Rethinking the Simplicity of Ethereum

As a platform for global assets and records, Ethereum needs to seek a balance between scalability and system resilience. However, in addition to these two widely discussed aspects, the simplicity of the protocol is equally crucial, yet often overlooked.

The reason why Bitcoin is so impressive largely stems from the ultimate simplicity of its protocol. Even a high school student who understands programming can fully grasp its operating principles, and even implement a client on their own. This simplicity brings numerous benefits: it lowers the barriers for research and development, reduces maintenance complexity, decreases the risk of major security vulnerabilities, and makes it easier to verify the correctness of the protocol.

In contrast, Ethereum does not perform well in terms of simplicity. This leads to unnecessary development costs, security risks, and a relatively closed research culture. However, in the next five years, Ethereum is expected to make significant progress in simplicity, potentially approaching the levels of Bitcoin. This goal can be approached from both the consensus layer and the execution layer.

At the consensus level, the future new consensus mechanism will integrate the deep accumulation of the past decade in consensus theory, zero-knowledge proofs, and staking economics. Key measures include the introduction of a three-slot finality mechanism, simplification of fork choice rules and network structure, as well as optimization of state transition-related logic. These improvements will significantly reduce code complexity and enhance security and efficiency.

Simplifying the execution layer is a more challenging task. The current EVM instruction set is complex, precompiled contracts are lengthy and difficult to understand, and the burden of historical compatibility is too heavy. One possible solution is to replace the EVM with a concise, high-performance, zero-knowledge proof-friendly virtual machine (such as RISC-V). This would not only bring significant performance improvements but also better integrate with mainstream programming languages and natively support zero-knowledge proof systems.

In addition, integrating more "shared components" is also an effective way to reduce system complexity. For example, a unified erasure code can be used for data availability sampling, historical storage, and P2P broadcast acceleration; a unified serialization format can improve efficiency and facilitate the decoupling of layer 2 networks; and a unified state tree structure is more suitable for zero-knowledge proofs, being faster and simpler.

Pursuing simplicity requires a cultural shift. Although its benefits may not be immediately quantifiable, in the long run, the value of simplicity will gradually manifest. In the future, Ethereum can draw on Bitcoin's experience to set a maximum line count target for consensus code for long-term standards, isolating logic related to historical rules outside of the consensus path, and prioritizing simpler solutions in the overall design.

Through these efforts, Ethereum is expected to achieve greater simplicity and maintainability while retaining its powerful functionality, thereby laying a more solid foundation for its long-term development.