Vitalik Buterin Wants Ethereum To Be As Simple As Bitcoin In Five Years

Ethereum Co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, has called for a reset as he introduced a new proposal outlining how in five years from now, “Ethereum can become close to as simple as Bitcoin.”

Insisting on simplifying the protocol, Buterin’s blog published on 3 May 2025 – Simplifying the L1 said, “One of the best things about Bitcoin is how beautifully simple the protocol is.”

“Keeping the protocol simple brings a number of benefits that are key to Bitcoin or Ethereum being a credibly neutral and globally trusted base layer,” the blog said.

According to the Ethereum co-founder, “Caring about simplicity is, like decentralization, a short-term cost for the sake of benefits that do not appear immediately. But in the long term, it will be worth it.”

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Ethereum Set Itself Apart From Bitcoin By Prioritizing Programmability, Flexibility, Rapid Evolution

Caring about simplicity is, like decentralization, a short-term cost for the sake of benefits that do not appear immediately. But in the long term, it will be worth it. Let's make each part of the ethereum spec a place where things like this can happen:https://t.co/1yIiWfAbH8

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 3, 2025

Buterin’s message is clear- if Ethereum is to remain the backbone of decentralized finance and the next generation of internet applications, it must return to its roots and embrace radical simplicity.

He warned that “Ethereum has lost sight of simplicity, attempting to do too much while piling on technical debt,” he warns. Buterin thus advocated for a major reset. He pointed to Bitcoin’s “beautifully simple protocol” as a model, noting that even a smart high school student can understand Bitcoin’s core mechanics, while Ethereum’s complexity now requires deep expertise and specialized teams to manage and audit. 

The EVM, Ethereum’s execution engine, has become bloated and difficult to optimize. Buterin proposes replacing it with RISC-V, a minimalist virtual machine already proven in zero-knowledge cryptography projects. “I suggested we replace the EVM with either RISC-V, or another VM that is the VM that Ethereum ZK-provers will be written in,” wrote Buterin.

Buterin also called for merging redundant tools and adopting more efficient cryptographic methods, such as unified erasure coding and binary Merkle trees.

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