol change aimed at reducing transaction finality time to just 12 seconds. Another innovative proposal is the implementation of stateless clients, shifting Ethereum's state storage burden from network nodes to users, enhancing both scalability and resilience.
In terms of privacy, Buterin reiterated the importance of privacy-preserving tools that do not compromise transparency or security. His vision extends beyond technical upgrades, seeking to support decentralized infrastructure, encrypted messaging platforms, and improved developer documentation. Additionally, he is keen on exploring new models for open-source funding and governance, alongside facilitating trusted information exchanges through prediction markets and collective coordination tools.
Though Buterin won't be directly involved in all developmental aspects, the community aims to prioritize expanding the gas limit and improving peer-to-peer communication. This roadmap follows recent organizational changes at the Ethereum Foundation, granting Buterin more freedom to delve into long-term innovation, spearheading breakthroughs in the ecosystem.