Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum to Focus on Scaling Post-Shapella Upgrade
Following the official deployment of the Shapella upgrade, Vitalik Buterin has stated that the Ethereum development team will now prioritize scaling features for the network.
Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum to Focus on Scaling Post-Shapella Upgrade
The Shapella upgrade—combining elements from the "Shanghai" and "Capella" forks—was officially implemented at epoch 194,048. This upgrade allows ETH stakers to withdraw funds from the Beacon Chain at any time. It represents the most significant upgrade since The Merge in September 2022.
In a livestream hosted by the Ethereum Foundation counting down to Shanghai, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin remarked:
“The Shapella upgrade is the final step in transitioning to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). While enabling ETH withdrawals is crucial, it wasn’t feasible at the time of The Merge. Our next major focus needs to be scaling.”
Buterin warned that if scaling does not meet expectations, on-chain activity could drive transaction fees on Ethereum to hundreds of USD per transaction.
He also revealed that the next significant hard fork, expected in early 2024, will include EIP-4844, known as proto-danksharding. This upgrade is designed to replace the current “call-data” mechanism with "blobs," aiming to reduce network storage costs during high activity periods.
Buterin believes proto-danksharding could deliver a tenfold improvement in scaling efficiency. It will also pave the way for full sharding implementation. He expressed admiration for the progress made by Layer-2 teams, noting the continuous launch of zkEVM projects, as well as developments from Arbitrum and Optimism.
Regarding long-term stability, Vitalik Buterin noted that the network is still in a phase of volatile upgrades and will only stabilize once the scaling roadmap is complete:
“After the next hard fork succeeds and scaling solutions are fully implemented, we will move past the most challenging phase, but also witness the most significant growth for Ethereum. Many tasks remain, but these improvements must be executed carefully and at a slower pace.”
In the updated Ethereum development roadmap announced at EthCC in July 2022, Vitalik mentioned that Ethereum's rate of change would need to slow down at some point:
“At some stage, Ethereum’s pace of change will need to decelerate. This doesn’t mean that the process of improving Ethereum is over. It simply means that, at that time, the priority will shift to safety and stability rather than creating an ecosystem that aims to impress and overwhelm.”
Vitalik further expanded the roadmap in November 2022 with a new phase called The Scourge, alongside existing phases The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge.
