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    Vitalik Buterin Explains Why Ethereum Can’t Compete on Velocity Alone

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    Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argued in his newest submit that the community should prioritize bandwidth scaling over latency discount, noting that physics and the necessities of decentralization basically restrict how rapidly blockchain consensus can function.

    His technical clarification positions Ethereum as “the world heartbeat” moderately than a high-frequency transaction processor, with Layer 2 networks dealing with speed-intensive functions.

    Buterin’s posts observe Ethereum’s current technical breakthroughs addressing the blockchain trilemma by way of zero-knowledge EVMs and PeerDAS know-how, mixed with accelerating on-chain adoption, which has pushed 110% progress in new addresses since December’s Fusaka improve.

    Rising bandwidth is safer than decreasing latency
    With PeerDAS and ZKPs, we all know scale, and probably we are able to scale 1000’s of instances in comparison with the established order. The numbers grow to be way more favorable than earlier than (eg. see evaluation right here, pre and post-sharding…

    — vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 8, 2026

    Bandwidth Scaling Provides Protected Path Ahead

    Buterin defined that rising bandwidth is a safer technical strategy than decreasing block instances.

    With PeerDAS and ZKPs, we all know scale, and probably we are able to scale 1000’s of instances in comparison with the established order,” he wrote, noting that no basic physics prevents combining excessive scale with decentralization.

    Latency discount faces higher constraints from the pace of sunshine and the necessity to help nodes in rural environments worldwide, together with dwelling setups outdoors knowledge facilities.

    The community should additionally keep censorship resistance and anonymity for validators whereas guaranteeing financial viability for geographically distributed staking operations.

    Buterin acknowledged that reasonable enhancements stay potential by way of P2P enhancements and diminished validator counts per slot, probably delivering 3-6x latency beneficial properties to succeed in 2-4 second block instances.

    Past these limits, the community hits insurmountable bodily and financial obstacles that can’t be solved by way of engineering alone.

    AI Purposes Demand Metropolis-Scale Infrastructure

    The Ethereum founder argued that synthetic intelligence will inevitably require sooner infrastructure than any world blockchain can present.

    If an AI can suppose 1000x sooner than people, then to the AI, the ‘subjective pace of sunshine’ is barely 300 km/s,” Buterin defined, noting that AI brokers speaking at machine pace can solely obtain near-instant responses inside city-scale distances.

    This actuality means hyper-local functions would require devoted Layer 2 chains optimized for particular geographic areas and even particular person buildings.

    Whereas Ethereum’s base layer serves planetary coordination wants, its rollup ecosystem will deal with each localized high-speed necessities and expanded world capability calls for.

    Buterin dismissed solutions that Ethereum ought to grow to be “the world online game server,” as an alternative positioning the mainnet as basic infrastructure offering trustless consensus for higher-layer functions.

    Ethereum belongs to Terra, and its L2s will serve each hyper-localized wants in its cities, and hyper-scaled wants planet-wide,” he wrote.

    🚀 Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum solved blockchain's trilemma with ZKEVMs and PeerDAS know-how now operating on mainnet after decade-long improvement.#Ethereum #Buterinhttps://t.co/cUzlhhO6Xr

    — Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) January 4, 2026

    Technical Constraints Outline Real looking Limits

    Buterin’s 2021 evaluation on blockchain scaling established concrete boundaries for node necessities.

    Computing energy faces sensible limits round 5-10% of CPU capability for block verification resulting from DoS assault margins, offline sync necessities, battery life issues, and background community duties.

    Bandwidth constraints equally restrict throughput regardless of marketed connection speeds, with usable capability far under theoretical maximums resulting from a number of functions, supplier reliability points, and peer-to-peer community overhead.

    Storage necessities max out round 512 gigabytes for client {hardware}, with bigger databases creating exponential verification prices as measurement will increase.

    The mix creates interplay results by which database entry prices scale logarithmically with measurement, that means a 4x enhance in state might lead to a 6x enhance in verification time.

    These basic limitations persist even with technical enhancements like statelessness and state expiry.

    Linux Metaphor Frames Ethereum’s Function

    In a separate submit right now, Buterin in contrast Ethereum to Linux and BitTorrent, emphasizing how each applied sciences mix decentralization with mass-scale adoption.

    Linux is quietly trusted by billions of individuals and enterprises worldwide,” he wrote, noting that governments and main firms depend on open-source infrastructure with out compromising its foundational rules.

    One metaphor for Ethereum is BitTorrent, and the way that p2p community combines decentralization and mass scale. Ethereum's objective is to do the identical factor however with consensus.
    One other metaphor for Ethereum is Linux.
    * Linux is free and open supply software program, and doesn’t compromise on…

    — vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 8, 2026

    The comparability means that Ethereum can serve each purist customers who demand most autonomy and enterprise purchasers in search of resilient infrastructure.

    “What we name trustlessness, they name prudent counterparty danger minimization,” Buterin noticed, highlighting alignment between crypto values and company danger administration.

    Current community knowledge help rising institutional confidence, with new handle creation reaching 292,000 per day following December’s Fusaka improve.

    On the similar time, main monetary establishments, together with JPMorgan and Deutsche Financial institution, are creating Ethereum-based tokenization merchandise for deployment throughout world markets.

    The submit Vitalik Buterin Explains Why Ethereum Can’t Compete on Velocity Alone appeared first on Cryptonews.

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